Hey athlete, you need to cut weight: weight loss guidance practices and perceptions of Chinese combat sports coaches
Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Weight loss (WL) before competition is a widespread practice in combat sports (CS). Among the various factors influencing athletes' WL practice, coaches are consistently identified as the most influential in terms of guiding athletes' WL practices. However, little is known about coaches' guidance practices and perceptions of WL. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the WL guidance practices and perceptions of Chinese CS coaches. METHODS: The study employed an observational cross-sectional approach and adopted convenience sampling. The questionnaire consisted of 22 questions and featured four sections: (i) general information, (ii) personal experience, (iii) WL guidance practice, and (iv) perception about WL. It employed different response formats, including (i) 6 short-answer (fill-in-the-blank) questions, (ii) 15 single-choice questions consisting of 4 dichotomous items, 7 multiple-category items, and 4 Likert-type scale items, and (iii) 1 multiple-choice question. In total, 135 coaches completed the questionnaire and responses from 122 coaches (115 males, 7 females, 33.2 ± 7.1 years old) representing 10 CS modalities were included in the analysis. RESULTS: < 0.001), while no significant differences were observed across the remaining 24 independent variables (all p-values > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Coaches are the primary drivers of pre-competition WL practices in CS, actively requiring athletes to reduce weight to compete in lower categories. While many coaches recognize potential health risks, a substantial proportion perceive WL as neutral or beneficial, and their recommendations are often based on personal experience rather than scientific evidence. Coaches' perceptions influence the risk level of methods they recommend.
Authors: Yuming Zhong, Anthony Weldon, Yanzhen Luo, Christopher Kirk, Pengchao Li, Zhao Zhang, Chao Chen, Kai Xu, Mingyue Yin, Meiling Tao, Zihan Ren, Yukun Wu, Shaoyun Liu, Thomas I Gee, Nemanja Lakicevic, Carl Langan-Evans, Yongming Li
Institutions: Shanghai University of Sport, Birmingham City University, Sheffield Hallam University, Beijing Sport University, Krirk University, Dalian University, Henan University, Dali University, University of Lincoln, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Liverpool John Moores University, China Institute of Sport Science
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,490
OpenAlex ID: W4414593459