Today we’re doing a deep dive into a commonly used method to ‘make weight’ for weight category sports such as boxing, MMA, weightlifting and powerlifting.
Enter, the WATER LOAD.
To my knowledge, there’s only one study to date looking at the effectiveness of this, however almost all weight making athletes have used or have heard about this method. Folklore would suggest water loading helps them strip weight before weigh in.
The rationale is to drink large amounts of water in the week leading up to the competition before drinking very little 24 hours prior to weigh in. Therefore ‘tricking’ the body to continue flushing out fluid and sending you to the toilet every 15 minutes.
The question is though, does it actually work or is it all a load of hyped up BS?
Well, Reale et al (2017) took to the laboratory to find out. Here’s the protocol they used with an 80kg athlete used as an example:
1) On days 1-3, they consumed 100mL/kg of water, i.e. 8L.
2) On day 4, they consumed 15mL/kg of water, i.e. 1.2L.
3) On day 5, no water consumed until they ‘weighed in’ during the morning.
4) ‘Post weight in’ was followed by a re-hydration protocol of 30mL/kg (2.4L) plus 150% of weight loss seen on days 4-5. This was evenly consumed on an hour basis, not all at once! There’s evidence of death if you do this (e.g. >10 litres in 6 hours) (Garigan and Ristedt 1999, Adrogué and Madias 2000).
5) On day 6, they did some physical testing. i.e. to replicate competition.
To test how well this worked, the control group consumed a normal amount of fluid (40mL/kg) on days 1-3 then the same as the water loading group on days 4-6. They also consumed the same diet that replicates an athletes normal ‘weight making’ eating habits.
The results:
1) Urine production was elevated during the water load and water restriction phases which lead to greater fluid losses.
2) Average weight loss for the water loading group was 3.2%, where the control group lost 2.4% of bodyweight.
3) With this loading protocol, there was no adverse change in blood chemistry, i.e. hyponatremia (low blood sodium).
4) Rehydration on day 5 was sufficient to return bodyweight to levels seen on days 3 and 4.
5) No significant differences in performance were found between day 0 and day 6.
So, water loading using the method above works pretty well. 10 points to Gryffindor!
However, there appears to be responders and non-responders. If you do wish to use this as a tool in the tool box, try it in training first to make sure it works as there’s some evidence to suggest that people put on weight going into a weigh in….You’ll always get some outliers