For those that didn’t see the trending news yesterday, the IWF released the new proposed weight categories to be implemented this year. If you haven’t seen them, please CLICK HERE for a list of the new categories. From our perspective, this is overwhelmingly positive for 95% of the lifters we know and deal with on a daily basis, but decisions must be made in some extreme cases.
Our best initial advice would be to carry on as normal and DO NOT CUT! Here’s a little bit more about what this means for the general Weightlifting public:
If you are a beginning or recreational Weightlifter, I would urge you to carry on as normal and weigh what you weigh naturally. There is no sense in trying to drastically cut if you’re in the developmental stages of honing your technical abilities. I understand this is a big change to a lot of Weightlifters, however, as an athlete in the preliminary stages of development in the sport, training and competing should be about making lifts and learning the competition process…but most of all about having an enjoyable experience.
Your body will perform best at the body weight at which it most naturally normalizes. Keep training, get some competition experience under your belt, THEN start to worry about what your bodyweight you may or may not be “more competitive” at! Get involved, learn the scene, meet some people, and make some friends. It’s hard to make friends at meets when you’re on a carb and calorie depletion and hangry all the time because you’re cutting 2 weight classes for a local meet. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR TRAINING!
For those on the national circuit, you and your coaches probably already have a plan or are formulating one as this new information unfolds.
Though many things may change clerically, one thing is certain: we will all still train hard for whatever it is we want to accomplish no matter how much we weigh!
