Weight cutting question

Now I'm no fighter. I'm a mountain climber, but I've been severely dehydrated before. Massive headaches, dizziness and nausia. Maybe it's just me but once I reach the point of dehydration getting water in me is a hard task.

When fighters cut weight, then regain 20-25lbs in 24 hours doesn't that weight gain make them feel sluggish between the addition of weight and process if rehydration?
When I gain 5lbs I feel lethargic and tired, much less 25

 

Short answer is: You get used to it.

A little more in depth: There are good ways to rehydrate and bad ways. Drinking gatorade with a lot of electrolytes and pacing yourself is much better than just chugging a bunch of water. I'm not sure about your experience, but when I've had to cut weight, I was so thirsty that drinking water was not a problem at tall.

 

The real cutters use IVs.

IVs are also an awesome hangover cure if you've been on a serious bender.

 

Also several good fighters just tone down their cut to avoid that.

 

20-25 pounds is an extreme cut. In those cases a lot of fighters get an IV to rehydrate. St-Pierre for example cut I think 10 pounds for last fight. He did this by eating very little last day before weigh in and then the rest in sauna.

 

I just work out a lot and basically stay on diet within a 2good or 3 pounds or my weight anyway

 

GSP comes in at 192 normally, I'm not going to source this because I've done it a hundred times.

 

its not just water that they lost,its safe to assume that their bowls are empty and there you probably on a daily basis got 3-5 pounds of extra,so they eat and drink fluids after the cut and easily get back 15-20 pounds..

 

IV fluids are where it is at

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollotomassi
20-25 pounds is an extreme cut. In those cases a lot of fighters get an IV to rehydrate. St-Pierre for example cut I think 10 pounds for last fight. He did this by eating very little last day before weigh in and then the rest in sauna.
GSP comes in at 192 normally, I'm not going to source this because I've done it a hundred times.

You're talking what he rehydrates to. I'm saying he was 180 before he got into sauna before cut. He doesn't eat much day or two before and then sweats the last 10 12 pounds in sauna. This is out of his mouth. My point is it's not all water, and 25 pounds of just water would be killer....

 

Here it is directly out of he mouth of Zahabi:

""How do you drop 25 pounds and still retain your strength and explosiveness?
It becomes a game. Now he’s on a protein and vegetable diet. Right now his exercise is significantly cut, but he’s going to shed water. It’s only temporary weight loss. It’s not real weight loss. You’re not dropping fat. (The final weight-cut) lasts about six days . . . By Friday he’ll have six or seven pounds left and we’ll put him in the sauna. I don’t recommend this to anybody, even professional athletes. This is somebody who’s very seasoned."""

 

The weight in should be one or two hours before the fight, thats it, no more bullshit and no more risk for the fighter health, i guess all the fighter would be at least one division over the actual, but is more fair

 

his last fight he came in at 185lbs. Guess you missed his last fight. He started his camp at 188.

 

So just to be clear. Sorry for the multitude of posts. Gsp only saunas out about 7 pounds according to Zahabi. I heard him say ten in a previous fight. They aren't cutting 20-25 pounds of water like many people think.

 

a couple of bags of IV fluids and some Olive Garden and your good to go. If you asked the heavy cutters to do 50 push ups on weigh in day, they would cut you.

 

I personally have always thought that if you've got to cut signifigant weight, as in more then 15 lbs the day of, and it isn't short notice, you need to move up a weight class. Yeah, you get down to a lowe weight class, but your body can't recover that quickly and you'll be exhausted. I never had problems having a desire to drink. Going days without food sucks and is uncomfortable. Going days with out water is god awful painful. Pro fighters are lucky in that they get a full day to recover. High School wrestlers have an hour between the weighing in and the start of a duel, two hours before a tournment, and they have to make weight every thursday, saturday and sometimes tuesday.

 

Olive garden or waffle house, depends on who you ask....

 

A lot of people don't understand how weight cutting actually works - they forget that dieting is a thing that most guys will do to work a lot of the weight off. Only guys like Anthony Johnson at 170/185, Jake Shields in the Kampmann fight, or Gleison Tibau will make massive 20+ pound cuts of water weight.

 

You're definetly not gonna feel your best if you cut a lot of weight but you just have to grind it out or start coming in lighter for bouts. If I sweat out 5 lbs I feel like shit. Don't know how these guys can do it all the time

 

I think some guys are physically more capable of cutting than other guys, which factors into some guys being able to cut a bunch. I know that I can sweat out about 5-6 pounds in the sauna and I'll feel fine; I suppose if I wrestled in high school I could probably make a bigger cut consistently.