Cutting Weight - A how to guide

[Theodore]

I thought this would be a good thread for this forum. It'll be interesting to see Josh's take on what he has to say.

For the record: I nabbed this from Sherdog. The original author is Ian Coe, a professional fighter from the UK. I can't take any credit for his words.

Weigh ins on the day-One of the hardest things to do. You seriously don't want to be stripping water weight if your fighting in 4 hours, you'll be weak as a kitten (takes maybe 11 hours to full rehydrate, depending on how hard you went). Also the day before a fight (and the monring) you need to be eating high carbs meals, quite a few of them, to get you rearing to go on fight day.
Honestly, you want to walk around at maybe 4 or so pounds above your fighting weight, then you can train your arse off and cut a few calories leading up to the fight day. So if your fighting sat at 190lbs and at 10 days out your 194, cut some calories out (they say 500 cal a day and you'll loose a pound a week).
You want to ideally get to <188 on the thursday night so that you can eat some high carb foods on the thursday night and friday night (and sat morning) to replace glycogen.
Leading up to the fight, I personally cut out rice and bread. That usually helps me loose 4 lbs in a month. I'll also eat 4 meals a day:

breakfast being- either oats, a banana and honey with milk, or some museli.

lunch would be chicken (or any other lean meats), some nuts (cashews, peanuts), and as much kale, spinach and brocolli that i can stand (I'll often use some curry sauce or something with the chicken and have just enough to make the veg tasty....its a lot easier if you do this then have everything bland. I started off having just raw everything and grilled pieces of chicken, no sauce, nothing...it was hard not to vear off 'just this once' and have something bad for me)

dinner would be pretty much the same thing as lunch, but with some variation in veg composition (more kale, cabbage, spring onions, less broccoli and cauliflower)

I'd train about 3-4 hours after that. I didn't know about protein and carbs during training sessions at this point, but if I had done so I would have included some with BCAA's during training. I would always chug a 50g:30g (sometimes less) carb:protein drink straight after training.

When i got home I would often have some full fat milk and caesium based protein. Even though your cutting weight, having a treat like full fat milk (which i would have with the museli, and occasionally add some peanut butter...I train a lot btw) can keep you on the straight and narrow. Its a mental thing, like cheat days, but having pre determined cheat 'meals'




If weighing in the day before:
You have a lot to work with here.
Say your fighting on the sunday and your weigh in is at 2pm sat.
Depending on how experienced you are at it, you can cut down the food from wed, having much smaller meals, but having many more of them (in essence grazing, always feeling slightly hungry). You can go for a sweat run (in a sauna suite or numerous layers) on the thursday night, friday morning, a sauna friday night, and if your still over weight, sauna it up on the sat morning before the weigh in. If you don't have access to a sauna, a very hot bath for a hour and when you get out stay in the bath room (and put on a sauna suite or many layers again). You sweat like a monkey for about 20 minutes after you get out (and look very lobsteresk). During this 2 day period, sip water, don't down it. By friday night, you want to be sipping enough water to make you feel better, but not really satisfy you.
I also tend to wear maybe 4 layers up top and a pair of trousers and shorts when I go to bed. You'll loose 4-5 lbs over night doing that (I lost 6 because I was in a un air conditioned room in bangkok.....in June)


As soon as that weigh ins over, get some electrolytes in you (pedilyte is it, something to rehydrate you). Do not down it, sip it over the course of 20 minutes (say a litre or so). Nothing high GI if you can afford it. You want to slowly get your body back into the swing of things if you've been dieting hard. Start out with some porriage and milk (or water), some nuts and if your feeling good enough, a banana. Eat that then in about 30 minutes, get some oats in you, then 30 min after that, some whole wheat bread with some lean meats. After say 4 or so hours of grazing like that (with constant drinking of water and electrolyte solutions), its time to start eating full high carbs meals (rice, potatos, some veg).


Any questions/comments, post them up and I'll answer them to the best of my knowledge and update this to include it.


edit- oh yeah, fish oil is pretty good at helping get rid of extra flab, but thats a side issue.
You should be taking fish oil as a matter of course anyway

[Sportsmedjosh]

I'm a little confused especially under the part where it says the day of. It is stating this is what you do the day of and then the rest is just general advice.

[Theodore]

Originally Posted by Sportsmedjosh

I'm a little confused especially under the part where it says the day of. It is stating this is what you do the day of and then the rest is just general advice.

I think its more of a plan to get you close to your fighting weight, so that if you have to cut weight, its very minor. I've never cut weight intentionally, but I have gone to the gym on full contact days when I feel pretty dehydrated. Its not pretty...

[Sportsmedjosh]

If I was going to go about working with a mixed martial art fighter just, I would go about it the same way as I would working with any other fighter. This is what I do so I'm going to share it with the rest of you.

Setting body composition goals based on training and competition

Name:
Sport of athlete in this example:
Current weight of athlete (in pounds and kilograms):

Goal: Sketch a one year training plan and indicate weight/body composition goals (ie. maintenance, gain, loss). Consider amount of time allotted to achieve these goals.

1. Divide the training plan into three major periods: Preparation, competition and transition. You may have one or more of each of these periods over the course of the year.
2. Sub-divide each period as necessary. For example, during the preparation period intensity and volume of training may change.
3. Indicate the number of weeks associated with each period. How many weeks do you have to change body composition?