Amateur, high school, and college wrestling, in addition to being a sport extremely dependent on physical strength and skill, is a weighty game. Possessing the strength of a 160-pound person, but physically confronting, wrestling, a person with the strength of a 145-pound person, dropping weight to match your opponent, is normal practice. There’s nothing illegal about it, we’re not talking about steroids or any physique-enhancing drugs. We are talking about controlling your body to achieve the goals that your mind has set for itself.

Also, there is a science to losing weight. Do it incorrectly or too quickly and you’ll not only lose your advantage, but you’ll give your opponent a huge advantage by dehydrating and losing strength. You will arrive at the match tired and slow, exactly the opposite effect to what you were looking for.

Let’s get one thing straight before we start, you can’t lose 3lbs of body fat in 1 hour unless you cut out an appendage and that’s not an option. However, you can lose 3 pounds of total body weight by losing water weight. Remember Biology 101, the body can be made up of 75% water, depending on the physical constitution of the person. The fatter the person, the greater the difference in water weight than a muscular person, for example.

So what we’re really trying to do is remove water (fluid) from the body, which will translate to less body weight. So how do we do this safely?

The first thing we need to address is our diet, and I’m not talking about eating healthy, I’m talking about eating sodium-free. Salt is the number one reason a healthy person retains water. There are other health reasons that cause water retention, but those do not apply in our case.

Therefore, if we remove as much salt as possible from the body, the body’s resistance to losing fluids decreases and makes it easier for water weight to pass through perspiration.

Perspiration, if you remember, is the body’s natural function to cool itself when temperatures rise above normal. Therefore, we must generate heat to raise the body temperature and force it to cool down through perspiration.

There are probably many different methods, some complex ones like water pills that make a person urinate continuously, to remove fluid from the body, but we will use an old tried and true method. Perspiration.

Dress in warm clothing, such as sweatshirts and sweatpants. You will notice that I use the plural form of shirts and pants because you will be layering these clothes, at least two layers and three if possible.

Be sure to wear some sort of hat, preferably a winter stocking hat, as a lot of heat is disposed of by the body through the head. We don’t want that to happen in this situation. We want to retain as much internal heat as possible.

Exercise vigorously for at least 10 minutes. This can be jogging, either on the spot or around the gym, jumping jacks, whatever feels comfortable to you, but will make you sweat a lot.

After working up a good sweat, lie back and have someone wrap you in a blanket or wrestling mat. This will keep your body temperature high after exercise, so you’ll continue to remove fluid through perspiration.

After 20 minutes, undress and weigh yourself. Most likely you have lost more than three kilos, but if not, you still have time to straighten yourself, with dry clothes, and repeat the procedure.

As with any drastic or sudden body change, there are dangers associated with this procedure. Never perform this procedure alone. Always have a trainer or fighter with quick trainer access, with you at all times. After gaining weight, rehydrate with beverages like Gatorade, which are rich in electrolytes.