Competition Schedule
These are the tournaments I currently plan on attending (click on the date to view the flyer). If you know of additional tournaments you would like to attend, please contact me. Please sign-up as early as possible.
Schedule:
November 29, 2015 (Sunday) – ” Matt Mustakis Fundraiser ” (St. James, NY). CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!!
December 27, 2015 (Sunday) – Plainedge Tournament. Click here for details.
December 28-December 31, 2015 – WRESTLING CAMP AT DYNAMIC, 10am-3pm. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.
January 10, 2016 (Sunday) – ” 9th Annual Lindenhurst Youth Wrestling Tournament ” (Lindenhurst, NY). Click here to REGISTER!
February 5-7, 2016 ( Friday thru Sunday) – ” 2016 National Duals ” (Wildwood, NJ). Flyer to Follow
February 28, 2016 – NYWAY State Qualifier
February 28, 2016 – Open qualifier for states (if you missed your chance to qualify). It is at bayshore HS, flyer not available yet.
March 5-6, 2016 – NY Youth State Championships.
March 11-13, 2016 – NYWAY State Championships.
March 19, 2016 (Saturday) – Longwood Tournament
March 26, 2016 (Saturday) – “LIU Post Kids/MS Tournament ” (Brookville, NY). Flyer to Follow
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Please read below on Dynamic’s Tournament Policy:
You, the parent, are responsible for registering your child for all tournaments. This includes submitting any registration form(s), making payment(s) and weighing in your child. In regards to transportation, if you need help with carpooling (or can provide carpooling), please contact me a few days before the tournament so I can work it out.
We will have a specified meeting time and location at every tournament so that the boys can warm up as a team and I can give them a pep-talk and rundown of what to expect. Please arrive on time, register, and then find me immediately!
Please have the boys dressed in their Dynamic uniforms and singlets so that we look and feel like a team.
It is your job to know when your child is wrestling. Look at the bracket sheets to figure out when they will be up. If you don’t understand it, ask for help. Most tournaments are double elimination, so do not leave unless you are sure your child will not be wrestling again.
Although I will try my best, I cannot guarantee that I will be present for all of your child’s matches, as many times there will be several of my wrestlers competing simultaneously. Here is the order of which matches will take priority:
1) First match ever (If it is the wrestler’s first time in a tournament match, they get priority over all other matches).
2) Championship round (Wrestlers still competing for 1st place will take precedence over wrestlers wrestling back for 3rd).
3) Rivalry (A wrestler about to face a rival or a very tough opponent gets priority).
4) Whichever match starts first.
A coach in the corner is not necessary (except for first timers and young wrestlers), but feel free to step in and play the role of coach when I am not available; teammates will also be able to help with coaching and moral support. I suggest learning the rules of wrestling so you have a decent idea of strategy; look under the technique tab on this website for the “beginners corner” to get started.
When 2 members of Dynamic wrestle one another, I will not coach either of them, but will quietly watch the match. The only exception I will make is if one wrestler has someone coaching him, I will coach the other. If you choose to coach your own child, I will coach the other wrestler.
You can find more tournaments here:
http://longislandwrestling.org/liwa/calendar.htm
http://www.njwrestlingtournaments.com/
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Nutrition:
Nutrition
(Article by Kirk White, expert wrestler – http://www.kirkwhitewrestling.com)
Proper nutrition is especially important in sports like wrestling that classify competitors by weight. Dr. Lynn Myers, an expert on nutrition and supplementation, published an article on Intermatwrestle.com (a top amateur wrestling website) discussing the utilization of nutrition and supplements to increase wrestlers’ performance levels (2000). The article advises increasing carbohydrate intake and decreasing fat before exercise and competition. After a heavy workout it is best to drink your electrolytes drink first to hydrate yourself, then follow with plenty of water. Drinking the electrolytes drink first will help insure adequate water intake. Myers notes that performance will suffer if electrolytes lost in sweat are not replaced.
