Wrestling is one of the hardest sports, both physically and mentally. The sport is not as simple as it looks for the athletes. It’s not just about throwing people around on a mat; there’s an art to it.
Like any other sport, you must prepare to perform, but in wrestling, you have to take it to the next level.
Fuquay-Varina’s wrestlers prepare for a match in many different ways. It generally depends on the person, but when it comes to cutting, which is a technique that wrestlers do to get down to a certain weight so they can wrestle in a certain weight class, there are lots of similarities. Seniors Brady Thomas and Dominic Austin wrestle on the FVHS varsity team. Both shared some of the difficulties of cutting.
Thomas said, “Some days you have to go without eating.”
This is seen as the greatest difficulty for all wrestlers. To support muscle mass and just body weight in general, you need nutrition, and you need lots of it. So when you need to lose lots of weight, you have to go off your usual diet and modify things to make sure you lose the weight for a match.
Austin said, “You get so hungry and thirsty when you are cutting.”
Without food and water for some time, your usual day or routine isn’t so usual anymore. When your stomach is growling. And your mouth is dry; it’s hard to concentrate. And these wrestlers aren’t just working at a very high level of cardio, they’re draining themselves mentally throughout the day with school. These conditions show just how hard it is to be a wrestler and perform consistently.
Wrestlers do many things to cut. Eating less food is the most effective way to lose weight, but the wrestlers also said they don’t drink water for some time to lose water weight. Thomas and Austin both say that they find ways to focus on other things and get their minds off food.
