Muay thai cut

AndThatsAFact

want to cut to 63 kg for muay thai but im 74 and I just cant cut the weight even when eating right, do I have to starve meself or what?

Doug Cartel

Are you talking about losing weight or cutting weight?

Losing weight is a gradual process where you control your diet and exercise to get a long term decrease in body weight. Cutting is where you basically dehydrate yourself to make a weigh in without losing any real body mass.

If you want to lose weight, then the fitness and nutrition forms are probably better places to look for advice. If you are looking to cut, dropping 11kg when you weigh 73 yourself is a 15% decrease, and I don't think it is a good idea if you don't really know what you are doing. It's definitely not something you should try for the very first time right before a fight.

What advice have your coaches given you?

Peetrik

+1 on what Doug said.

I've always found any advice from fitness professionals to be fairly sport specific, it usually revolves around advice on how to lose fat while keeping muscle with weight itself being a secondary concern (or not a concern at all). For sports with competitive weight classes, the weight itself is a major factor.

Any decent club should be full of knowledge on weight control/weight cutting. If you can't find anything from your club, articles on weight loss/cutting from similar sports (MMA, Wrestling) are usually quite good as the focus is also on diets with weight loss as the focus while also allowing for the calorie/energy requirements of a full time athlete.

Best of luck with it!

Mellor

You should research in detail the difference between losing weight or cutting weight that Doug alluded to.
Why have you decided on 63kg specifically? It's a bit strange picking out such a bad weight to cut to when there's 3 other divisions between your current weight and target. (72.6kg, 69.9kg, 66.7kg)

AndThatsAFact

those weights are to big for me, I do realise the difference between loosing and cutting, What I really mean is loosing as much weight as I can without loosing muscle

Mellor

AndThatsAFact wrote: »

those weights are to big for me

Why?

I'd expect 74kg to be typical enough at 72kg and 69kg. What level are you fighting at?
Even if due to your height/frame, 63kg is the bet fit long term, you don't need to go directly there. Working towards it slowly makes more sense. Get better and losing weight and cutting weight along the way.

AndThatsAFact

want to have first amateur. But I want to get the show on the road and start loosing weight saying that im not unfit or in bad shape by any means the exact opposite but I tried eating healthy an cutting out a lot of foods but the results were minimal

Mellor

AndThatsAFact wrote: »

want to have first amateur. But I want to get the show on the road and start loosing weight saying that im not unfit or in bad shape by any means the exact opposite

If you were very overwegiht, what you are saying might make a bit more sense.
But because you are fit and in good shape, it's not really making any. Without the bodyfat to lose, you probably can't get close without losing muscle.

AndThatsAFact wrote: »

those weights are to big for me,

Why do you think that those weights are too big you you?
Unless I'm missing something, unless you lose some muscle, you are too big for 63kg and 66kg.

AndThatsAFact

id be too small in those weight classes , you would not think I was that weight to look at me im 5.7

Mellor

Some of the Muay Thai specific guys might be able to give a better insight. But sub 70kg is pretty light, 5'7" is hardly unusual around that ball park. Buakaw was 5'8" and fought at 69.5kg. A UFC Featherweight is typically 5'7 or 5'8", and walks around at 71-72kg.

If you want to get to 63kg. You'd probably have to lose a lot of muscle. Have you any idea of your current BF%?

Peetrik

The OP is right regarding his height vs his weight. 5'7 is too small to be realistically competitive at a weight class above 66kg for professional Thai. I know grapplers tend to be a bit more stocky but in Thai height is king, I'm 5'9 and compete at 59kg.
That said Thai is becoming more and more popular, a lot of gyms have fighters that are stockier builds and it's a regular thing that coaches/promoters match them together for amateur at least.

Mellor is right regarding losing muscle though, OP if you are currently in good "shape", maybe did some weight training before Thai? then you might just be carrying muscle that you might not need. A good running program and clean diet and that muscle should disappear over time.

You should definitely work your way down the weight classes, if you're 74kg now you could easily make 68kg for a same day weigh in for 6 weeks (Cork martial arts exbo on the 19th April, or the 309 Phuang Malai gym show in Dublin on the 24th). After that fight at 66kg, then 64 etc.

Doug Cartel

Peetrik, do the amateur guys cut much? If someone dieted their way down to a weight of about 63kg would they then find that the guys in the 63kg class were all way bigger than them?

Peetrik

For the most part they do cut right down. You do get people jumping in at their walk around weight for their first fight or two but after that they either learn their lesson or have been training enough that they slim down naturally anyway.

