Are You Qualified to be Guiding a ‘Weight Cut’?
I don’t normally like doing this kind of blog, as I much prefer actions to speak louder than words. But when actions cause direct harm to individuals then this topic needs to be discussed publicly.
Cutting weight, the physical act of sweating in a sauna, hot bath, exercise suit, or whatever, is a dangerous practice. Multiple people have died over the years doing this, most recently 16-year-old Western Australian teenager Jessica Lindsay. These are people’s sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, partners, and friends, not just numbers.
There are many reasons that contribute to these tragedies occurring, but one theme that I can guarantee is consistent among all of them is the lack of someone adequately educated in the area guiding these athletes through the process or more specifically telling them when enough is enough and to stop the process altogether.
This is why I started TFD (The Fight Dietitian Pty Ltd). I saw firsthand how at the highest level of MMA, athletes were being misguided and their health jeopardized by inadequately qualified people playing off to be ‘weight cut experts’ on the back of nothing more than the status of the athletes they worked with. No formal education or training, just doing it because no one else would.
Adequately educated is an ambiguous term, so I will publicly clarify this to make it clear. The reason why I feel the need to do this? Because just this weekend, a well-respected coach and client of mine called me about a student of his who was making weight. This athlete had spent the past 8 weeks working with a ‘Nutritionist’ who branded themselves as a ‘Weight Cut Specialist’.
The athletes head coach was calling to get my opinion on the safety of going ahead with the ‘water cut’ as under the (mis)direction of the ‘weight cut specialist’, this athlete was left to cut 7.7% or 4.8kg of their body weight in water over a 24 hour time period. There was no Fight Week Strategy in place to reduce the total amount of water weight that needed to be ‘cut’ the hours prior to weigh-in. Even worse, the athlete stopped losing weight in the weeks leading up to Fight Week and no adjustments were made with the diet to compensate.
This lead to the athlete coming into Fight Week the heaviest they ever had and ultimately missing weight by 1.5kg/3.3lbs. This was despite ‘cutting’ in a bath and sauna for over eight hours the day of weigh-ins. This was on the back of also sitting in a hot bath for a number of hours the night prior to start the ‘water cut’ process (all of this was reported to me by the athlete when I was contacted the morning of weigh-in day).
Under what I would consider best practice, and what is the standard within our team and many other educated practitioners in the field, is to never complete a ‘water cut’ greater than 5% of body weight in the hours prior to weigh-ins. The reason being that we cannot be confident that we can rehydrate an individual's brain, organs, and body adequately in the time before the competition if we go above that. As a caveat to that, 5% is the recommendation only if the athlete has completed adequate Fight Week or Acute Weight Loss strategies in the days leading up to weigh-ins.
Our recommendation for the weight of our male athletes coming in to fight week is to be no more than 10% and for our female athletes no more than 8% above their contracted competition weight. This is so we can use these Fight Week Strategies (low fibre, glycogen reduction, sodium reduction, and water loading) to gradually reduce that number to well under 5% before having to resort to any form of rapid dehydration (sweating via bath, sauna, or exercise suit).
Completing water cuts of that magnitude (greater than 5% body weight) puts the athlete at a greater risk of dehydration and heat exhaustion which can cause organ failure, electrolyte imbalances, seizures, and even death. This is why it is so important to be able to recognize these signs and know how to handle them with the best interest of the athlete's health in mind.
By completing adequate body composition and medical assessments at the beginning of Fight Camp it can be assessed whether that weight class is even achievable or not for the athlete. If these are done correctly, you will know far in advance whether the athlete is able to make the proposed weight or if they will face some issues on the way there.
Cue my rant on being adequately qualified. This past weekend saw this particular athlete be guided through this weight making process by someone who claims to be a ‘weight cut specialists’ a term that is as ridiculous as it sounds. This term is given after completing a three-day course that is taught by someone who also has zero tertiary qualifications and zero reasons to be teaching such a course. After completing the three-day course, participants are then free to go guide athletes at all levels and of all ages through this process, full of their three days worth of knowledge.
To me that is not adequately qualified, that is just plain dangerous and irresponsible. A sentiment that is shared by many Academics, Researchers, and Practitioners in this field. That is something that can costs people their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, partners, or friends' lives. But who cares right? You made a nice amount of money flicking off your three-day weight cut certification to a bunch of people who don’t know any better, where’s the harm in that… *face palm.
I remember having a discussion about these ‘weight cut courses’ with the head of the Western Australia Combat Commission after delivering a presentation about making weight safely. A former law enforcement officer, the Commissioner asked who is responsible if anything were to go wrong during this process? I responded by saying the person guiding the athlete through the process. You, the person giving this advice, bear the responsibility of that athlete's health and safety. I am sure this responsibility, and the potential ramifications of abusing it, are not discussed during these short courses.
A three-day course is bad enough, but what about online or in-person sports nutrition courses that require longer periods of study that require passing standardized assessment? These are better, but do they equip you to safely guide athletes through the weight making process? No.
