Do weight training
There are so many different ways to gain weight and sometimes it can be very confusing to know how or what you are going to do. Making weight can be difficult or easy; It all depends on how you approve it.
Many things need to be considered when preparing for a competition. This may include dieting before the competition, going to the sauna, starving, or moving up a category. In this article I am going to give a brief outline of the different techniques people use and the theory behind each one. This will not be an article on exactly what to do, it is a summary of the techniques used, for more information investigate.
Diet before the competition
Many people believe in dieting before the competition. To burn off the last ounce of fat so that their entire body weight is all muscle, they typically diet with a low-protein dinner or no dinner at all. To lose weight you must burn MORE calories than you put into your body. Many studies suggest that having 3 meals a day slows down your Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR (metabolism), but by having 6 small meals a day, your BMR always goes up, resulting in more calories being burned throughout the day.
Many people find that dieting is the most difficult opponent in judo. Dieting requires discipline and constant monitoring and can be very taxing mentally when preparing meals, knowing what to eat and what not to eat, as well as eating enough so that you don’t burn out or get sick.
Low carbohydrate diet:
Low carbohydrate diets are very popular. There are many versions, but they are all very similar. The same says eat carbs for breakfast and lunch, but none after 2 pm, and a protein dinner, while others say no dinner at all.
A very important rule when it comes to diet is: ‘if you’re losing weight, don’t change your diet. Once you plateau then change the diet.” Make sure when dieting to talk to a professional or research yourself so you are doing all the right things. Experience has shown me that on a low carb diet I don’t start losing weight for around 2 weeks so within those 2 weeks I was training like crazy and since I wasn’t losing any weight I was dieting even harder and stricter and I would end up exhausted and get some kind of sickness like the flu so listen to your body and adjust your diet accordingly.
The dark side of low carb diets
The human body uses 4 sources of energy, these are fats, carbohydrates, proteins and alcohol. But the brain (the control center of the human body) only uses carbohydrates for energy. It doesn’t use any other source of energy, so if your muscles don’t have energy, your brain doesn’t either. This is why on a low carb diet you are tired, lethargic, sleepy and mentally drained. Many athletes don’t like to follow a low-carb diet because on a low-carb diet you can’t train as hard or for as long. This is bad because before a competition you want to train 100% without feeling tired, retarded and mentally drained.
Using a low carb diet (and diet in general) is all about trial and error, the more times you compete and gain weight the better you know how your body reacts and feels.
Low residue diets
Low residue (Fibre) diets are mainly used in the last week or week and a half before the competition. The stomach can hold an average weight of 4 kg for a man (75 kg) and a girl (60 kg) 2 kg and it may not take up to 1 week to remove that weight from the stomach. Low-fiber diets are not used to flush out the stomach, but to make sure that what is eaten does not stay in the stomach. It’s in and out due to the fact that it contains minimal fiber. These diets are great because you can eat things like white bread, crackers, rice bubbles, etc. and you know they won’t sit in your stomach unnecessarily weighing you down.
Another negative aspect of low fiber diets is the fact that these foods do not contain vitamins and minerals. I recommended that in any diet you should take multiple vitamins and minerals to supplement any that you may miss in your regular diet.
diuretics
Diuretics are a drug that are used to flush out the body of fluid and food by making you go to the toilet a lot. I personally have never used diuretics but I have friends who have used them before. Some athletes take celery tablets and this supposedly makes you go to the bathroom more often.
Another technique that people do is drink up to 6 liters of water a day for 2 weeks out of competition and you can imagine how often you would go to the bathroom drinking that amount. Then in the last week they drink as little as possible. The theory behind this is to trick your body into thinking it is retaining water so it will continue to excrete itself.
I think this is bad for 2 reasons. Your bladder is overworking and the human body is smarter than that.
One of the most popular theories is that drinking caffeine dries you out, this is true up to a point. Let me explain: if you drink 1 liter of water, your body can retain 600 ml and therefore excrete 400 ml. Caffeine is a diuretic which means that if you drink 1 liter of it, your body will only hold 200ml of it and excrete the rest. So people assume that it helps you lose weight, but in reality your body just retains less, that’s all.
This theory is similar to the negative calorie theory with celery.
cutting weight
Cutting weight is the term used when you must sweat and eat as little as possible to gain weight. This is the most common technique used to gain weight not only in judo but also in burning, boxing, and even horse racing. Some athletes can lose up to 6 kgs in the sauna depending on what weight division and also how much muscle mass they have. The amount of muscle is very important because muscle is 70% water, so the more muscle you have, the more water you can lose in the sauna.
There are 4 ways of losing weight in the sauna.
With clothes on: Some athletes enter the sauna with a lot of clothes on and they sweat that way. This is a great way to warm up quickly, but once you start sweating, your clothes get wet and I think it cools you down, causing your skin to excrete less sweat.
Work out there: push-ups, boxing, star jumps, you name it. What these athletes don’t understand is that once your body temperature has risen, you start to sweat. These athletes don’t know that once their core temperature rises, they’ll start sweating, it doesn’t just keep rising, once it rises, it stays at that level. Sweat can only come off so fast and more exercise will only waste your energy.
I found that many women cannot lose much weight in the sauna, I recommended these girls to go for a run or exercise in the sauna.
Sit in swimmers: Sitting in the sauna is, I think, the best way to lose weight. Just sit there and continuously wipe all the sweat off your body. This will encourage more sweatshirts to come out.
Baby oil – Some people put baby oil all over their skin and the theory behind this is to clog the skin pores. This will raise your core temperature, resulting in more sweat. I think this method is stupid because why do you make it hard for your body to sweat by clogging your pores? Shouldn’t you let the sweat out?
How long sauna?
Some people like to sweat on a big hit (it saves money, too), but if you have a little to lose and don’t mind paying, try losing weight in a couple of days. For example, if I fight on Sunday, I’ll do a little sauna on Friday and then I’ll sit arvo and maybe if I’m lucky and underweight, I’ll have something for dinner. This all depends on the athlete and how comfortable they feel doing it the way they want.
I do not lose weight in the sauna?
I don’t know why, but some women just don’t lose weight in the sauna. For these people I recommend buying a sauna suit and going for a run or bike ride or something. Just dress up and do it, maybe these girls need to go and exercise in the sauna that can help them.
I can’t find a sauna?
If you can’t find a sauna, here are a couple of options.
– Put on lots of layers of winter clothing and go for a run or sit on a stationary bike and ride hard.
– Put on the rug and sit in a car with the heat on full blast.
– Turn on the hot shower in the bathroom and let it get nice and steamy, sit there and sweat. (Just don’t get burned.)
– SITTING IN A HOT BATH AND SWEATING THAT WAY.
Should I move up a weight division?
If you’re sick of gaining weight and sauna and everything else, just move up one weight division. It all depends on what you want to do in judo. Are you a recreational or competitive gamer, even then what are your goals? Can you move up a weight division and still be competitive internationally, if not domestically? It all depends on what you want from judo.
Some athletes, especially at heavyweights, can afford to drop some weight, as long as they are faster than their heavier opponents. For example, Kurt Angle gave away around 10kg when he wrestled. Another example is the heavyweight girl from Slovenia. She fights +78 and only weighs 85 kg. She is so fast and strong that she placed second in the 2007 open world championships.
To learn more about the different ways to make weight, ask some of the older competitors how they made weight. Also do some research on the internet and find what is best for you, remember trial and error is the only way to comfortably perfect the weight.
I hope this report has helped you think about how you will tackle the problem of weight gain next time.
mate d’aquino