Episode #24: Danny Lennon, MSc - Cutting & Confining to a Powerlifting Weight Class | A Decision Hierarchy
The sport of powerlifting is composed of competitive weight classes. As such, during the competitive growth of a powerlifter, they are faced with the decisions to choose a weight class to compete in. However, for a competitive advantage, a majority of competitive powerlifters choose to sit slightly above their chosen weight class and weight cut into competition.
In this episode of the PRS Podcast we sit down with expert nutritionist, podcast host, coach and competitive fighter and powerlifter, Danny Lennon, MSc to discuss the topic of weight manipulation for the weight class sport of powerlifting. With the high variability of weight classes between federations, weigh in time period, and changes in weight classes within federations, we feel it’s important to have an educated discussion about this to help athletes, coaches, and rehab clinicians, in the weight class/cut decisions making process to optimize short term and long term performance and physical and psychological health of the powerlifter.
Some of the topics we covered in this episode include:
What is a weight cut/loss versus a water cut and how does this vary depending on the “weigh in” time frame and goals of the lifter?
How should someone decide when one or both is appropriate?
What are factors that help you determine if confining to a weight class is appropriate for an athlete?
Is the process different based on biological sex?
What are non-dietary/training related factors that influence someone’s ability to successfully manage and manipulate weight to be successful at weigh in and in a weight class
How sleep and stress affect recovery and performance as well as body weight DURING meet week/water cut and long term
What are the psychological implications of acute weight loss/manipulation and long term fat loss/caloric deficit?
2 versus 24 hour weigh ins - can we approach these differently from a long term and acute perspective?
Connect with Danny!
Podcast: Sigma Nutrition Radio
Website: Sigma Nutrition
Instagram: @dannylennon_sigma
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:00:10] Today, we are speaking with Danny Lennon, a long-time podcaster. So we're super excited about that because this is where you thrive! So tell us a little about your nutritional background, coaching background, interest in weight class and weight cutting and performance weight classes, and stuff like that. So go ahead.
Danny Lennon, MSc. Nutritional Science: [00:00:55] Sure. Awesome. First, thanks for having me. Hopefully, this will be of some interest, so I'll try and keep my background relatively brief so as not to bore people. From an academic standpoint, I have an undergrad degree in biology and physics and followed by a master's degree in nutritional sciences. And off that, I started a company called Sigma Nutrition, which has been going for the past nine years, including the podcast Sigma Nutrition Radio that you mentioned. And most of that work is centered around trying to discuss and create educational content around nutrition science primarily. And for the first number of years, I was also working as a nutrition practitioner, both with people, the general population, as well as performance athletes. My interest in sports led me into a few different domains, one being grappling sports, MMA, and so on. So I ended up working with quite a lot of those athletes early on, which is where, from a practitioner standpoint, my initial interest in weight cutting came in, and then also, as an amateur athlete for my own kind of interest, I've competed in things like Brazilian jujitsu as well as powerlifting in more recent years. And so I've ended up working with quite a lot of powerlifters as well. But most of my work nowadays is focused on the content creation side of things, which ends up being reading research and trying to break that down to explain it in a useful way, mainly geared toward other practitioners or people with an intermediate-advanced level of nutrition already. But yeah, that's a kind of a bit of background, but specifically for making weight with weight-class athletes. A lot of that has been with combat sports athletes. So like I said, I've worked with many professional MMA athletes, professional boxers, amateurs in both of those grappling sports, and then some powerlifters and, to a lesser degree, some weightlifters, but still thrown in there too.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:02:59] Well, we are excited to speak with you because we wanted to take that context of weight cutting and dive into it in terms of the difference between weight loss and cutting weight for competition. And then we wanted to talk about it because a lot is going on in the sport of powerlifting. When you look at the different federations and when you look at the weight classes within federations. Alyssa and I have been part of USA Powerlifting since I think Alyssa, and my first experience in USA powerlifting was in 2014. And since then, there's been two major weight class changes, and even across federations, when you go from RPS to USAPL to now Powerlifting America and IPF, there are so many different weight classes that you can fall into. And I think it becomes challenging for people when they fall in the middle of a weight class. And then you also have people who think that they have to make weight for competition and it might not necessarily be appropriate for them to make weight. So, we wanted to have this conversation with you because, as physical therapists, powerlifting coaches, and nutrition coaches. We work with people across different contexts, in terms of stress management, weight management, injury management, and within the context of competing in powerlifting or even some strongman competitors and whatnot.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:04:46] And not everyone competes at a high level that we work with. Not everybody who we work with even competes. But we do have a varying degree of level of advancement and a level of competitiveness across our clients. And it is represented in the people who listen to our podcast, receive our newsletter, and follow us on social media platforms. So we wanted to talk to you about what weight classes are, how your level of advancement and your competitive level kind of play into figuring out what weight class is right for you, and if you should confine yourself to a weight class. So for those who are listening to this podcast, you aren't familiar with weight cutting or weight loss versus a water cut. How does that vary depending on the weigh-in time frame and the goals of the lifter?