Sure, they are fine at providing surface-level knowledge about sports nutrition principles but do not equip participants with enough medical nutrition information to be able to effectively monitor athletes' health during a weight cut. Someone who completes a two to six-month nutrition course on basic sports nutrition is not qualified to take someone through this process.
What about Dietitians? Surely four years of tertiary education is adequate? Well again, no. Not right now anyway. Despite even majoring in Sports Dietetics and studying weight category sports, there is insufficient education around this weight making process.
I know this for a fact after going through this education pathway myself and then later in my career dealing with the leading Sports Dietetic organizations and reviewing their proposed best practice guidelines. Many Sports Dietitians will be more than able to successfully guide an athlete through the fight camp to safely reduce their weight but will come up short when it comes to guiding athletes through the fight week, weight cut, and post-weigh-in period.
This is due to the many individual considerations that need to be taken into account with different weigh-in protocols, fight week strategies, and tolerance to the methods of rapid dehydration. Without adequate understanding, discussion, and critical thinking about each of these points it is very difficult to confidently give recommendations in these areas.
What I will mention about Dietitians who have completed their undergraduate and/or master's degree that gives them much more credibility in this area is their training in Medical Nutrition Therapy. This is education around the interaction between Nutrition, Health, and Disease. This with clinical experience far better positions them to make assessments about potentially dangerous practices that could impact an athlete's health during the weight-making process.
This clinical training is also important for the actual ‘weight cut’ itself. Specifically, if there was ever anything that went wrong during this process, this training would (hopefully) equip the Practitioner with enough knowledge and experience to be able to deal with that situation appropriately. Whether that is the first response, checking airways and vital signs, calming the room, and being able to get the appropriate medical personnel to the athlete in a timely manner. Again, I doubt all of this is being covered in a three-day weight cutting course.
So if you’re interested in working in the field of combat sports nutrition then what are you left to do? As it stands right now, there are zero credible courses that will qualify you to take athletes through this weight making process. In saying that, this is the process I suggest.
Gain tertiary education in the fields of health and/or nutrition science and look to specialize in sports dietetics/nutrition. If that is not plausible, complete other education in the field of nutrition that includes training in medical nutrition therapy and sports nutrition.
Find a mentor who has both the right education and experience in this field, learn from them, and shadow them to see how this process works in real-time. See what assessments they complete, how they monitor athletes throughout the camp, how they determine appropriate rates of weight loss, the adjustments they make to make sure the athletes meet their weight targets, how they choose appropriate fight week strategies, how they structure the rapid weight loss phase, and how they refuel and reload the athlete post-weigh-in.
Not sure who these people are? Well, here is a list of people who I can personally vouch for who fit this bill. They have both adequate education and experience in guiding combat athletes through all aspects of the weight making process.
Clint Wattenberg and Charles Hu Stull — UFC Performance Institute Las Vegas
Dr. Reid Reale — UFC Performance Institute Shanghai
Dr. James Morton, Dr. Carl Langan-Evans, Dr. Graeme Close, Ben Crighton, Chris Kirk — Liverpool John Moore’s University
Dr. Corey Peacock, Dr. Tony Ricci, Dr. Doug Kalman, Chris Algeri — International Society of Sports Nutrition
Dr. Oliver Barley — Edith Cowan University
Dr. Matteo Capodaglio — CapoNutrition
Dr. Andy Galpin — California State University Fullerton
Dr. Gary Slater — The University of the Sunshine Coast
David Nolan and Mark Germaine — Synapse Performance
Amelie Rosseneu — Amelie Rosseneu Sports Dietitian
Danny Lennon — Sigma Nutrition
Jonathan Pain — Complete Human Performance
John Sassone — Combat Sports Dietitian
Joseph Matthews — Birmingham City University
Louise Bloor — British Judo
Ben Zhuang — Coach Ben Z
Tyler Minton — Tyler Minton Nutrition
John Connor — Irish Strength Institute
Here are some books that I also recommend reading that focus on nutrition for combat sports;
Making Weight and Everything Else by Amelie Rosseneu
Combat Sports Nutrition by Dr. Reid Reale
Performance Nutrition for Wrestlers by Clint Wattenberg
The Cut by Ben Zhuang
Sigma Weight Cutting System for Boxing and MMA by Danny Lennon
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are professionals whom I have personally had the pleasure of learning from and who have positively influenced my practice with my athletes through their work in academia, practice, or both.
Cutting Weight is a potentially life-threatening practice. This is why it is so important to take the road of caution and ensure that you are looking after your health in both the short and long term.
If you are a coach or athlete, contact one of the listed professionals to conduct the necessary assessment to determine an appropriate weight class, and have them design a nutritional strategy that is sustainable and will maintain your health and performance. Your health is more important than any competition.
As a final note, at TFD we are committed to continually improving the practices of weight category athletes worldwide. To help fill the void that exists due to the lack of education in this field we offer a select number of 12-month internships with team TFD to final year Nutrition and Dietetics students with an interest in weight category sports. If this is of interest to you, please email jack@thefightdietitian.com so we can send you an application form.
Jordan Sullivan — Head Dietitian TFD