For anyone unaware of wrestling and what it requires of one’s eating habit, you must keep your weight within certain classes. These classes are rigid and require wrestlers to keep a close eye on what they consume in order to stay within classes and not be bumped up and go against wrestlers who could potentially weigh more. With that out of the way, could you imagine a more unfortunate time of year for wrestling to run through? Between Thanksgiving, the holidays, and being stuck inside, wrestlers have to fight tooth and nail against their own sweet teeth. two experienced athletes elected to talk about actions they take in order to maintain their weight in those trying times.
Luc Valdez is a lightweight at the 125 pound class, which puts him on a razor’s edge of gaining weight due to his off-season weight being about ten pounds over his max allotted weight for his class. When it comes to the holidays wrestlers are given a week off which is more than enough for Luc to gain excess weight. “My weight can boost to 130 or 131, if I relax for the next day and not eat, my body does a lot of work by shedding it off naturally.” He also went on to say: “people have misconceptions about college wrestlers that we eat a lot and have a hard time maintaining weight but we’re really smart about how we eat and how much we allow ourselves to gain.”
The second wrestler is junior Denis Murphy, a 133 pound wrestler for UWO. When talking about maintaining weight during holiday, he says the hardest part is, “Going back to see friends and guys who used to wrestle who now eat whatever they want, compared to being with my Oshkosh wrestling friends. We’re all on the same page which makes it way easier.” When it comes to the day of celebration, he doesn’t starve himself, but he does watch what he eats: “I get a big workout in on the day of, and the days after I just watch what I eat.” When it comes to what almost drags him over the line of food temptation, “it has to be Politos or Nikos.”
These guys make walking around cake seem like a cake walk. For anyone interested in attending their upcoming matches, you can view dates and times by accessing the UW Oshkosh athletics page online.