This is a Public Apology to Combat Sports: I F*cked Up.

This past week I was sitting at a weigh-in for a local Mixed Martial Arts promotion and something that has never happened to me in my professional career as a Performance Dietitian, happened.

On this particular card, we had ten of our TFD (The Fight Dietitian) athletes weighing in, of which, all successfully made weight, along with four more athletes who were weighing in at other locations. 14/14 athletes successfully weighed in for the day, adding to the over 200 athletes ranging from first fight amateurs to long-standing UFC World Champions, who we have successfully guided to the scale this year as part of our Combat Sports Nutrition team.

Usually, I have a certain feeling when this happens, a mixture of excitement, joy, and relief. Today, I didn’t have any of that, instead, I had a very stark realization. A realization that over the past four years I could have potentially been doing the exact opposite of what I set out to do when I started TFD. Instead of helping combat sports athletes make weight in the most scientific and safest manner possible, I have been contributing to athletes not only missing weight but harming themselves in the process.

How I came to this realization was that I was sitting next to an athlete and coach who I have worked with for a long time. The athlete was texting their teammate who was fighting on the same card but was late to weigh-ins. When he looked up he gave his coach the look that needed no words. I knew exactly what he was about to say. His teammate was not going to make weight.

The coach’s face instantly went red with rage and knowing him quite well (this is not a common response) I knew there was a bit more to this story. My athlete then explained that his teammate had been working with a Nutritionist who had recently finished a Nutrition certification and had decided to focus their work on fighters.

Obviously new to the field, the Nutritionist’s selling point was that they had attended a seminar of mine and frequently asked questions on the weekly TFD Q&A and by doing so, were confident that they knew enough to help the athlete make weight.

I asked how much weight he had to go, to which my athlete replied “2.5kg”. “Wow, that is not happening,” I said. The coach then proceeded to go on a subtle but passionate rant about the irresponsibility of both the athlete and the nutritionist. My athlete then showed me the nutritionist’s Instagram profile which made a point to state that they help athletes make weight while eating carbohydrates up until weigh-ins and not sweating in a sauna. Great idea in theory, not so much in practice.

I instantly thought, man that sucks for that athlete, he’s just following instructions, and now he suffers as a result of that person's incompetence, that is hardly fair, but I also thought, why would the nutritionist think that asking some questions on a Q&A would qualify them to guide someone through this process? Is that normal? Or am I just too out of touch with how education works nowadays?

As I was attempting to comprehend all of that, my thought process was interrupted by the coach of our athlete’s opponent who came over with a concerned look on his face. “We are about 800 grams off, he’s really struggling, but he will get it off”. That was my queue to leave.

I went back to my team to which one of our team members said, “I know that coach really well and he said the young guy is struggling, big time”. Oh no, not good. “His coach asked me if I can keep an eye on him while he gets that last 800 grams off, is that okay with you?”, my Senior Dietitian said to me. “Of course it is, go make sure he is okay” I replied.

After spending 30 or so minutes with him our Senior Dietitian came back with the athlete on weight. “I am gonna keep an eye on him and make sure he rehydrates properly”. Potential bad situation averted. My Senior Dietitian then informed me that the athlete told him that he was working with someone to guide him through their weight cut. Twice in the space of ten minutes, what is going on, I thought to myself.

It turns out that the person was not a nutritionist but works in a completely different health profession, and they had done a short course nutrition certificate and thought helping athletes with weight cutting would be a great side gig. However, they decided to give the fighter a very vague fight week plan which included the instructions of ‘do a water load and have a steak with no salt the night before weigh-ins’. The coach also informed us that this person was unresponsive during the majority of the fight week and completely out of communication when the weight cut wasn’t going well for the athlete.

This is one thing that has always unsettled me about this area of sports nutrition, the grey area that exists around who is responsible for this final weight cut (sweating out in the bath/sauna). It is by far the most high-risk activity the athlete will go through and in my opinion, it is of monumental importance that you, the practitioner, are there (either in person or remotely) to offer guidance to help them through the process, or if it does not go well, to help them call it quits in order to preserve the athlete’s well being.

