With the fall sports season approaching its conclusion, athletes are getting ready for the onset of winter sports. For River Hill’s wrestlers, this preparation means one thing: making weight.
     Wrestlers are separated into weight classes, which dictate who each wrestler faces during matches. Wrestlers must maintain a body weight within the parameters of their weight class, or else they cannot compete. In order to maintain or lose weight, wrestlers sometimes resort to drastic measures. Senior wrestler Kyle Murrow describes some of these methods, saying “Some wrestlers run several miles, work out hard, then sit in the sauna with several pairs of sweats on, and don’t drink afterward.”
     While practices like this are incredibly hazardous, they are thankfully rare. A more commonplace method is a severe shift in the wrestler’s eating habits.  Is this deprivation of food a dangerous practice or just a necessary part of being a wrestler?
     The process of cutting weight can be simplified into consuming fewer calories than one expends. However, during the teenage years, an individual’s daily caloric needs are increased to account for body growth and maturation. While the average person needs about 2,000 calories per day, an average teenage male may need 2,500 to 3,000 calories per day. By reducing their daily caloric intake, wrestlers may be endangering themselves by stunting their growth or depriving their bodies of necessary nutrients during adolescence, a time when critical changes are happening.
     According to Brandon Lauer, River Hill’s wrestling coach, wrestlers are heavily encouraged to adjust their weights only by methods not detrimental to their health. Lauer, a wrestler himself, outlines the certification process that each wrestler must pass before wrestling as having three parts: a hydration test, a weight and body fat check, and a doctor signature.     
     Because of the certification process, wrestlers cannot drastically drop weight, since they are checked for proper levels of nutrition. “Changes in wrestling rules over the last five to ten years have restricted wrestlers from cutting large amounts of weight. They have to wrestle others who are closer to their natural weight, which is a safer practice,” says Lauer.
     Additionally, River Hill’s coaching staff employs other methods to help wrestlers healthfully make weight. According to senior Patrick Harrington, who will be entering his first winter as a River Hill wrestler, “Lauer encourages us to eat properly and let the intense workouts and practices get rid of the weight.” The workouts that Harrington refers to include a rigorous off-season conditioning program that helps wrestlers lose weight from body fat, rather than lean muscle.
     Still, adjustments to the eating habits of teens have visible effects. Many wrestlers complain about how they need to make weight and therefore cannot eat. Some also seem to be on edge when they are stressing over their weights. Murrow says, “Sometimes there are noticeable side effects because not eating makes you feel like crap, especially when you have to then go exercise for hours at practice.”
     While losing weight is a potentially dangerous activity, it must be recognized as a necessary part of the wrestling lifestyle, and wrestlers will therefore continue to drop weight in order to compete. However, it is imperative that in doing so, wrestlers follow healthy guidelines and do not develop habits that are detrimental to their physical and emotional health, both of which are heavily stressed by Lauer.