Wrestlers should eat between 3000 and 5500 calories per day, spread out over as many as ten meals a day. Their diet should be low in fat, and high in carbohydrates. Wrestlers need about two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. Protein intake need not exceed 30 grams in a given meal. A sample menu is provided showing what an elite freestyle wrestler might eat in a typical day during the season.
Risks of Rapid Weight Loss
High school, college, and freestyle wrestling have had weight classes for most of the 20th century. The terms “cutting weight” or “making weight” have been associated with any sport with weight classifications in the last five decades (wrestling, boxing, martial arts, power-lifting, bodybuilding). “Making Weight” has been defined as ”the practice of voluntary weight loss by dehydration and the withholding of food so as to make wrestling weights” by Steen and Brownell (1990).
The purpose of making weight is to increase competitive odds of winning matches. The concept is that wrestling at a lower weight class will give the competitor an advantage in size, strength, and leverage over an opponent. However, poor weight loss strategies will inevitably lead to decreased performance. Poor weight loss strategies include total fluid restriction, total caloric restriction (starving), and environments heated by something other than bodily metabolism.
Several articles have been written regarding potential health risks involved with careless rapid weight loss. The American Medical Association (1967) and the American College of Sports Medicine (1976 and 1996) issued position statements against certain unhealthy weight loss techniques. These statements specified the need to educate coaches on dehydration, discouraged unhealthy acute water-weight loss methods, and encouraged daily weigh-ins and body composition testing.
The second position statement by the American College of Sports Medicine was issued in 1996 containing performance-related information. Stressing performance-related information rather than health risks made this document original. The report gave the following information regarding the adverse affects of careless weight loss:
-Possible reduction in muscle strength and anaerobic power capacity
-Lower plasma and blood volume, increased resting and sub-maximal heart rate, decreased cardiac stroke volume (decreased endurance capacity)
-Lower oxygen consumption
-Thermoregulatory processes impaired (decreases endurance capacity, increases risk of heat illness)
-Decreased renal blood flow and kidney filtration of blood.
-Lower muscle and liver glycogen (reduces endurance and blood glucose levels, accelerates the breakdown of protein)
-Depletes electrolytes resulting in impaired muscle function, coordination, cardiac arrhythmia
Steen, Oppliger, and Brownell (1988) studied weight-cutting practices and found that they “have shown adverse effects on body composition, nutrient intake, renal function and electrolyte balance, thermal regulation, testosterone, and strength.” Also, wrestlers with weight cutting histories had significantly lower metabolic rates than wrestlers without weight cutting histories.
Webster, Rutt, and Weltman (1990) conducted a study on the physiological effects of weight cutting, and found that a 5% pre-competition body weight reduction in wrestlers (within 12 hours of weigh-in) through exercise in plastics decreases strength, anaerobic power, anaerobic capacity, lactate threshold, and aerobic power. The decrease in strength could result from a muscle and liver glycogen store decrease. They also found that peak lactate levels, lactate threshold, and running velocities were decreased when wrestlers were in a dehydrated state.
Callan, Brunner, and Devolve profiled physiological data of the United States World Team in preparation for the 1997 World Championships. They tested the wrestlers on 6 physiological parameters: upper-body muscular power and endurance, body composition, lower-body muscular power (vertical jump), upper-body power and anaerobic capacity (5 stage modified Wingate Protocol), peak aerobic power (treadmill), and lower back / hamstring flexibility. Freestyle wrestling is almost identical to collegiate wrestling in the type of energy systems used, but the freestyle matches are one minute shorter. At the time of the test the wresters averaged 12 pounds above their combative weight, but only 6.5 percent body fat. The study noted that an appropriate balance of water, lean tissue, and fat loss must be found in order to minimize performance decreases.
