Smacks of starvation

'Weight draining' and poor nutrition are rife in the world of boxing, where competitors often put their health at serious risk, writes EOIN REDAHAN

HOW ABOUT a pint of raw beef blood or some lean kangaroo meat? Perhaps you would prefer to masticate a steak for its juices and then spit the meat out? Alternatively, you could try a refreshing glass of sauerkraut juice with a hint of lemon.

There are myriad methods for boxers to make the required weight, and in time-honoured fashion many will parch and starve themselves before the weigh-in (about 24 hours prior to a fight). Some will exercise in saunas; others will train without eating or drinking, or even induce vomiting to make the required weight. By doing this, they may be avoiding bigger opponents at a higher weight class, but they are also placing their health at serious risk.

Former WBC world bantamweight champion and Olympic silver medallist Wayne McCullough outlines how he made weight in his title defence against Jose Luis Bueno in 1996. “I was just sweating [it] off. I wasn’t putting fuel back into my body; I wasn’t drinking water.

“I was pretty much starving my body. I trained three times the day of the weigh-in without eating or drinking anything. I put on 15 pounds (6.8kg) of water between the weigh-in and the fight. I felt like garbage.”

McCullough, who is still fighting, says that most boxers still don’t know how to make weight properly. President of the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians, Dr Michael B Schwartz, emphasises the dangers of this approach: “Well I think by definition rapid weight loss is very, very dangerous.

“Even 3 per cent weight loss is considered mild dehydration; 5 per cent is considered moderate; and 8 per cent is considered severe. So, when someone is fighting and they’re losing 10 or 15 pounds (4.5-6.8kg) within a day or two of the fight, they’re putting themselves at risk, not only neurologically but just from a metabolic standpoint.”

Consultant nutritionist to the Irish Amateur Boxing Association, Dr Sharon Madigan, says: “There’s a very big mentality about the scales in boxing. Often boxers are more concerned with making their target weight than their physical conditioning.”

Madigan explains the danger of this approach. “You could be 91kg, but if 40 per cent of that is fat, then you’re going to be very slow . . . If you’re 91kg and 25 per cent of that is fat, they’re going to have a lot more strength and power in their punch as well, and they’re not going to be carrying dead weight about.”

Fighters without disciplined diets end up doing the pugilistic equivalent of anxious students cramming for exams. Madigan says that when boxers eat fewer carbohydrates to lose weight, their bodies also lose a substantial amount of fluid. “The problem is that when you do that, you lose your fuel, and your ability to train at a high intensity goes down.”

Schwartz explains that while boxers can replace this fluid between the weigh-in and the fight, they don’t have enough time to replace the electrolytes that allow their heart and muscles to function properly. “If you don’t adequately replace the electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium etc), nothing in the body is working properly . . .”

McCullough outlines the effect that “weight draining” had on his body in the fight against Bueno: “I got through 12 rounds, but to this day I don’t know what happened after the third round. I was so weak and dehydrated . . . I ended up in hospital afterwards and I didn’t remember anything until the next day – even if I’d won the fight or not.”

A 2005 International Journal of Sports Medicine study on the effects of dehydration on brain volume found that some sportsmen and women, such as boxers, rugby players and footballers, are especially vulnerable to serious head injuries whilst dehydrated.

“When you become dehydrated, that’s when the brain becomes dehydrated too. That creates a space between the brain and the skull, and if a boxer takes a knock to the head, the brain rattles, and that’s what increases your risk of brain injury,” says Madigan.

The blood thickens when the body is dehydrated; the heart, therefore, has to work harder to pump the blood around the body. This places extra stress on the vital organ, she adds.

While some medics have suggested changing the weigh-in process – including incorporating a random weigh-in the weeks before a fight – the onus is still on each boxer to make weight in a healthy manner.

McCullough is now a qualified nutritionist and has learned the importance of making weight properly. Not only is he careful about what foods he needs, he is mindful about what foods are conducive to his blood type, and at what times he should be eating relative to his training.

He points to the evergreen US boxer Bernard Hopkins and himself as examples of how – with scrupulous conditioning – a boxer can make weight, even at an older age. “He [Hopkins] was 44 years old and he was still making the weight he did in his 20s . . . He got older, his body centre changed, but he could still make the weight. So, how could he make the weight and other guys can’t? I can make it [the weight] now. I thought that I couldn’t, but now that I understand about it, I can.”

As Madigan says, the hope is to inculcate a better way of thinking among boxers. “It’s basically about seeing the relationship between eating and throwing a punch, rather than just making weight.”