Danny Lennon, MSc. Nutritional Science: [00:05:45] Yeah. This is the perfect question because there are a lot of different terminologies that get used, and in fact, I see different people use certain terms in different ways. And so I'll try and give people an idea of where they may hear these. And then the way I like to categorize it, to try and keep it as concise as possible. So these terms that you mentioned of losing weight, cutting weight, and then water cuts might be all separate things, but could also be used all at once. So, for example, a water cut is typically when an athlete is referring to manipulating their body water through dehydration, typically in order to make weight. But that could be part of a larger weight-cutting strategy. And so the way I think the best way for people to conceptualize this, and this is also what you see in the literature, so it's most accurate, I think, is that we should think of this as essentially two phases, that there is a chronic weight loss phase and an acute weight loss phase. And I say weight loss here because we're talking specifically about athletes going from their usual walk-around weight to a lower weight for competition. So we can talk about other examples later on, but typically for weight cutting, we're talking about someone reducing their body weight to make weight for competition.
Danny Lennon, MSc. Nutritional Science: [00:07:02] We can think of these two phases. As the name suggests, the chronic weight loss phase is over a chronic period, so multiple weeks or even months. And this typically refers to reducing weight through losing body fat. So reductions in body fat mass could be muscle mass, but typically not. So we would try and stay away from that if possible. So a loss of body fat mass over a number of weeks through a high-caloric diet. So using a calorie deficit or reducing overall caloric intake to reduce body fat mass over many weeks or months to reduce weight down closer to your weight class limit. People typically think of the acute weight loss phase as weight cutting. That happens in the final week, let's say, before you go into a weigh-in. And as that name suggests, the acuteness of it is you get a rapid change in weight loss. So in the literature, you may see this as rapid weight loss, where the weight comes down quite quickly, but it's done through methods that are only short-term or transient. So an example would be dehydration. You can rapidly reduce your weight by losing stores of body water, but your weight returns as soon as you drink water again.
Danny Lennon, MSc. Nutritional Science: [00:08:14] So it's purely done for the purposes of essentially artificially, if anything, bringing the weight down so you can make weight, and then it comes back up, and then you go and compete. So examples would be dehydration or losing stores of water. It could be the depletion of glycogen, which is the storage form of carbohydrates in your muscle and liver that will lose some degree of weight. And then, as we'll probably talk about a bit later on, we can also do things like a low residue or low fiber diet, reducing the contents in your GI tract. So, therefore, your weight goes down. So these are all short-term rapid weight loss strategies that, importantly, are doing nothing to change your actual tissue mass. So in that final week of a meet, you're not going to change how much body fat you have to any meaningful degree. You're not going to want to change actual muscle mass. You're changing gut residue water in the body and glycogen stores. You could do those to bring weight rapidly down, make weight, and hopefully restore at least water and carbohydrate before you compete. And that might always be possible, which we'll get to.
Danny Lennon, MSc. Nutritional Science: [00:09:24] But those would be the two distinctions. So you have this chronic weight loss phase, which we can think of as fat loss dieting for lack of a better term, and then the rapid or acute weight loss, which is these short-term strategies that we know will reduce your scale weight but aren't changing your body tissue. And we use those. So in terms of using them, we can use both in conjunction. You can have athletes diet for many weeks before a meet and then use other strategies. Then, in the final week, you could have someone who maybe only uses one or the other. So an athlete that's only a kilo above their weight class or a pound or two might need a very slight diet, tighten their nutrition for a few weeks, and then they're on weight. They don't need to use any acute strategies. Or you might have someone who prefers not to use any caloric restriction and just use a small water cut at the end. So they would only use that strategy. So it could be one. Or both that an athlete uses, but hopefully, that somehow gets it clear in people's minds what these different set phases might look like.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:10:29] So I was going to ask, how should someone decide when one or both of those strategies is appropriate, especially with the example that you gave when you have somebody who maybe only needs to lose a kilogram? Will we cut calories a little for a few weeks, or will we wait until the week of the competition and do a water cut instead? And also, what factors help determine if being confined to a weight class is even appropriate for that athlete?
Join our Facebook Community for free form checks, live Q&As & more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PRS.Barbell.Mastery
Got questions or guests you'd like to hear on the show? Submit them here: https://forms.gle/7Vu2HmgHoeQY9xM59
Get in touch with the show!
Web: https://www.progressiverehabandstrength.com
Email: podcast@progressiverehabandstrength.com
Rori IG: @rorimegan_prs
Alyssa IG: @alyssahope_prs