As sad as it was to hear that the athlete struggled, ambiguity is not a useful thing when it comes to making weight so I wasn’t surprised that they did. I did, however, get a feeling that I had been punched in the gut when I found out that the person guiding them followed us on social media and was pretty actively engaged with our content. At this point, I started to realize that this is a real thing and it is a real problem, and the thoughts of “I have f*cked up here” started swirling around my head.

Was this partly my fault? Did these guys really think that by watching the videos we put out of our athletes they would be able to just ‘copy’ what they see and everything would just work out? Surely not, there is so much that goes into it, so many little details that we never discuss, I thought that it just went without saying? These thoughts were just swirling in my mind, and then one of our athletes who just made weight came up to us, shook all of our hands, and said something that made my ears prick up.

He said, “that was so much easier than last time”. Usually, I enjoy hearing this from our athletes but given what had just happened in the last ten minutes, I was on high alert and curious about the ‘last time’ comment. Had we worked with him before and not done so well or what did that mean?

I quizzed our Dietitian who was working with him about what the fighter meant by the comment, and I was told that for his last cut he had missed weight by over 2kg and it was not a nice experience and he was happy to now be doing it the right way. Like a broken record, he then explained that for his last cut he was working with a nutritionist who decided upon completion of their certificate they wanted to work with fighters. Three times in the space of ten minutes, what is happening?

This nutritionist told him that they were ‘mentored’ by me (which was simply not true). And when he said that I knew straight away who they were referring to. The person they were referring to sat in two of my consults when I was still working at a private sports practice while I was making the transition to TFD full time. At the time they were just interested in nutrition and had not started any formal study. After they did enrol and had completed their course, they decided to work with fighters and based themselves out of a popular local MMA gym.

I am familiar with this person in particular because a number of our current athletes engaged our services after having a similar experience with missing weight, or struggling to make weight after working with this person. It didn’t just happen once, it was multiple times with a number of different athletes. At the time it was a real problem, and fortunately, that person has stepped away from the space and those athletes are managing their weight and health in much more responsible ways.

Now, I don’t want to make this sound like I am having a dig at people who are trying to enter this space to work, I am not. In fact, I have been very vocal about the fact that we need more practitioners to work in this space. As combat sports continue to grow in popularity and more and more people get involved, the need to guide them to make intelligent decisions regarding their weight management is going to be more needed than ever.

The point I want to make is that this is not something anyone off the street with a weekend nutrition course and a keen interest in combat sports can do. There are a number of prerequisites that I feel are a minimum standard to start (there is actually not a single credible course you can do to qualify as a combat sports nutritionist, weight cut specialist or anything of the sort, as of right now, more on this later).

It is not just something you decide you want to do because you one, are a combat athlete yourself, or two, think it is a lucrative market to get into (for the vast majority of people, it really isn’t, even at the highest level). Here are the prerequisites that I think make perfect logical sense to have in order to be able to practice with combat athletes and guide them in making weight (to give you the best chance at avoiding everything I just mentioned above).

The first would be having tertiary-level education in health and/or nutrition science. This is the foundation knowledge needed for this field. Second, would be additional education in sports nutrition, and last (and most important), a good deal of time mentoring under an established practitioner (see my recommended list below) who can teach you how all that theory applies in practice.

That is the bare minimum of what I believe someone needs to do to be able to practice this with athletes where they can carry the responsibility that comes with the inherent risks of the weight-making process. To demonstrate how serious we are about it as a team, let me explain what the process of becoming a TFD Dietitian looks like.

We have an internship program that we run when we want to bring on a new member of the team. In the last program, we had over 150 applications where we chose 10 interns who completed 6 weeks' worth of assigned work so we could assess their knowledge base and critical thinking skills. From that, we chose 1 intern to continue on to a year-long internship. If they are successful in the internship, we bring them on as a member of the team.

In that process, we educate them on the principles of performance we use with our athletes. They complete in-depth reviews of systems physiology, biochemistry, and anatomy and how each applies to the weight-making process. They are also given material to review from our network of world-renowned academics and researchers who share their research (often before publication) with us so that they are up to date with the latest scientific standpoints in the field. That is just the theory.

