“It’s a grind,” said Dolores head coach Dane Gallaher. “Sometimes you get caught on the bottom, and you’re getting pounded on and beat on, but you have to have the mental fortitude to say, ‘I’m going to last this out. If I can get to the end of this period I can go again.’ So wrestlers have to be very mentally disciplined.”
Wrestling also requires discipline at the dinner table, because in order to compete, athletes must first make weight.
But when Christmas dinners and New Year’s parties abound, the holiday break can test their restraint.
So how does Dolores junior Brandon Ward, who wrestles in the 113-pound class and weighed in at 112.6 for his previous tournament, approach a table full of food over the holidays?
“I’m thinking, ‘I better run after this,’” he said chuckling.
Luckily for Colorado wrestlers, the Colorado High School Activities Association allows a two-pound growth allowance when they return to activities in January. Meaning, in order to wrestle at 113 pounds, Ward can actually weigh up to 115.
The two-pound allowance has some Dolores grapplers planning to drop in weight class for the second half of the season.
David Schmittel has been wrestling at 182 pounds, but plans to wrestle the rest of the season at 170 pounds, Aiden Hopcia will drop from the 152-pound class to 145, and Skieler Grooms will go from 138 to 132.
Gallaher explained that while the changes in weight classes may appear significant, that the wrestlers have been working towards the goals all season.
“All these kids have worked enough to this point that they’re already down to the next weight,” he said. “They didn’t have to cut weight, they just had to watch what they ate and work hard and they’re already down to the next weight.”
Schmittel weighed in for the Ignacio dual at 174. Hopcia was at 147, and Grooms is at 132.
Gallaher is attentive of his wrestlers’ weights and plans to drop, and he knows that it is unhealthy and can be dangerous for them to lose too much weight too quickly.
“We had a kid two years ago that said he could lose five pounds in a week,” Gallaher said. “But we said, ‘No, that’s not OK. You only weigh 120 pounds; you don’t need to lose five pounds in a week. That’s too hard on your system.”
CHSAA agrees, and has taken steps to prevent athletes from trying to shed weight too quickly by implementing the Optimal Performance Calculator (OPC) descent plan for weight management.
The new plan, implemented this season, permits wrestlers to lose no more than 1.5 percent of their body weight per week, and each wrestler must have their weight assessment entered before competition.
CHSAA believes the new system to be the safest method for weight loss, and athletes are not allowed to wrestle at certain weights until the date calculated by the OPC.
Even if they lose the weight by accident, like Grooms.
“He got food poisoning down in Flagstaff and lost four pounds because he threw up for two days,” Gallaher said. “So he was at 132 pounds, but he couldn’t wrestle at 132 until the OPC allowed.”
On the whole, Gallaher sees the new initiative as a positive, healthy measure, but he reiterated that they key to managing weight is to adhere to a steady diet.
Montezuma-Cortez head coach Shad Bellmire agreed that wrestlers must exhibit self-control when it comes to eating habits, but said that there is a common misconception that they’re unable to eat.
“Everybody thinks wrestlers have to starve,” he said. “They can still eat. They just have to eat healthy. The kids are used to going to Taco Bell and that kind of stuff.”
“We tell them to cut out the soda pop, drink water and just eat healthy,” he said. “Maybe eat four or five times a day, but just small helpings of turkey meat, apple slices, oranges.”
As for the holiday break, Bellmire is more concerned with his wrestlers’ conditioning than he is with their weight.
“They can go fudge here and there and have a good Christmas dinner,” he said. “But I tell them, ‘Just don’t lose your shape.’”
“They won’t put on too much weight, but just the conditioning. Over the break, you can lose a lot of your conditioning, your wind,” he said. “So I suggest that they keep that in shape, because once we get back, it’s right back into it.”