A Review Of The Sigma Weight Cutting System
A good number of years ago now, I had my second, and last, Muay Thai fight. The weigh-in was in the morning of the fight day (If you don’t know, most weigh-ins are the night before). I was 2kg over weight and was instructed to eat and drink nothing in the morning and sit in a sauna until I sweated the weight off of me. Even though I was sweating like OJ when he was trying on the glove, I still struggled to get my weight down. By the time the fight came, I was still dehydrated and felt exhausted when warming up. I lost that fight.
After reading the Sigma Weight Cutting System by Danny Lennon I now realize that I could have made that weight without the use of a sauna. Would I have felt better going in to the fight? Most definitely yes. Would I have won that fight? Unfortunately, we will never know. I guess that is the pain of being a coach. You are constantly learning better ways to do things and wish you could go back and coach yourself and your previous clients all over again.
If you are in any way involved in a competitive fighting sport that involves cutting weight, I can highly recommend this book. The step by step guide on what to do the week before the fight to cut weight safely and efficiently is excellent. With great advice on what to do to optimally rehydrate afterwards (man, I could have used this advice!). It covers water and electrolyte manipulation, glycogen depletion and other techniques.
The book contains good evidence based recommendations on fueling your training sessions, not only when cutting weight, but when training all year round. There is advice on supplements, balancing electrolytes, carb cycling and exactly how much calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates to consume.
There are recommendations on how much weight is reasonable to cut, which I’m sure will save many fighters from sabotaging their efforts. It also comes with appendices detailing food recommendations, sample diets and more.
After reading the book I had a few questions which I emailed over to Danny. He got back to me within a day with detailed answers. He is one of the genuine good guys and is truly interested in putting out quality evidence based recommendations.
I highly recommend this book for anyone competing in a weight cutting fighting sport. Maybe you can save yourself or your fighters from the regret of not being in peak shape for the sake of cutting a few kilos.
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