Percentage of Body Fat and Weight Gain in Participants in the Tehran High School Wrestling Championship

PURPOSE Weight loss in wrestling has been found to be an interesting issue for researchers. In this regard, complications of weight loss in wrestlers before the competitions and their weight gain in course of competitions have been debated in previous studies. The objective of this study was to investigate the extent of weight gain and to estimate the percentage of body fat in participants in the Tehran high school male wrestling championship. METHODS This study was a cross sectional survey. Subjects were participants of the Tehran high school male wrestling championship (n = 365). Weight gain in course of competitions and body fat levels (based on skin fold measurements) of subjects were measured. RESULTS Between the first weigh-in of the wrestlers which was done one day before the competitions and the second weigh-in which was conducted immediately before the first round of their first competition (20 hours), 69% of subjects gained on average 1.3±0.9 kg (range: 0.1 to 6.10 kg) or 2.2±1.7% of the wrestler's weight (range: 0.1 to 9.3). Among the subjects, the mean of fat body percentage was found to be 15.2%. CONCLUSIONS Rapid weight loss for matches was prevalent among subjects. It was also found that Iranian wrestlers have a relatively higher body fat percentage in comparison to American wrestlers. Therefore, it can be concluded that weight loss behavior of these wrestlers should be changed from using dehydration methods to using gradual methods of weight loss such as fat reduction methods.