Healthy Weight Loss Strategies
The best way to lose weight is to increase your metabolism. The two best ways to increase your metabolism are to increase lean body mass through resistance training, and spread your caloric intake over as many meals as possible. The most effective way to lose weight is to never get full, and never get hungry or thirsty. Even one hour before weigh-ins it is wise to eat supplement bars and drink a sports drink while exercising. You will maximize your weight loss ability while providing your body with sufficient energy to continue exercising, which will ultimately lead to more weight loss.
One method that has worked for wrestlers of all ages is the “sponge method.” Robert Blessing, a coach of many age group national teams in the past 20 years, designed this method and has implemented it to a variety of successful wrestlers.
The method is named for a sponge because your body works like a sponge, Blessing explains. A dry sponge cannot soak up water and perform its duty. Similarly, your body needs food and water to lose weight. Even within three hours of a weigh-in, Blessing orders his wrestlers to continue eating small meals and drinking water and electrolytes drinks.
Blessing’s sponge method is simple; if a wrestler needs to lose weight quickly, but refuses to sacrifice health through starvation, sauna sessions, and excessive workouts, Blessing has them “sponge down.” If a wrestler loses five pounds in a practice, that wrestler should eat and drink back four pounds. After five to six workouts, that wrestler has lost over seven pounds (allowance for waste products) while neither becoming hungry nor thirsty. If additional weight must be lost, the wrestler should workout an additional session prior to the weigh-in, and then eat and drink back the weight lost in the last workout.
This method decreases lean mass loss, increases fat loss, and allows mild dehydration to occur without drying out the stomach and intestinal tract. Coach Robert Blessing has never had a wrestler feel weak, dizzy, faint, or experience cramps during or after weight loss of between 3 and 12 pounds in less than ten days. I have had no adverse side effects of cutting from 175 to 163 pounds in a ten-day period.
Why Kirk hates the Atkins diet:
This is the story of Nathan Pritikin, who started a health revolution in America. It is also the story of Pritikin’s decades-long battle with Dr. Robert Atkins, whose diet books have topped bestseller lists in America for the past several years. The nation is confused with “low-fat vs. low-carb” and is now consumed by the Atkins low-carb “health” craze. Restaurants and food manufacturers across the country are now catering to this “health” craze. The battle could turn soon, thanks to this week’s revelations in The Wall Street Journal about Atkins’ heart disease, hypertension, and obesity – and future revelations about Atkins’ medical history.
In 1958, when he was 41, Pritikin was diagnosed with heart disease. Cardiologists told him to keep eating his diet full of butter, ice cream, and steaks. But Pritikin, an inventor with numerous patents, started doing his own research and became convinced that people with cholesterol levels under 160 rarely suffered from heart disease. They had something else in common: they ate a diet high in natural, fiber-rich carbohydrates and very low in fat, particularly saturated fat from meat and dairy foods. By contrast, those countries that consumed the most fat had the most arterial clogging, and they had the highest rates of heart disease.
Pritikin’s own cholesterol at that time was 280. He created an eating plan rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans and with moderate amounts of lean meat, seafood, and nonfat dairy foods. He also began exercising. His cholesterol plummeted to 120. Two years later, a new electrocardiogram showed that his coronary insufficiency had disappeared. His test results: normal.
Emboldened by his new life, Pritikin launched several research projects over the next 25 years that have now validated the efficacy of his program. In 1975, he also opened the Pritikin Longevity Center, now located at Turnberry Isle in Aventura, FL, a residential program of diet, exercise and education that attracts people from around the world. At the Center, cholesterol levels plummeted 23% and more; 83% of the people with soaring blood pressure on medication left with normal blood pressures, free of hypertension medication; 70% of type 2 diabetics on medication left drug-free and insulin-free; people who had already been scheduled for heart bypass surgery left never needing the operation and 81% of them still didn’t need the surgery after 5 years. The stories became legend. To date, these and other results of the Pritikin Program have been published by UCLA scientists in nearly 90 studies in top peer-reviewed medical journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.
