How do you chose to be a certain weight class?Does the coach chose for you or you chose for your self?

Question

Is it your natuaral frame?Do you eat more to gain weight or do you eat less to gain weight?

Im comfuse because when i watch boxing,kick boxing or martial arts I see fighters try to lose weight.Your weight can be your bone structure,fat,or muscles.Most of the time i see them trying to lose weight and some are fat like bobb sapp and buterbea.Could some one who is a coach in that stuff or a fighter who competes explain to me how it works?

Answer 1

You have to keep in mind that a high percentage of your body weight is water and to a lesser extent fat. So when you are dropping down in weight you are trying to replace the fat with muscle as well as lower your percentage of body fat and water weight. This of course requires hard, vigorous workouts and a careful attention to diet so that you more easily replace the fat and water weight you are losing with muscle. By doing this you then have a distinct advantage in that you have lowered you body weight, increased your strength and stamina and are literally fighting at a lower weight than what your natural, everyday weight is.

A fighter that does not do this or do this very efficiently is then forced to fight at a more natural, heavier weight class that he can fit into and fight fighters over his weight that are dropping down and competing at a lower weight class. Aerobic activity, heart rate, age, all have a lot to do with this and larger, heavier fighters by nature of their size are much stronger but find it very difficult to train at a high aerobic level as long as or as much as their lower weight counter parts. Fighters like Bob Sapp can lose 10-12 pounds in a workout and because they are so big it is almost nothing in proportion to their real weight. They train but don't necessarily try to drop below the heavy weight or super heavy weight classes. Also the spread between weight classes in the middle and lower weight classes is much less than the spread in the heavier weight classes. Someone of Sapp's physical stature probably can't realistically get much below 240 or 250 and I would bet that he has not seen that weight since he was much younger and still growing.

Answer 2

Guys like Bob Sapp and Butterbean, are heavy weights. They don't have to watch their weight. All they have to worry about is how good they are, and conditioning.
It's also up to a fighter to choose their weight class. Proper diet is a must.

When i started training, i was 235 pounds. I figured with diet and exercise i could lose weight and get to 180, to fight at 170. You have to pick a class you feel comfortable fighting at

Answer 3

Bob Sapp and Butterbean fight in super fights, which is pretty much a nice way of saying freak show fights where there is no weight limit. They aren't real fighters, just brawlers.

For real fighters, it is your natural weight that determines what weight class you will be in. Some people natural weight is just 5 or 6 pounds over the weight class they want to fight in.

Then you have others, whose natural weight might put them in a weight class that has competition skill level way higher then what they are at, so therefore they will move up or down 1 weight class for they can have a better shot of winning a fight.

For example....Randy Coulture moved back up to heavyweight because in light heavyweight there was way too many strikers in that weight class and he knew he was old and slower and would have kept on losing if he stayed in that class.

Rashaad Evans dropped from heavyweight to light heavyweight because he knew he was too short for heavyweight and would do better at light heavyweight where most fighters are around his height.

Mike Swick dropped from middleweight to welterweight because he knew his body really was too skinny for middleweight and he would do better at welterweight.

Jens Pulver dropped from lightweight to bantam weight because of the same reason.

So class is determined by a combination of your natural weight and what weight class you stand to win in better based on the skill level of the other fighters in that weight class.

Answer 4

Your weight class should be determined by your natural frame.

You weigh yourself, determine your weight, then 'make weight' for the highest on the next lowest weight division.

Say you weighed in at 165 lbs. To be on the upper end of the next weight division you might have to lose 5 lbs rather than gain five lbs. And basically that is how it works.

I weighed in at 180 lbs when I was 18 years old and it was all bone, cartiledge, and muscle, very little fat, so I was at the bottom of the next highest weight division and competed against 195-205 lb competitors.

Answer 5

Good question! I have thought about this, and I can't say that I have a definitive answer. If you'll notice, most people will say, "Oh, no, I would never choose pain," but, on another level, this does have to do with whether or not...or how much...we predicate our life's experiences. We choose to do things that have positive or negative results for us and/or others, and sometimes those things result in pain. Did we choose the pain? At least some of the time, the answer appears to be "yes." Best wishes!

Answer 6

it all depends on you basically the easiest way to explian it you want to cut as much fat as you can with out cutting muscle preety much all the fighters other then most heavyweight guys cut weight BJ penn is abotu 165 to 170 average for a fight he cuts to 155 same with shawn sherk I am 140 to 145 I plan to fight soon I will probably fight at 135.

when the gusy actually fight there bigger then they are announced a 205 lbs guy can put on 10 pound sin water weigth in 24 hours since you preety much dehryte yourself for the fight

If you weigth 165lbs with out working out you probably have some fat on you you want to cut it before you fight

Answer 7

chose weight classcoach chose chose