Slaves to the Scale

Even with regulations wrestlers are wrestling with weight

By Kristin Gold

-Central New York- For years, what wrestlers call weight cutting has been an accepted but controversal part of the sport. But, ever since the deaths of three collegiate wrestlers from overheating, wrestling organizations across the country have become more involved in regulating techniques wrestlers use to lose weight.

The National Federation of State High School Assoications rules that wrestlers are required to be adequately hydrated and must not go below seven-perent body fat. "I think things have gotten way way better in the last ten years, espcially now since they can't cut weight," said Phoenix High School head coach Gene Mills.

With the new regulations wrestlers are under pressure to keep weight. "I needed a spot, if I didn't lose the weight I wouldn't have wrestled," said Fulton High School wrestler Zachary Race.

Race knows the importance of keeping his weight down and he knows ways around the new regulations to do that.

"To be hydrated I needed to drink water," he said. "So I drank nine pounds of water that morning, so everyone thought I gained 13 pounds overnight...the next morning I was back down."

The NCAA prohibits the use of steam rooms and exercising in overheated conditions to lose water weight but wrestlers still use these techniques.

"I ran for probably three hours straight with sweat pants on, jacket,four hoodies on, everything on, just to lose two pounds for three hours," said Mexico High School wrestler Jacob Burke.

Doctors don't recommend rapid dehydration because it can seriously damage body functions.

"If you're an active person and you're physically sweating out the body in water and not replacing it that also has a lot of detrimental effects including kidney failure in addition to low blood pressure and again it comes back to malfunctioning of the heart and shutting down all the major body functions," said Pediatrician Denise Woodall-Ruff.

The regulations deaths of those three wrestlers aren't enough to stop wrestlers today from doing whatever they can to drop the weight. They will always be slaves to the scale.