Weight cutting is the practice of rapid weight loss prior to a sporting competition. It most frequently happens in order to qualify for a lower weight class (usually in combat sports, where weight is a significant advantage) or in sports where it is advantageous to weigh as little as possible (most notably equestrian sports). There are two types of weight cutting: One method is to lose weight in the form of fat and muscle in the weeks prior to an event; the other is to lose weight in the form of water in the final days before competition.
Nutritional experts will rarely give advice on how to cut weight safely or effectively, and will simply recommend against cutting weight at all. However, many athletes choose to do it because they wish to gain an advantage in their sport.
Read more about Weight Cutting: Dieting, Supplementation, Muscle Loss, Dehydration, Rehydration
Famous quotes containing the words weight and/or cutting:
“We come into the world laden with the weight of an infinite necessity.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)