But the opening of the Center and the avalanche of publicity Pritikin received touched off a war between Pritikin and the medical establishment. One of Pritikin’s strongest critics was Dr. Robert Atkins, whose own diet was the antithesis of Pritikin’s. During the late-70s and early 80s, media coast to coast broadcasted their debates. Pritikin claimed that the Atkins diet clogged arteries and would kill Americans. Atkins claimed that his diet prevented heart attacks and strokes. By 1983, Atkins’ attorneys had filed lawsuits against Nathan Pritikin, charging him with libel.
In 1985, Pritikin died from complications related to a 35-year struggle with leukemia. The results of his autopsy were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and showed that Nathan Pritikin’s arteries were free of any signs of heart disease, and were as “soft and pliable” as a teenager’s. “In a man 69 years old,” wrote pathologist Jeffrey Hubbard, “the near absence of atherosclerosis and the complete absence of its effects are remarkable.”
On April 17, 2003, Dr. Atkins died. He was 72 years old. The media reported that he had suffered a fall and subsequent head injuries while walking to his office in New York City. Several months earlier, he had been hospitalized for a heart problem, which his public relations representatives asserted was not related in any way to artery blockage. But the question remains unanswered whether Atkins’ heart problem was in fact a heart attack related to severe hardening of the arteries. Did Atkins fall cause the head injuries that killed him, or was the fall really caused by a massive stroke or other event? Did Atkins’ injuries reveal that he never even sought to brace himself at all to break his fall?
On February 10, 2004, The Wall Street Journal published excerpts from the New York City Medical Examiner’s report on Atkins’ death. The report indicated that Atkins weighed 258 pounds at his death, making the diet-guru clinically obese, and that he had a history of heart disease, congestive heart failure, and hypertension. Was this caused by his diet? Did the Atkins’ diet kill Atkins?
Atkins’ widow, Veronica Atkins, told the Journal she was outraged that the report had been made public, but even she conceded in a statement issued the same day the story came out that her husband “did have some progression of his coronary artery disease in the last three years of his life, including some new blockage of a secondary artery.”
At his death, the family apparently objected to and stopped any autopsy, so city medical examiners conducted only “an external exam” and a review of Atkins’ hospital records, according to the Journal . But in these records there clearly is plenty of information about Atkins’ heart disease and hypertension, information that the public never knew of until this week and much of which is still unknown.
In her statement, Veronica Atkins asserts that her husband’s personal medical history “is private and of no concern or relevance to the media or general public.” She also calls the individuals who made public her husband’s records “unethical.” But couldn’t the same be said of the Atkins’ empire? Given the widespread popularity of the Atkins diet, Americans have a right to know all the facts. The Atkins’ books and food sales continue to rise, exceeding $100 million dollars last year, and are expected to be at least double that amount this year. Given the nationwide popularity of the Atkins diet, Americans have a right to know all the facts about Dr. Atkins and the Atkins diet. They are entitled to know if this diet harmed the arteries of its most ardent proponent who followed the diet long-term rather than just for a short 6 or 12 months like the people in the recent Atkins’ diet studies. They are entitled to know because their own arteries are at stake. The whole debate, in short, is not just about diets. It’s about the health and well-being of the nation.
Atkins’ medical history, like that of Nathan Pritikin’s, is a matter of public concern. If a more involved autopsy report exists, or if there are pertinent reports like angiograms detailing just how blocked Atkins’ coronary arteries were, and serum cholesterol and lipid levels and medication dosages which can be predictive of heart disease, Americans have a right to see them. It could save lives, millions of lives . We know what Nathan Pritikin’s arteries looked like at his death. The public deserves to know what Robert Atkins’ arteries looked like, too. It could well be that if Americans knew the real story behind Dr. Atkins’ diet, if they were to see what happens after a lifetime of eating foods high in saturated fat, they might be motivated, like never before, to make healthier choices about the foods they eat. They might live longer, healthier lives free of the ravages of heart disease and related illnesses.