The Science Behind a Wrestler’s Diet

Posted on December 27, 2015 Updated on December 27, 2015

I recently read an article about what and how wrestlers should eat for competition. As a personal fitness trainer, and a trained medical professional, I was frustrated to find, yet again, that this “guide” was devoid of any research, any reasoning and any real knowledge about diet, metabolism, and physiology, which prompted me to write this blog.

First, I think a little review of physiology and energy pathways is in order. The body’s primary energy source for cellular work is ATP (adenosine triphosphate) You can’t just eat ATP, though. It must be made inside your cells. And, the preferred source for ATP generation is glucose.

The body gets glucose in three ways:

1. from the carbohydrates a person eats
2. from glycogen stores, which the body makes following meals when blood glucose is high
3. gluconeogenesis, the process by which the body makes glucose during times of fasting from protein and metabolites.

Whenever your body needs energy, the cells break down glucose by a process called glycolysis to pyruvate and 2 molecules of ATP. In an oxygen-rich environment, like during the “aerobic” phase of exercise or at rest, pyruvate enters the Krebs’ (citric acid) cycle. This cycle has the ability to generate an additional 34 molecules of ATP.

In an anaerobic environment for the body, like strenuous exercise, ie wrestling, instead of pyruvate moving into the Krebs’ Cycle, it is converted to lactate and an additional 2 ATP molecules. This provides a short burst of energy, with the trade-off of building lactic acid in the cells. It leads to a situation known as “oxygen debt.” Lactic acid is, itself, destructive to the muscle cells. It lowers the pH of the internal cellular fluid, which results in less effective contraction in muscle cells. For this reason, muscle fatigue is a real physiologic phenomenon, though most people feel “fatigued” long before they have reached the physiological limit of their muscles.

Two things mitigate lactic acid build up: decreasing production and increasing elimination. Lactate builds up when production of lactate is greater than its removal from the cell.  Having a higher VO2max decreases its production of lactic acid by helping an athlete maintain an aerobic environment. “Lactic acid training” helps the body increase the elimination of lactic acid.

How many calories are burned in a wrestling match?

It depends on how heavy the wrestler is. A 110 pound wrestler will expend 272 calories in a match, where a 220 pound wrestler will expend 460 calories.

What to eat after weigh-ins?

This question requires knowledge of the physiology of the digestive system. The mean gastric emptying time of a liquid meal is about 2½ hours, where as the mean emptying time for a solid meal is over 4 hours. Carbohydrates are further broken down in the small intestine and then absorbed fully over its passage through the small intestine-roughly 4-5 hours.

Physiologic changes occur after about 4 hours of fasting. So, when combining the physiology of the digestive tract, recommendations for a post weigh-in meal would be a liquid meal that contains multiple simple carbohydrates (which are absorbed quickly) in at least 5 to 1 ratio with simple proteins.

For our examples above our 110 pound wrestler needs 272 calories at the minimum which corresponds to 63 grams of a combination of carbs and protein-or 54 grams of carbs and 9 grams of protein at the minimum. While the 220 lb wrestler will require a minimum of 460 calories or 115 grams of carb and protein or 100 grams of carbs and 15 grams of protein. A liquid meal will get passed through the stomach twice as fast as a solid meal and a simple carbohydrate will be digested and absorbed faster than complex ones making energy readily available for use in competition.

Because each carbohydrate has a distinct absorption mechanism in the gut, eating a mixture of carbs (fructose, glucose, galactose) maximizes the rate of total carb absorption and transport into the blood stream. After the match, the athlete should have a snack to replete what was consumed during the intense workout in a ratio of 1 g/kg of carbs and .5g/kg of protein, or for our examples the 110 pound wrestler should have 50 grams of carbs and 25 grams of protein and the 220 pound wrestler should have 100 grams of carbs and 50 grams of protein. Chocolate milk is a favorite recovery drink with a 3 to 1 (carb : protein) ratio.

Wrestlers should have carb-rich meals with complex carbohydrates the night prior to, and following, competition. These meals will take 8-9 hours to digest and keep blood glucose levels stable over that span. There appears to be no advantage in high versus low glycemic carbohydrates taken prior to exercise. With post-exercise carbohydrate consumption metabolism has shown some slight differences. Consuming high glycemic carbs in the post-exercise phase is associated with increased muscle glycogen re-synthesis, while consuming low glycemic carbs yielded higher fat oxidation. No differences have been noted in recovery or subsequent performance, however.