During that time they are also required to complete intensive hands-on practicals where they learn how to do complete assessments of athletes to decide appropriate weight classes, and diet prescriptions to achieve both the required body composition and meet the individual needs of the athlete, as well as how to compose fight week, rehydration and reload protocols.

Also, they observe, participate and eventually conduct the final rapid weight loss (water cut) process with our athletes. They do this for three reasons; firstly, they need to see how the whole process comes together, secondly, they need to appreciate the potential risks involved with this, and thirdly, they need to know how to manage those risks in real-time.

Why do we do this? Because even when someone finishes an undergraduate or even post graduate (honors, masters) degree in nutrition or sports nutrition, they very likely have not had enough (or any) education in the area of combat sports nutrition outside of a generic lecture or two about weight category sports.

Hopefully, after reading the above you can appreciate just how much time, effort and knowledge goes into training our team members. I also hope that you can appreciate that we could not possibly put all of that information on our social media. Although we put out a lot of educational content, what we put out does not even represent 10% of the information we cover internally with our team.

When we put up a video showing the process of making weight before a weigh-in we show exactly that, them sweating in a bath to make weight. We do not show their diet that they have followed for months beforehand, the heat acclimation they have been doing, their individual sweat rate, their individual sodium sweat concentration, their physiological responses to different levels of dehydration, their physiological responses to varying degrees of heat exposure and we don’t discuss the processes we go through to analyze all of that information in real-time to inform our next decision in the process.

We show the 10% and the other 90% is not discussed in any detail whatsoever. This is where this can get dangerous. Athletes or practitioners see this 10% and then believe the other 90% does not matter, or simply, just don’t know that it exists and they think that this 10% is enough information to be able to get through a weight cut. And you know what? For the majority of athletes, it probably is enough. It is probably to just get them through, but for every 99 people that it is fine for, there is 1 that it is not and that is the one we need to worry about. The saying that society moves as fast as it’s the slowest member is equally as true when it comes to this. We need to be educated enough to be able to cater not to the 99% but to the 1% that could face serious issues.

It is that 1% where things are a bit more complicated, they need just that bit more attention, there is something that goes on that requires just that bit more knowledge, this is where this whole idea scares me. Because we have seen in the past what happens when you get it wrong with this 1% of athletes. People can and have died getting this wrong. That is what worries me as more people get into the sport, that 1% starts to represent more and more people, and I wonder if they will find themselves in the care of an adequately trained professional, or someone who just watched a video on weight cutting and are full of false confidence.

If that sounds a bit intense, then it should, because I have seen this happen in real-time. When I first got into this space, I worked alongside a team who were very much underqualified to be working with professional athletes but had a lot of personal connections in combat sports (being fighters themselves). When I say under-qualified I mean not one single person had any tertiary education in Nutrition, and their education comprised of classes they took in the military.

But they took what knowledge they had along with their own personal experience and applied it to many low-risk athletes (the 99%), and they successfully made weight, time and time again. This gave off the illusion that they really understood what they were doing and eventually they were working with some of the biggest names in the sport (it would blow your mind the names they were working with). However, as their client base grew, that 1% high-risk population grew as well.

And what happened? Exactly what you would predict. Weight misses, hospitalizations, and serious health damage to the point careers were cut short due to the actions of this team. There were athletes who were so metabolically damaged after being in a chronic state of LEA (low energy availability) that they had to take up to two years off of their careers to rectify the damage done from following year-round super low-calorie diets that were prescribed by this team.

Fortunately, I realized that they were not the ‘real deal’ quite quickly, got myself out of there, and used the experience as one of the main motivators to start TFD to stop that happening in combat sports athletes in our part of the world, to provide education and knowledge to the 99% but more importantly, protect the 1% so we did not have to see people getting hurt attempting to make weight.

If this sounds like I am needlessly ranting, I will highlight the reality of the matter with recent cases that we have seen occur across the combat sports community or that were brought to our team's attention by members of the community.