In my club we treat an amateur fight as a trial run for a professional bout, they are encouraged to train/diet/cut exactly the same as the pro fighters so that they know the the drill inside out (how to diet effectively, how to weigh cut, how to rehydrate etc etc).

In short, if they OP were to jump in at 5'7 for a 72kg fight, he probably wouldn't enjoy it very much.

AndThatsAFact

"In short, if they OP were to jump in at 5'7 for a 72kg fight, he probably wouldn't enjoy it very much" exactly man

Mellor

Peetrik wrote: »

The OP is right regarding his height vs his weight. 5'7 is too small to be realistically competitive at a weight class above 66kg for professional Thai. I know grapplers tend to be a bit more stocky but in Thai height is king, I'm 5'9 and compete at 59kg.

You are right that I'm probably being a bit grapple orientated. I knew height mattered more, but underestimated how much prehaps.

Out of curiosity, What's your walk around weight?
By walk around, I mean the weight you cut from, what you weight in the ring?

In short, if they OP were to jump in at 5'7 for a 72kg fight, he probably wouldn't enjoy it very much.

tbf, he could probably cut to 69kg from where he's at now easily enough.

Mellor is right regarding losing muscle though, OP if you are currently in good "shape", maybe did some weight training before Thai? then you might just be carrying muscle that you might not need. A good running program and clean diet and that muscle should disappear over time.

+1
Only a small bit of body recomp needed to make the cut possible.

@AndThatsAFact, if you can get your BF% measured it'll give you some good info regarding what you need to do exactly in terms of muscle verses fat loss.

AndThatsAFact

I have not had a fight yet I walk around from between 73 to 75 but want to get to a more comfortable weight where I can cut to a fight weight to suit me but still keep as much mass as possible, yes I do weights but do not consume a lot of protein. Thanks for the help lads I will try an get a bf% for you

AndThatsAFact

My body fat percentage is about 10%

JG009

AndThatsAFact wrote: »

My body fat percentage is about 10%

You are 5 7 and weigh 74 kg and your body fat is 10%. Are you sure?
Serious question.

Mellor

AndThatsAFact wrote: »

My body fat percentage is about 10%

Sorry only seen your reply now.

So currently, 74kg and 10%bf is 66.6kg FFM, and 7.4kg fat.
Say you want to cut to 63 from 67kg (4kg cut), and 8%BF, which is 61.6kg FFM, and 5.4kg fat.
So you need to lose 5kg muscle and 2kg of fat, give or take. As Peetrik said above, All you need is running and a clean diet. To get to 8% you’re diet will need to be spot on.

If you had a different target weight in mind it will affect numbers slightly. But all will be in the same ball park.
(Eg 64kg @9% requires a 7.5kg muscle/1.5kg fat)

JG009 wrote: »

You are 5 7 and weigh 74 kg and your body fat is 10%. Are you sure?
Serious question.

Put of curiosity, which part do you find odd?

Peetrik

Mellor wrote: »

Put of curiosity, which part do you find odd?

It didn't sound right to me either to be fair, anything under 15% means fit and lean. With the average Irish diet and social life it takes some proper work to get down to 10%, you don't need advice from the internet if you can maintain 10% already.

Mellor

Peetrik wrote: »

It didn't sound right to me either to be fair, anything under 15% means fit and lean. With the average Irish diet and social life it takes some proper work to get down to 10%, you don't need advice from the internet if you can maintain 10% already.

Yeah of course, 10% is far leaner than typical Irish guy. I assumed that the OP was training a while and in fairly good shape, but just unable to take it to be next level.

AndThatsAFact

Ive being doing weights and running for years but as said just never went that extra mile with the diet to cut more. From what ive read the weights training needs to stop?

Peetrik

AndThatsAFact wrote: »

From what ive read the weights training needs to stop?

Can of worms there. If you have been lifting for muscle gain and now you want to drop that muscle then clearly you change that.

The current train of thought is periodisation, heavy weights and long runs early in you camp and gradually phase that into lighter weights/fast reps and uphill sprints to build explosivity.

Don Heatrick is a bit of a guru on S&C specifically for Thai and he has loads of vids on the subject, good mix of theory and practical exercises for each period.

YFlyer

AndThatsAFact wrote: »

want to cut to 63 kg for muay thai but im 74 and I just cant cut the weight even when eating right, do I have to starve meself or what?

http://sigmanutrition.com/making-cut-part-iv-weight-cutting/?fb_ref=Default

Mellor

Attempting to cut 11kg of water the first time is a bit silly