Perils of intensive weight cuts at UFC Japan

The issues of problem weight cuts is a persistent one. This was recently highlighted at UFC Japan when Mizuto Hirota attempted to make weight. You can clearly see Hirota struggle to even make it too the scales, let alone get off them again. Its worse still for an opponent that made weight effectively and now misses out on a fight because their opponent failed to do so.

Miss today’s #UFCJapan weigh-ins? Mizuto Hirota’s trip to the scale was a little scary. Full rundown here: https://t.co/tacfafCSZ1 pic.twitter.com/qYHILHczyQ

— MMAjunkie (@MMAjunkie) September 21, 2017

The UFC medical staff later determined the Japanese fighter to be unfit to compete. He was 4lbs over the limit of 146lbs.

This ironically came the same day a study dropped from the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research; showing that repeated effort suffers 24hrs after acute dehydration. I’ve argued before that heavyweights aside you are often seeing fighter under perform on the day due to delayed effects from acute dehydration.  This seems to effect grip strength, repeated efforts and throwing ability. With the body of research growing slamming weight cuts, the question is why do we allow the culture to persist? With new weight classes & lead up weigh in and % reload limits being argued as options hopefully something will change. Without healthy fighters there is no show!

This is an ongoing series of blog posts from William Wayland CSCS of Powering Through, owner of Powering Through Performance in essex, who works with UFC and other high level combat athletes. Twitter. Facebook