• The story of the amateur MMA athlete who was advised by a nutritionist to go in an unregulated cryotherapy machine whilst cutting weight, resulting in severe burns requiring emergency surgery to save the athlete's legs. You can read my article about that here.
• The Brisbane-based athlete who cut weight in a bath for over eight hours in a severely depleted state missed weight by 1.5kg after being advised by their ‘elite’ nutritionist to eat just chicken and watermelon for weeks prior to their weigh-ins. You can read my article about that here.
• In March last year, we were contacted by a coach to give our opinion about a very short notice fight for one of their athletes. The athlete was attempting to move down a weight class to enter a four-man tournament. After completing an assessment, we advised the athlete and their team that it was an extremely high risk to attempt to make the weight. The team then engaged the services of one of our dietitians to monitor the athlete during their attempt. After hours of sweating, the athlete was showing signs of rapid deterioration. As per our protocols, our dietitian made the decision to stop the weight cut to preserve the athlete's health. Afterward, this athlete was contacted by another nutritionist and was told if they would have worked with them instead, they would have gotten them down to weight. The athlete responded, “yes you might have, but you also might have killed me, it isn’t just about making weight.” Bravo to that athlete, not so much to the nutritionist.
• Recently, an athlete that has worked with TFD in the past missed weight for the second time in their professional career. The three camps that the athlete engaged our services they successfully made weight. The two times they missed weight the athlete opted to work with nutritionists who were geographically closer to them. The first time this happened, they were sent to the hospital during their weight cut, and the second time they missed weight by over 2kg.
• A student enrolled in an undergraduate degree in nutrition who is also an active amateur muay Thai fighter recently missed weight by 1.5kg after engaging the services of a local nutritionist who works with the muay Thai community. The next week that same athlete (student) was advertising an educational seminar teaching others in the community about nutrition. There is nothing wrong with spreading good information, so long as it is good information, spreading bad/misinformation is how combat sports got itself in such a pickle in the first place.
• This past weekend we saw one of the biggest fumbles in UFC history when Lightweight Champion, Charles Oliveria, missed weight by 0.5lbs. Considering it is now public knowledge that there were issues with the calibration scales, which is a valid excuse to have missed, but given the fact that all of the other fighters were able to cut the weight that was remaining once the scales were recalibrated means something was going on with Oliveria’s weight cutting methods. His weight cut was not extreme in the context of what has been seen in MMA in the past, but he did complete a ‘water taper’. Opposite to ‘ water loading’ (where athletes consume increased volumes of water in the days leading up to the weigh-ins), water tapering is when an athlete does not consume any fluid for 48+ hours prior to weigh-ins. This would have contributed largely to why Olivera struggled to sweat when he attempted to make weight again. More concerning, he has a Nutritionist that he works with in Brazil who should be advising against water tapering as a strategy to make weight. This is concerning because we have taken on clients in the past who have had histories of bad weight cuts after working with another nutritionist who also shares the same views about water loading and openly campaigns against it as a strategy to make weight.

Evidently, we are starting to see the same thing happen that I saw with that team early on in my career. We are starting to see the signs of this becoming a problem. Again, it is important to state that these are/apply to the more complex cases, the 1%. However, as combat sports continue to grow in popularity and more and more athletes get involved, so will this 1% of high-risk athletes. How long will it be until we see another tragic event happen in combat sports? Unfortunately, if we don’t get a grip on this, sooner rather than later.

So what is the solution? There is a lot of problem ranting going on right now and not much problem-solving. Here is my take on what needs to be done to fix this.

Investment into the athletes from large organizations.

The UFC Performance Institute is leading the way in offering its athletes access to professional services in sports medicine, physiotherapy, strength and conditioning, nutrition, and psychology, as well as releasing publically available research data and practice guidelines. Hopefully, in the future, we start seeing this occurring in other promotions such as ONE Championship, Bellator, and PFL as well as across other disciplines.

Education from large promotions/organizations.

Again the UFC Performance Institute is leading the way with its education to professionals in this space. Not only do they offer numerous internship programs each year, they also hold professional development days such as the Combat Sports Summit which is hosted by their team of Dietitians. The next step to this is offering accreditation courses that require participants to achieve certain levels of competency within an established framework. I have a good feeling we will be seeing this from the UFC PI in the next 12 months. As it stands right now, there are no courses that are offered that are approved by any credible professionals in this space. Short or weekend courses that give you a title of weight cut specialist, weight management specialist or anything similar should be viewed with particular caution.

