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Junior Ben Randolph’s stomach growls as he steps into the school cafeteria. Looking around him, he sees masses of trays filled with tantalizing pizzas and warm chocolate chip cookies. He strides past them, goal in sight. Today, he will be eating a plain salad with no meat—a rare move for a hungry high school boy. He keeps his eye on the prize. He must maintain his weight in order to wrestle this weekend. A little bit of hunger is just part of his normal wrestling routine.
At practice that afternoon, Randolph, drenched in sweat, struggles to pin an opponent to the mat. His stomach growls once again, but he ignores it. Just keep pushing.
“That’s just when the mental conditioning comes in,” Randolph said. “If your mind breaks down, then your whole body is going to fail.”
The reason wrestlers are constantly checking the scales all comes down to the issue of weight classes. To compete in their match that weekend, they must be below their weight class limit.
“If he [a wrestler] is weighing 132 then he wants to do his best to try to make 130 because if he wrestled 135 then he would be wrestling guys that are coming down from 137, 138,” Ufford said. “So those guys are much bigger, which puts him at a disadvantage.”
Although weight cutting often has a negative connotation, if done properly it poses no health risks. Varsity coach Chip Ufford emphasizes the importance of cutting weight the right way.
“What I try to tell them is we want to reach our ideal body weight, where you don’t have a lot of fat hanging off your body,” Ufford said. “Eat your vegetables, your fruits, lean meats and hopefully if you are doing that and working out the way we want you to, then you will work towards your ideal weight.”
Sometimes this just won’t cut it.
“Every once in awhile may they have to avoid a dinner before a weigh in? Yes,” Ufford said. “But to be with honest with you, is it going to hurt them to miss one meal? No.”
Although Ufford encourages his players to avoid this, sometimes the wrestlers stray from his methods. Randolph recalls a time when he resorted to that method, as an act of desperation.
“Freshman year I had to lose seven pounds.” Randolph said. “Wednesday I ate three clementines throughout the day and a bottle of water. Thursday I ate an apple for lunch and a banana for dinner. Friday I didn’t eat anything.”
Randolph quickly learned that this was not the way to lose the weight.
“I won the match but I was definitely not at my 100 %,” Randolph said.” I learned that I need to manage my weight, not cut it.”
This crash diet method is what nutritionist and author of The Forever Young Diet and Lifestyle, Joan O’Keefe, sees as a potential problem.
“I would prefer that they wouldn’t skip meals, but that they were more moderate with them,” O’Keefe said. “What they need to do is be more cognizant of their everyday eating habits. It might mean skipping the chips. It might mean skipping the junk during season. Every bite that goes in your mouth needs to be a quality bite.”
Ufford also works to get his wrestlers to see the bigger picture. Eating smaller portions can not only benefit their wrestling, but also helps them to have a more realistic view of the world.
“What I tell the guys and even myself is, we’re in a country of abundance,” Ufford said. “I challenge the kids that if they are in a position where they are hungry and their stomach is growling, to remember that there are people all around the world experiencing this.”
According to mindfully.org, Americans east 815 billion calories of food each day, that’s roughly 200 billion more than needed-enough to feed 80 million people.
But in the end, it must come down to the wrestler himself.
“Wrestling is a sport where you cannot hide behind your teammate, it’s all about you and how much effort you put in,” Ufford said.
Skipping that piece of pizza may prove worthy after all.
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