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A weighty issue
addressed in high school wrestling
Sports column by Connor Doyle - Journal
Sports Writer
A battle is being waged right now over
wrestling, and it's not taking place on the mat. Old-school
philosophy has been pitted against advanced medicine, and it
could mean a sea change in the way high school wrestlers are
approached about one important subject - weight.
Weight control is at a
premium in wrestling, where the goal is to qualify for the
lowest weight class possible to maximize one's advantage
against the opposition. In extreme cases, wrestlers will use
methods like dehydration or starvation diets to expedite the
process before a match.
But those methods are also
potentially devastating to a wrestler's performance, and their
long-term health. And that's why Brent Faure wants to see
"sucking weight," put to an end.
"Typically what happens
is we have a kid who looses bunch of weight and they're
plagued by injury or illness," says Faure, Highland High
School's athletic trainer. "Wrestlers are a pretty tough
crowd, so their pain tolerance is pretty high, and they don't
whine too much. When we get involved is when they've depleted
their bodily systems too much and we have to put a stop to
it."
In response to the concern of Faure and others,
the Idaho Athletic Trainers Association recently passed
measures aimed at preventing wrestlers from cutting weight too
quickly. As part of the state-wide changes, urinalysis will be
performed during the first weigh-in of the year to determine
whether or not the player is dehydrated. From there, trainers
will set a plan for a wrestler that determines how much weight
they can lose while remaining healthy, and at what rate. If a
wrestler falls outside those parameters, they'll be held out
of competition. In addition, parents and trainers will be able
to utilize a web site that provides nutritional information
for the wrestlers, so they'll know what to eat to facilitate
healthy weight loss.
But where Faure sees
progress, Pocatello wrestling coach Todd Praska sees a lot of
unnecessary work. While Praska admits "sucking weight" is
dangerous, he doesn't believe it to be as widespread as Faure
does. In fact, he says it hasn't been an issue in his coaching
career.
"I see it as a small problem. Twenty years ago,
it was a whole different story," Praska says. "It's so much
better than it used to be. The whole philosophy nowadays is to
be more of an athlete, not just be the lowest weight possible.
"It will help about 5
percent of the kids. But the rest of the 95 percent of us,
it's more hassle and paperwork."
Praska believes a
perceptive coach can stop his kids from cutting weight too
quickly. Before each season, he brings in a doctor from Idaho
State University to measure the body fat of his wrestlers and
tell them how much weight they can safely shed. If someone
drops below that weight, they're off the team. He also says he
never pressures a kid into weight loss.
But Praska admits the
nature of the sport can lend itself, at times, to
self-destructive behavior.
"It's intense. They don't
want to go up after trying to make it down. If they have to go
up a weight, they can't compete," he says.
That's the concession
Faure sees as the conclusive argument. As far as he's
concerned, a good coach can only do so much to stop an athlete
from harming himself. Science, on the other hand, is
irrefutable.
"The whole point of this is safety for the
kids. What is (a coach's) nutritional background?" Faure says.
"We've got to take the best interests of the kids first. You
can't balk at this."
