When I competed in the AAU I weighed around 155 pounds and competed at 165, since I was tired of having dropped weight during wrestling in high school. However, back around 1998, I competed in an APA meet where I weighed in the same day to compete at 148, having dropped around ten pounds. It was also in a parking lot in the Florida heat, which was not ideal. Either way, I benched in the low 400’s and pulled close to 600, which tells me that my deadlift really should have gone up a lot more since then. Anyway, dropping five or six pounds should be relatively easy for you to do the last few days prior to weigh-ins. You shouldn’t need to go any longer than that. The longer your body is drained, the weaker you’re going to be. You want to start losing the weight when you’re done training. Here’s a variation of what I typically recommend:

Wednesday - Reduce your intake of high glycemic carbohydrates (breads, rice, pasta, potatoes) and drink a gallon of regular water. An example of this would be to have wraps instead of bread and whole grain rice instead of white rice or potatoes.

Thursday - Start low carb (the only carbs should be from vegetables and protein bars) and reduce your sodium intake (no processed foods such as deli meat, cheese, frozen foods, etc). Switch to distilled or sodium-free water. Drink at least a gallon.

Friday - Continue low sodium/carb but switch to drinking only 8 ounces of sodium free water every 2 hours. Stop eating and drinking around 4 PM.

Saturday - Post weigh-in, begin drinking diluted Gatorade (half water/half Gatorade) and eat as much salt and as many easily digestible carbohydrates as possible (pasta, potatoes) with lean meats.

It’s crucial that you weigh in at 6 AM, or as early as possible, to have time to put your weight back on. Putting five pounds back on really shouldn’t be an issue, since it’ll be almost entirely water weight.

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