Cutting Weight in Combat Sports
Cutting Weight in Combat Sports
Indira Moores
Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School
Contents
Cutting Weight in Combat Sports 3 Cutting Weight in General 3 Effects of Extreme Weight Cuts 4 Effects on Growth and Development 5 Proper Techniques 5 Effects on Performance 6 Average Cuts 7 Prevention of Weight Cutting 8 Conclusion 8 Works Cited 10
Cutting Weight in Combat Sports
It is a known fact that to be a competitor at an elite level, one must work hard and make sacrifices. There are many examples of hard working athletes shown through the media. Most of these examples, however, tend to focus on a select few professional sports like hockey, football, basketball and amateur sports like figure skating and track and field. Many other sports, are sometimes recognized as being an elite level, but are not nearly as understood because they do not get the exposure from the media, that more ‘popular’ sports do. A lot of combat sports, including wrestling, fall in to this category. Wrestling gets a limited media exposure compared to more popular sports, and as a result, is not well understood. For example, at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, Canada earned its first gold medal by wrestler Carol Hyun at weight 49 kg. Yet wrestling was generally not covered extensively over most television networks, (Yardly, 2008).Because combat sports aren’t generally media-popular sports, they are often not understood, which leads to some misconceptions. For instance, they are viewed as more violent compared to other contact sports such as hockey or football, or that it requires less training, (Bina, 2011). However, one of the biggest misconceptions, and the one I am choosing to focus on is that cutting weight, in a sport such as wrestling, is an unhealthy component of the sport with detrimental consequences. That’s not to say that there aren’t extreme examples of dangerous and reckless weight cutting with dire consequences. However weight cutting, when monitored and
Indira Moores
Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School
Contents
Cutting Weight in Combat Sports 3 Cutting Weight in General 3 Effects of Extreme Weight Cuts 4 Effects on Growth and Development 5 Proper Techniques 5 Effects on Performance 6 Average Cuts 7 Prevention of Weight Cutting 8 Conclusion 8 Works Cited 10
Cutting Weight in Combat Sports
It is a known fact that to be a competitor at an elite level, one must work hard and make sacrifices. There are many examples of hard working athletes shown through the media. Most of these examples, however, tend to focus on a select few professional sports like hockey, football, basketball and amateur sports like figure skating and track and field. Many other sports, are sometimes recognized as being an elite level, but are not nearly as understood because they do not get the exposure from the media, that more ‘popular’ sports do. A lot of combat sports, including wrestling, fall in to this category. Wrestling gets a limited media exposure compared to more popular sports, and as a result, is not well understood. For example, at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, Canada earned its first gold medal by wrestler Carol Hyun at weight 49 kg. Yet wrestling was generally not covered extensively over most television networks, (Yardly, 2008).Because combat sports aren’t generally media-popular sports, they are often not understood, which leads to some misconceptions. For instance, they are viewed as more violent compared to other contact sports such as hockey or football, or that it requires less training, (Bina, 2011). However, one of the biggest misconceptions, and the one I am choosing to focus on is that cutting weight, in a sport such as wrestling, is an unhealthy component of the sport with detrimental consequences. That’s not to say that there aren’t extreme examples of dangerous and reckless weight cutting with dire consequences. However weight cutting, when monitored and
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