Investment from amateur federations.

If we want to truly see a change in how athletes go about making weight in combat sports then we need to see an active move to invest in education and behavior change with the amateur athletes coming up the scene. Organisations like IMMAF do a good job of offering education such as seminars by industry leaders and having boards to discuss such things, but I would like to see them dig into their pockets and contract/hire professional Dietitians so that athletes competing in their organization have access to these services so that they are learning the necessary weight management and performance nutrition skills they need to succeed as they are developing as athletes.

Practitioners need to engage with professional interests groups for professional mentoring

As far as I am aware of there is only one special interest group that is run by a professional body that caters for professionals working in the combat sports nutrition space. That is the ACSM Combat Sports Special Interest Group which is comprised of 1500 practitioners worldwide. Headed by Combat Sports Nutrition royalty, Dr. Reid Reale, the group has a yearly conference where speakers present up-to-date research and practitioners speak of their experiences in the field. More groups like this that are even more specialized for the individual disciplines would create more opportunities for young practitioners to learn, network, and gain mentors to help them become confident in practicing in this area.

More education about the topic in undergraduate sports nutrition courses.

When I was a student I received half a lecture about weight category sport nutrition and the information was so generic it rendered itself useless. If we want professionals to be better skilled and our athletes safer, university sports science and nutrition departments should teach it, if they don’t want to do it, then pay for a qualified guest to come in and do so. There is more than enough information and exposure of combat sports as a mainstream sport to warrant teaching modules about how to make weight to students. Nowadays it is very likely that a new graduate working in a clinic will come across a client who is attempting to make weight, they should be equipped with the knowledge to help them.

As a final note, being aware of where your information comes from and ensuring it comes from a credible source on social media (or anywhere else) is also important. In a world where any Joe Blow can use follow/unfollow methods to build a social following (hot tip, any social media account that is following thousands of accounts is very likely inorganically building their platform, beware).

So to help you out, here are a number of colleagues of mine that are incredibly intelligent and experienced in this field that I highly recommend that you follow and reach out to for guidance in this area.

• Dr. Reid Reale: UFC Performance Institute Shanghai
• Dr. Carl Langan-Evans: Vortex Combat Sports Performance
• Charles Stull: UFC Performance Institute Las Vegas
• Tyler Minton: Ethos Nutrition
• Chris Kirk: Altius Performance
• Dr. Lewis James: Loughborough University
• Clint Wattenberg: UFC Performance Institute Las Vegas
• Mark Germaine: Synapse Performance
• Dr. Matteo Capodaglio: CapoNutrition
• Paul Reed: English Mixed Martial Arts Association & Vortex Combat Sports Performance
• Tony Ricci: Fight Science Institute
• Eric Pena: Pena Performance
• Danny Lennon: Sigma Nutrition
• Dr. Oliver Barley: Edith Cowan University
• Dr. Andy Galpin: California State University
• Dr. Sinead Roberts: Feed Fuel Perform
• Louise Bloor: British Judo
• Amelie Rosseneu: Amelie Rosseneu Combat Sports Dietitian
• Joe Matthews: Birmingham City University
• Ben Zhuang: Coach Ben Z
• John Connor: Irish Strength Institute
• Dr. Gary Slater: University of the Sunshine Coast
• Chris Algeri: Fight Science Institute

Again, I want to make the point that as combat sports grow, we need to have more qualified practitioners working in this space. But considering how unregulated this field is and the extreme risks that are uniquely involved in cutting weight, we need to be diligent as a community in order to keep our athletes safe.

No one gets involved in combat sports to become a professional at cutting weight. They join because there are so many physical and mental benefits that come with being involved in the various combat sports at any competitive level.

Let’s not tarnish that by allowing the community to just accept substandard weight-making practices (and advice) as ‘it is just part of the process’. Let’s collectively raise the bar and all play our part in making sure the biggest risk to combat sports is the sport itself, not something you have to do in order to just participate.

Jordan Sullivan — Director TFD