The Problems of Wrestling

January 22, 2013 by runservecook | 4 Comments

Wrestling-Noun
The sport or activity of grappling with an opponent and trying to throw or hold them down on the ground, typically according to a code…

That doesn’t sound to bad. It sounds like an innocent everyday sport, same as soccer, golf or volleyball.

Wrestling however has one major difference, it has weight classes. I understand that weight classes are needed in order to keep matches fair.
It has always been common practice to drop a weight class in order to wrestle and most likely weaker opponent.

Over the years the whole system of wrestling has become corrupt in my opinion in part by coaches. Wrestling coaches don’t think about the kids, they want to win. They force kids to drop huge amounts in minuscule amounts of time. The kids then take extreme (unhealthy) measures to lose that weight.

Most of the year from spring to fall wrestlers can be normal kids. They can eat whatever they want and not feel bad about it. When winter comes along it’s dreaded cutting time. At first it’s no huge amount but later in the season it’s huge like losing 5-10 pounds in under a week.

One of my best friends is a wrestler. I eat lunch with him and witness the sickness everyday. Nobody else notices or cares because they don’t understand what he is going through, but I understand. He doesn’t understand how to healthily cut weight, so he assumes less food=less weight. He usually skips breakfast eats the meat off a sandwich and milk for lunch and not much for dinner. He says he is always hungry. He runs to lose more. One day last week he said he’s only made himself puke once. only once…

I ask why? He says he has to because his coach will be pissed if he doesn’t “make weight”. It all leads back to the coach.

The whole system is really corrupt because every city does this and in the end no advantage is actually gained. Kids are stripped of their freedom and youth and brought into the unhealthy weight range, all for the sport they love hate.

I also know another wrestler who was my friend last year. I follow him on twitter and pretty much every other tweet of his during wrestling season is about hunger, cutting, not eating or ways to lose more weight. Instead of try to explain, here is some examples.

There is really no need to explain these. I have seen tweets from him saying he passed out during practice from dehydration and hunger, all the coach did was gave him the day off.

The coaches need to realize mental health is important. Wrestling produces eating disorders. Even after the season there is no way to just forget the ED thoughts.

I apologize for my long rant but this is a topic that has been on my mind for a while. rant over.

What are your opinions on wrestling?

I am also still working on that changes post, but I meant to post this when I was in LA.