harmful or beneficial? For anyone who has personally cut weight for a sport, do you feel like the benefits were worth the potential harm? Would you encourage or discourage someone from doing the same thing?
For those that are unfamiliar, "cutting weight" is what athletes call purposely losing significant amounts of weight in short periods of time. This is most prevalent in sports that involve weight classes, like wrestling or boxing. I personally did it myself but it was so long ago, I think I forgot how bad it is. I like to think it was a character building experience like no other but I do remember being suicidally depressed and suffering from a very minor bout of bulimia afterward.
I don't know, I was just wondering if any fellow athletes could give me their opinion.
To specify, this question assumes that a person has minimal body fat (so either they have already lost weight with a balanced diet and exercise). I personally had no real "body fat" to lose; I was at a measured 6% fat (determined based on hydrostatic analysis) and used to cut weight to go from a lean 166lbs to qualify for the 152 lb class.
For those that are unfamiliar, "cutting weight" is what athletes call purposely losing significant amounts of weight in short periods of time. This is most prevalent in sports that involve weight classes, like wrestling or boxing. I personally did it myself but it was so long ago, I think I forgot how bad it is. I like to think it was a character building experience like no other but I do remember being suicidally depressed and suffering from a very minor bout of bulimia afterward.
I don't know, I was just wondering if any fellow athletes could give me their opinion.
To specify, this question assumes that a person has minimal body fat (so either they have already lost weight with a balanced diet and exercise). I personally had no real "body fat" to lose; I was at a measured 6% fat (determined based on hydrostatic analysis) and used to cut weight to go from a lean 166lbs to qualify for the 152 lb class.