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The S.S. Kura

My dad

Senior Matt Villegas

Gymnastics Basketball WrestlingGren Grid

Who is the king or queen of Try Hard

Friday?

If you were the captain of a ship, what would you

call it?

What’s the heaviest thing you can lift?

Senior Joey Ellery

Buoys in the Hood

A car

Senior Daniel Kim

Solo

Bruno Mars

My dad

S.S. Bruno

“Two, count them, two...marshmallows.”

FreshmanMia Loxely

Sophomore Dan Hadler

Information compiled by Patrick O’Malley

SeniorTyler Klicka

Junior Mel Solorio

Basketball

Wrestlers find healthy ways to cut weight

Last year when sophomore Dominic Stacey lost his challenge match for the 106 lbs. starting match, he had one week to drop six pounds to wrestle at 100 lbs. So for one week this meant waking up early in the morning, running three miles, omitting carbohydrates, soda and red meat from his diet, working extremely hard at practice and then running again after dinner. Why?

“Because I love to wrestle,” Stacey said.

Stacey is among the wrestlers at Elk Grove and throughout the nation who cut weight, the practice of shedding pounds in a matter of days before competition in or-der to compete at a lower weight class and theoretically have an advantage over their opponents.

However, according to varsity coach Phil Winter, the decision to cut weight is entirely on the wrestler.

“We leave that up to the athletes them-selves,” Winter said. “If they decide that they want to try to drop down to a lower weight, then they can.”

And this is exactly what Stacey did as he went on last year to only lose four matches. Now, after growing quite a bit over the summer and spending five weeks at a wrestling camp at Prospect, Stacey is looking to compete at 126 lbs.

Though with this come regulations set by the Illinois High School Association on how to cut weight properly.

“The state mandates how low a stu-dent can go, and they also mandate how quickly they can drop the weight,” Winter said.

Out of concern for the safety of the young people who participate in wrestling programs, the IHSA Wrestling Weight Control Program is designed to determine the minimum weight class a wrestler may participate in throughout the season. The

establishment of a minimum weight class is based on a body fat measurement of 7 percent for male wrestlers and 12 percent for female wrestlers.

At the beginning of the season, each wrestler is required to see the athletic trainer and take a hydration test which will determine if they are able to take the skin-fold test in their adomen, triceps and back, which determines each wrestler’s body fat percentage.

“Then we put them into the IHSA website and it does all of the calculations for us and then it spits out information on what points during the season can certain wrestlers wrestle in certain weight classes, which is good because it prevents wrestlers from having to cut 15 lbs. three days be-fore to make weight,” athletic head trainer Mike Porters said.

Porters also adds that it is beneficial for the safety of other wrestlers as well because then future opponents are not going to wrestle others who weighed 180 lbs. three days ago who now weigh 165 lbs.

For proper weight loss, Porter recom-mends that losing weight over a period of time is key.

“Avoid excessive dehydration for any

kind of weight loss,” Porter said. “It’s usu-ally best to do it slow and if you’re looking for more permanent results, slower is al-ways better because when you drop weight fast you’re most likely going to gain it just as fast or faster.”

A conscientious diet and hard work is also a simple way to shed the pounds, Win-ter said.

“You just got to eliminate the pop and the junk food, but really we try to encour-age the guys to be eating as much of the healthy food that they want,” Winter said. “And if they’re working really hard in the practice room, the weight just naturally comes off.”

Someone who is looking to cut weight in the near future is senior Jon Ebert, who recently won first place at the Garrent Thanksgiving Tournament on Nov. 25, is looking to drop 12 lbs., from 182 lbs. to wrestle in the 170 lbs. weight class.

However, Ebert isn’t one for a strict diet regimen or specific work outs.

“Just don’t eat anything from a restau-rant or fast food and just do workouts that work every single muscle in your body,” he said.

Or as sophomore varsity wrestler

Franco Grecco says “just go hard at practice.”

Grecco, who has had expe-rience jumping around weight classes, emphasized losing weight doesn’t necessarily mean that a person needs to stop eat-ing.

“You just eat smaller meals and drink more water before a meet or a tournament,” Grecco said.

Aside from the weight fac-tor, other elements that the wrestlers have been focusing on this year is their technique.

“Were still developing a lot of the fundamentals that we want everybody to have down,” Winter said. “We probably won’t reach that

point that where where we feel fully de-veloped until almost until after Christmas break.”

Among those who are on their way to being well versed in those techniques are Ebert and senior Mikey Maize.

“Both of these guys are really coming along really quickly,” Winter said. “They’re like sponges. Every new little piece of tech-nique that we throw at them they drill very hard on and we see them in the room im-mediately trying to implement it in their matches.”

Because according to Winter, like weight and like techniques, small differenc-es in wrestling can make all the difference in the world when it comes to the outcome of a match.

And for Stacey, running that extra mile or passing up on that bag of chips is what will put him in a better position to defeat his opponent on the mat.

“When I wake up in the morning I do think that I should just lay back down and sleep for another hour,” Stacey said. “And I sometimes would want something to eat, but then I think ‘This is all so that you could wrestle.”

Julianne MicoletaEditor-in-Chief

SLIM-FAST: Sophomore Dominic Stacey (right) practices hand fighting after school. Wrestlers keep a strict diet and exercise regimen in order to cut weight.

Photo by Alex Ostrowski