The new NCAA rule changes demand that wrestlers understand how not only make weight, but also win at that weight! No longer will a wrestler be able to cut weight by dehydration and then hope to gain the water back in the short time period before his match.

To wrestle your best and win those tough matches, you need to be in top condition. A basic understanding of nutrition is vital, if you want to give your body what it needs for top performance. Most people in America have nutritional problems, and can benefit from studying and following the American Dietetic Associations recommendations, but wrestlers have additional special problems, some of which are discussed below.

Dehydration and Hyperthermia
First, understand that dehydration is your enemy. When you get dehydrated your blood volume drops, just like when you hemorrhage or give a blood donation. How many wrestlers would be dumb enough to give a blood donation before a big match? Even wrestlers are not that dumb!

When you get dehydrated you may have trouble sweating and sending blood to your skin where it can help keep you cool. With dehydration keeping your temperature down to safe levels can be difficult. Heat injury can not only make you sick, it can cause muscle damage and destruction and kidney failure. Heat injury is serious. It can even kill.

Study after study shows that even minimal dehydration can adversely affect your athletic performance. You must be sure you are fully hydrated before your matches, if you want to give yourself the best chance to win.

Electrolytes
When you sweat, you lose a variable amount of electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc.) in the sweat. Generally, the better the shape you are in, the fewer electrolytes you lose in your sweat. Some athletes are better than others in saving electrolytes in their bodies .If you get low on electrolytes you can not hold water in your body. You may not even drink enough water even if you are already low on water. You can also lose strength. All of your bodies biochemical systems depend on the proper number and type of electrolytes. If the electrolytes that you lose in your sweat and other fluids such as urine are not replaced your performance will suffer. Give your body all the electrolytes it needs. To rehydrate yourself after a heavy workout, drink your electrolytes drink first and get your fill, and then follow this with water. This will help insure an adequate water intake. If you take water first you may not take in enough water.

Remember that your kidneys are your friends. If you give your kidneys plenty of water and electrolytes to work with they will do a great job of keeping just the right amount of water and electrolytes in your body. Also your kidneys help neutralize acids that are produced when you exercise. Whatever you do, do not try to trick your kidneys by using diuretics, which work by stopping some of the kidneys normal water, electrolytes and acid buffering balancing functions.

Carbohydrates
Food provides energy needed to wrestle. Studies show that even elite athletes often ask their bodies to do heavy difficult work without providing the proper amount of fuel. The main fuel that is often lacking is carbohydrate. Your muscle must be flooded with an adequate amount of carbohydrates for immediate use to do quick heavy muscle contraction. While there are backup systems from proteins and fats to provide energy, it is carbohydrates that provide most of your immediate energy needs.

Scientific studies show again and again that many athletes simply do not give their bodies enough carbohydrates and their that their performance suffers. From these studies, it is clear that you must provide your body with large amounts of carbohydrates to get top performance from body. If you are in a starvation mode, you lose not only fat, but you probably will lose still more muscle. Which will make you weaker. To build more muscle you need plenty of food including carbohydrates.

Fat
Here is another tip, avoid fat especially before hard workouts and matches. Fat has been shown in recent studies to prevent the natural dilatation on blood vessels when your body needs it most, such as in heavy exercise. This is thought why people oftentimes have heart attacks following big fatty meals. Vitamin C may help prevent this effect of fat.

Vitamins?
What about vitamins? Will they help my wrestling performance? Well if you eat a good diet, with lots of fruits and vegetables of at least five fruits and vegetables each day you probably are getting most of the vitamins you need, but taking RDA of all recommended vitamins is safe and insures that you will not have major deficiencies of the common vitamins which help the body perform basic functions.

Antioxidants
What about taking antioxidants? First you need to know that antioxidants are substances that your body either makes or that you eat that helps your body combat oxidative radicals which are made in your body and attack your bodies tissues and organs. These oxidative radicals are thought by medical science to cause many of degenerative and age related diseases. We know many things can lead to excessive formation of oxidative radicals such as smoking, sun exposure, stress, infectious disease and even heavy exercise.

Some sports scientists believe that oxidative radicals make the elite athlete especially subject to premature disease such as arthritis, cancer, heart disease, degenerative eye disease, and even such things as muscle soreness following heavy exercise. In my opinion, everyone including wrestlers, should take an antioxidant supplement to help prevent some of these conditions.

Creatine for Muscle
What about using creatine? When I first heard about athletes using creatine I was very skeptical about its usefulness. Many supplements come and go and the initial hype gradually fades. This is not true about creatine. The use of creatine to enhance strength, recovery, decrease muscle soreness, and increase muscle mass has been proven out with many good scientific articles. Creatine is increasingly used in not only wrestling , but in many sports as well. Even beyond creatines use in sports, physicians are beginning to use creatine to enhance the function of muscle and the heart in people who are sick with various muscle and heart conditions. Most medical reports are very enthusiastic about creatines usage. Most importantly, no dangerous side-effects have been found by the doctors in very carefully controlled medical situations.

The recent wrestling deaths have now been reviewed by the Center For Disease Control who found that the deaths were related to severe dehydration practices and high temperatures associated with the dehydration and use of plastics to further raise body temperatures. Creatine was not implicated in these deaths. My own best information is that only one of the three wrestlers ever took creatine and he had stopped taking creatine several weeks before he died.

Wrestlers continue to be very enthusiastic about the use of creatine. All serious wrestlers should be very familiar with creatine and know exactly how to use it to enhance his wrestling performance. In my opinion, creatine is a very exciting substance that will increasingly be used by most athletes including wrestlers.

Building Blocks for Bone and Joints
Wrestling puts terrific strain on your bones and joints. To give you the best chance of avoiding fractures and injuries to joints, you must give your body the building blocks necessary to make these as strong as possible. Supplemental calcium and vitamin D has been shown to decrease the incidence of bone fractures. Also it has been shown that many people are deficient in Vitamin D, which is necessary for calcium absorption. Exercise can make your bones stronger if you give your body the necessary building blocks. Other minerals have been found that may have a role in strengthening bones.

Glucosamine, a building block for cartilage, is being used by doctors to maintain joint function and decrease joint pain in patients with arthritis. Athletes using glucosamine report less joint soreness with heavy exercise.

Nutrition Knowledge
If you were a race driver and you wanted to win big races you would be expected to know a lot about how your car works. You would get the best mechanics possible to help you. You would continually be checking its performance and tuning it up.

Do the same thing for your body. Learn all you can about your body, treat it well and it will serve you well. To win big in wrestling, you must be able to get top performance from your body. Winning nutrition leads to winning wrestling.

Note:
Dr. Lynn Myers, is one of the country's top experts on supplements, and has appeared on CNN Sports and ESPN's One On One Sports. Dr. Myers developed creatine gum.