Nutritional and Training Strategies for Actual Competition in World-Class Japanese Female Wrestler: A Case Report

Wrestlers have a risk of relative energy deficiency in sports because they believe that they can gain an advantage over their opponents by temporarily adopting weight-making strategies even women. However, precise methods of making weight and the effect of manipulating body mass (BM) on health and performance in female wrestlers have not been reported. Our study aimed to report a case of weight making in a world-class female wrestler, who won the world competition seven times in 5-y and had oligomenorrhea. We obtained the BM, blood, urine, and saliva samples, hand grip strength, subjective condition a month before the match (baseline), and 3-d before the match (day-3), and food and physical activity records during baseline and 10 d before the competition. The wrestler lost 4.7% of BM from baseline to day-3 and 7.6% of BM to the match by method to reduce energy intake and enhance dehydration. Hand grip strength did not change by weight loss. After weigh-in, the wrestler took the recovery food containing 4.9 g/kg BM of carbohydrate. Although these weight strategies may at least contribute to the success of wrestlers, the impact on health needs to be clarified in future studies.