Everything you need to know about water-cutting
The unfortunate reality of competing in combat sports is that majority of weight-ins happen the day before or the morning of the actual competition. This allows some athletes to dehydrate themselves enough to compete literally 10-30 pounds heavier than they were just yesterday. Even if you don't want to go through this grueling experience, there is a good chance your opponent already did.
Let's be perfectly clear from the start that water cutting is a dangerous endeavour. If you are reading this blog, you are probably aware of the pros and cons already. But let's examine them anyways:
The advantages of water cutting: Being physically bigger, heavier and stronger than your opponent.
The disadvantages …show more content…
In order to minimize the cons and maximize the pros - you need to lose as much body fat and retain as much lean tissue as possible. Reason being - it is much easier to extract water from the muscles rather than adipose tissue, also having less fat will make you closer to your weight limit to begin with. Coming in out of shape and attempting to "quick-fix" everything by cutting water is the worst scenario possible (The fat-loss for MMA fighters and various diets will be examined later). Ideally you should aim for 8-10% body fat range for males and 18-21% for females BEFORE you start water cutting.
Let's assume you have dieted and trained properly, the water weight manipulation starts around 2-week before mark. The water-weight manipulation comes primarily through regulating glycogen levels in your muscles and liver as well hormones like aldosterone. Lack of carbohydrates in your diet will deplete liver and muscle glycogen stores. Glycogen is stored in your body in conjunction with water molecules (2.7 grams of water per gram of carbs). No glycogen - no water to hold it in place. That is why low-carb diets shed so much weight during the first several weeks by the
The unfortunate reality of competing in combat sports is that majority of weight-ins happen the day before or the morning of the actual competition. This allows some athletes to dehydrate themselves enough to compete literally 10-30 pounds heavier than they were just yesterday. Even if you don't want to go through this grueling experience, there is a good chance your opponent already did.
Let's be perfectly clear from the start that water cutting is a dangerous endeavour. If you are reading this blog, you are probably aware of the pros and cons already. But let's examine them anyways:
The advantages of water cutting: Being physically bigger, heavier and stronger than your opponent.
The disadvantages …show more content…
In order to minimize the cons and maximize the pros - you need to lose as much body fat and retain as much lean tissue as possible. Reason being - it is much easier to extract water from the muscles rather than adipose tissue, also having less fat will make you closer to your weight limit to begin with. Coming in out of shape and attempting to "quick-fix" everything by cutting water is the worst scenario possible (The fat-loss for MMA fighters and various diets will be examined later). Ideally you should aim for 8-10% body fat range for males and 18-21% for females BEFORE you start water cutting.
Let's assume you have dieted and trained properly, the water weight manipulation starts around 2-week before mark. The water-weight manipulation comes primarily through regulating glycogen levels in your muscles and liver as well hormones like aldosterone. Lack of carbohydrates in your diet will deplete liver and muscle glycogen stores. Glycogen is stored in your body in conjunction with water molecules (2.7 grams of water per gram of carbs). No glycogen - no water to hold it in place. That is why low-carb diets shed so much weight during the first several weeks by the