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Behind the Scale: The Difference Between Cutting Weight and Making Weight
By Robert Ferguson (June 15, 2006)
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Imagine Shaquille O’Neal having to meet a specific weight limit the night before playing in a championship game. Fortunately for basketball players like Shaquille, baseball superstars such as Barry Bonds and most other professional athletes making a specific weight is not a prerequisite to competing.
Professional boxing is the only sport where making a predetermined body weight determines whether or not money is earned or lost. Case in point: millions of dollars and a championship title were lost when Jose Luis Castillo didn’t make the 135-pound lightweight limit in his title fight against Diego Corrales on June 3.
At first glance, I can see how many people are quick to point the finger at Castillo for falling short on making weight, but the fact is that it was his entire team’s fault — including himself, promoter Bob Arum, trainers and management.
Unlike other professional sports in which the athletes’ best interest is made a priority — and he or she is provided top-notch nutrition and physical conditioning specialists — boxing as an industry remains oblivious to the advances in sports management. It’s no secret that even though the scale is the gateway to fortune and fame, training camps continue to keep the expenses low and remain confined to cutting weight instead of making weight.
What’s the difference between “cutting” and “making” weight? Read on.
CUTTING WEIGHT
Practically every professional boxer, aside from heavyweights, can identify with abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ famous quote: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” However, this couldn’t be further from the truth where body weight is concerned. But because of the lack of education and professionalism of promoters, management and fighters, it’s not going to be an easy task to convince them otherwise. The concepts of meeting weight limits by wearing plastics, spitting in cups, turning the heat up to 140 degrees in the gym while training, and going to bed without a sip of water continue to be preferred methods for cutting weight.
Sadly, these practices for cutting weight also cut performance when it’s time to step into the ring. The most recent example was the Antonio Tarver-Bernard Hopkins light heavyweight title fight on June 11. Tarver and his camp unwittingly took the “cutting weight” approach by restricting Tarver’s calories too soon and performing minimal resistance training. I’m normally not a gambler, but I took the three-to-one odds against the challenger (Hopkins), knowing that Tarver would have a lackluster performance. I knew that, regardless of how he felt in the days leading up to the fight, his over-trained and undernourished body would be flat once the first punch was thrown.
After losing by several points, Tarver made no excuses and refused to blame his much-discussed drop in weight as a factor in losing the bout — but he did confirm my prediction when he said, post-fight, “I was flat for some reason. Physically, I felt like I never had the pop.”
Like Tarver, many champions have fallen prey to the process of cutting weight, only to sacrifice athletic ability. Prime examples of this phenomenon are Roy Jones, Jr. — when he dropped down from his heavyweight status to fight Tarver — to the ongoing challenges faced by Arturo Gatti, Miguel Cotto and even Diego Corrales in his second fight with Castillo. Still, the truth is out there: There is a better way, and it’s called “making weight.”
MAKING WEIGHT
Where there is a weight division, there is deprivation and borderline depression because of the limits placed on food. Don’t take my word for it; simply walk into practically any training camp and you can cut the tension caused by food restriction with a knife.
The good news is that professional boxers can make the journey to the scale a positive experience. In short, by implementing the age-old practice of proper rest, adequate nutrition and the avoidance of over training, weight can be made — not forced.
Much can be said about the boxer who maximizes nutrition and physical preparedness. All the same, fights can be predicted based on the weeks preceding the bout. It is my goal, at maxboxing.com, to take you “behind the scale” and share with you the pros and cons of performance nutrition and fitness as it pertains to being fit to fight.
I look forward to receiving your questions and comments.
[Robert Ferguson is recognized as the weight loss “guru” and wellness expert, co-author of Fat That Doesn’t Come Back, speaker and has Diet Free Life offices in Southern California. He has successfully provided nutrition and physical conditioning to Fernando Vargas, Lucia Rijker and Sergio Mora. E-mail him at robert@dietfreelife.com, or visit his Web site at www.dietfreelife.com.]
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