High school and collegiate wrestlers have struggled for years to control their weight down to the ounce. Stories of extreme measures to cut weight have surfaced, and at times tarnished, the image of the sport.
The Oregon wrestling team, however, has had little trouble meeting its weight requirements this season.
“For the most part, we have nobody that is really having to cut weight,” head coach Chuck Kearney said. “They are managing their weight, but they are not having to cut weight. With this particular team, at the end of practice on a good hard day, everybody is within a pound or two of making weight.”
New regulations were enacted during the 1999-2000 season, placing tighter guidelines on the weight class that athletes are eligible to compete in. Before the start of each season wrestlers must complete a “weight certification” process that involves measurements of body density, body fat and weight. The wrestler must also meet a certain level of hydration during these tests for the measurements to be acceptable.
The certification determines the minimum weight-class that the wrestler is eligible to compete in during the season. The athlete may move up to a heavier weight class if they desire.
Many of Oregon’s wrestlers jumped up weight classes this year from where they wrestled last season, including Brian Watson (133 pounds to 141), Tony Overstake (149 to 157) and Eugene Harris (157 to 165). Kearney said that his wrestlers have made the adjustments to the new regulations.
“Our guys have to cut three to five pounds at the maximum,” he said. “We have guys that have gotten bigger, particularly those that have gotten hurt and because of not being able to train have gained a little bit of body weight, but its not an issue.”
Because of the Ducks’ ability to maintain their average weight near their maximum competition weight, they have not had to deal with the difficulties of cutting weight.
“Our goal was to come into the season in as good as shape as possible,” junior Casey Hunt said. “We’re not that far from our wrestling weight, so over the course of the season it has gotten easier and easier. We’re down to where, after practice, a lot of us are only a pound or two off, which can easily be eliminated by half an hour of working out.”
Kearney has appreciated the extra effort his team can put into practices because there has been little issue with weight.
“It makes it easier for them to get the good hard training in, and it makes it easier to concentrate on getting better and developing skills as opposed to ‘How much do I weigh?’” he said.
The NCAA’s newer regulations follow another set of strict rules on how collegiate wrestlers are allowed to cut weight. In 1998, the NCAA prohibited the use of many techniques, including laxatives, saunas and steam rooms, as well as practices like self-induced vomiting and excessive food and fluid restriction.
Startling methods, such as wrestlers wearing vapor-impermeable rubber suits to bed or while working out, or athletes spitting into cups to lose weight, are now outlawed.
Oregon’s 149-pounder, Hunt, said that with the new NCAA regulations there is little need for wrestlers now to use extreme measures to cut weight.
“They would make it easier to lose weight, but (with the new regulations) you just don’t have to cut that much weight.”
Hunt was also one of the Ducks who jumped up a weight class this year moving from the 141-pound class. He is pleased that he and the majority of the Ducks have not had to deal with the problems associated with cutting.
“Cutting weight makes it hard to study for some people,” Hunt said. “When you start taking water out of your system and you are a little dehydrated, all you can think about is water. You are beyond getting hungry, you just need some water.”
Oregon is hungry for its first league championship in 20 years as the team heads to Corvallis for the Pacific-10 Conference tournament this weekend. The top four wrestlers in each weight class from the conference tournament continue on to the national tournament in Albany, N.Y.