On other days, drink however you like, just be aware that if you consume all your water in the evening, you're going to be up all night peeing. On the last day (1 day out), cut all fluid intake 16 hours before weigh in. If competition day is Day-0, then 1 and 2 days out we're going to drink 100% of peak water 3 and 4 days out we're going to drink 80% of peak water and 5 and 6 days out we're going to drink 60% of peak water. We're not going to jump straight to peak water, though. For me, as a 95 kg human, this comes out at around about 11.5 L (3 gallons-ish, for my American friends.)
#Cut water free
This isn't that precise, so feel free to round it to an easy number. So, how much do you drink? Your peak water intake should be something like 120 mL / kg.body weight. If you taper for too long, you'll actually retain extra water, making you even heavier. By tapering water intake, your body is adjusting to lower intakes and compensating with lower excretion levels. It takes a while to return to baseline excretion levels, and in that time you drop extra fluid mass.Ī common mistake here is to taper your water off, but this does exactly the opposite of what you're trying to achieve. The idea here is to drink way more water than you're accustomed to, to "convince" your body it's normal to pee constantly, and then cut it off. Calculate how much weight you drop over night - you're going to need that for Layer 4 - Hyperthermia. Start weighing yourself before bed and first thing in the morning. Ideally, you'd be reaching 103% of your weight class about four weeks out from your meet, so you can eat at maintenance (for recovery) for your final few weeks of training.įinally, this process takes about a week, but you will need to decide to commit 2 weeks before meet day. If you're intending to compete in a class, and you're currently more than 3% over the top of the class, consider dieting down slowly over weeks or months, and then water cutting the last few percent. One can cut more weight, but it becomes increasingly dangerous and detrimental to your performance. For a 93 kg man, this means weighing something like 95.8 kg, and for a 57 kg woman, something like 58.7 kg. With that in mind, we can say that most competitors should not begin their water cut at more than about 3% over the top of their weight class.
That means that for a 2-hour weigh-in, most competitors should not look to cut more than 3% of their body weight.
We're going to work backwards by planning how much weight to lose, which is determined by how much we can gain back.Īn average person can regain about 2% of their body weight in lost water in 2 hours, and most people can lift at around 1% dehydration without affecting their performance. Being dehydrated is stressful, bad for your health, and bad for your performance. The most important part of a water cut / weight manipulation is the very last part - recomposition after the weigh in.
#Cut water how to
Just want to be told how to do it? Pick up a water-cut template here. That said, deliberately dehydrating yourself for sport is neither particularly smart nor safe, and you should consider seeking medical advice before doing so. I will not address the more aggressive weight cutting strategies employed for 24-hour weigh ins here, as I think they're disproportionately more dangerous than those discussed here. This is a proven method which I've used dozens of times, both on myself, and athletes that I've coached. There are lots of smart ways to cut weight, and I'm going to lay out my preferred method, layer by layer, here. Recently, I have seen a lot of competitors, even smart and experienced competitors, make their lives unnecessarily harder and throw kilos away on the platform by cutting weight for a meet poorly.