At Invicta Fighting Championships 12 in April of this year, four of the 18 fighters on the card came in heavy at the weigh ins. I had interviewed a number of the fighters in the fortnight leading up to the show, including two of those who would fail to make weight, and received the same response from all. Preparation was going great and weight was on point.

The subject came up again in a more recent interview with Invicta FC flyweight, Shannon Sinn, who had fought on the April card. Sinn made weight for her fight with Maureen Riordon at the first time of asking.

“I do believe it is more difficult for females to make weight but I do not believe that is an excuse by any means. Making weight isn’t just about cutting weight the day of weigh ins. You need to be diligent throughout your camp.”

Sinn’s comments got me thinking about the challenges that women face in controlling their weight, compared to their male counterparts. Even a fighter like Sinn, who had made weight successfully in her previous Invicta appearances, accepted that it is more difficult. That prompted a number crunch.

Over the course of their three year history, there have been 260 times that Invicta fighters have taken to the scales at the weigh ins. Of those, 27 came in over the agreed weight for their fight. Over 10% had come in heavy.

When you compare the figures with their male counterparts in the UFC there is a significant difference. Taking the 12 shows that were closest in date to the Invicta events, and excluding any female fights, the UFC also had 260 opportunities for fighters to hit the scales. Of those, only eight came in heavy. That is little more than 3%.

When talking to Sinn, she made it clear that this was not all about the sweaty images we had implanted in our minds by season upon season of The Ultimate Fighter.

“I also think the fighter’s coaches should be on them weeks prior checking their weight so there isn’t an extreme cut to be had in the end.”

Posing the same questions to Megan Anderson, Invicta’s newest featherweight recruit, I received a similar response.

INVICTA FC FEATHERWEIGHT MEGAN ANDERSON

“I do think it’s a lot harder for female fighters to cut weight than the men due to just how we are structured. Women hold on to a lot more water and we don’t sweat as much as the guys when it comes down to the last few pounds to cut. This just means that you either start cutting earlier or you cut through diet so you don’t have ridiculous amounts to do on weigh in day.”

At 5’11, Megan is not a small featherweight and faces an incredibly difficult cut to get to the 145 pound featherweight limit. Still, she has always come in on weight, including her proposed bout with Helen Malone at XFC 24 last month. The fight did not take place after Malone failed to show for the weigh-ins, so Anderson understands what it feels like to have a fight fall through at the last minute.

“It’s a very hard cut for me. My body type makes it easy for me to gain muscle quickly so even when i’m not cutting for a fight and at my biggest i’m still quite lean. When I weigh in, I’m pretty much just all muscle so I need to make sure i start 5-6 weeks out from a fight to make sure I cut down slowly and healthily, not cutting ridiculous amounts in a small time frame and doing damage to my body.”

Both Sinn and Anderson accepted that cutting weight is a different proposition for women than it is for men. If that is the case, should the commissions be looking at tweaking the rules for female weigh ins to avoid some of the problems that we have seen at recent Invicta shows?

“I don’t think any changes should be made for female weigh ins. If you want to participate in a contact sport like MMA that is male dominated, then you cut weight and weigh in like them too. Just because you’re a female doesn’t mean you should be given any special treatment or considerations.” said Anderson when I posed that question to her, believing the responsibility falls back onto the shoulders of the fighters themselves.

“If you are consistently missing weight then that individual needs to sit down with her coaches and either look over her nutrition and cutting regime or go up a weight division. I feel that even bringing up the notion of changing how weigh ins are done for women is disrespecting those fighters who do consistently make weight and do it properly and frankly, it comes down to whether you’re disciplined enough to cut weight or not.”

There was something else Megan touched on in her answers that struck a chord. The support a fighter has around them can make all the difference.

Megan is managed by Adam Martin under Posterboy Fighters Management, and also trains with a great team that has really helped her through the process.

Teamwork makes the dream work! Helping the team cut weight for their fights like they helped me last week! #family pic.twitter.com/yzOofN2bp4 — Megan Anderson (@MeganA_mma) May 29, 2015

“Having a few people there for moral support whilst you cut weight doesn’t make it easier but it definitely takes your mind off it for sure. When someone is there just talking to you, making you engage in conversation and helping you through the not so nice parts of cutting weight it makes it so much easier. I’ve cut weight before by myself and it was some of the hardest things I’ve had to do so when you have a great team of support around you it makes the day run so much easier, smoothly and everything goes to plan.”

Like Posterboy, Fresh Start Entertainment manage a number of fighters facing the same challenges. Tonya Evinger, Cindy Dandois and Maegan Goodwin all have Invicta experience under their belts, while others such as Summer Bradshaw and Molly McCann are getting closer to securing those same opportunities.

Fresh Start’s fighters beat the female industry average when it comes to fighters coming in on-weight, so I was particularly interested in what support they were providing their fighters with. I was put in touch with their nutritionist, Steve Poynter. Steve is the founder of FitnessPoynters, and has worked with a few of the Fresh Start fighters to get them prepared for Invicta fights.

“Basically my role was to help the fighter with nutrition, this is the key to cutting all fat in order to have a shot at even coming close to being able to get the water off in order to make weight.” said Steve, as he took me through the processes he had followed when he first started working with Fresh Start’s fighters to get them prepared for a short notice opportunity.

“We didn’t have much time to work with so we had to take them off of their current daily food intake 100% and put them on a high protein, low carb, healthy fat intake and have them eating multiple meals a day as we tried to spike the metabolism in a very short time.”

Thankfully, since then the relationship between Steve and Fresh Start has grown, and he has had longer to work with them. Much like the fighters I had spoken to, Steve made it clear that getting on weight for an upcoming fight is a process that begins a long time before those final hours of sweatsuits and saunas.

“If someone has the discipline, the drive, and the determination to fight, they should make their nutrition a top priority because you can put in all the work in the gym you desire but if that weight doesn’t come off, what’s it worth to lose half the purse and get negative posts put up about you on social media.

“Not everyone understands how important nutrition is when getting ready for a fight. Most people, in fighting and in the general public have the mindset that eating less is going to do more for them when in fact, that is false. Eating less will burn up muscle mass, deplete energy levels and in fact, in some cases, depending on how severe they cut food intake, their body may actually start to take those foods and store them as fats due to the fact the body thinks it is being starved. Storing those foods as fats that you take in will be the body protecting itself as it must have fat to survive.”

FOCUS ON NUTRITION – NOT WATER WEIGHT

While Steve accepted that female fighters can have a harder time getting the fat off due to a lack of testosterone in comparison with a male, his comments made it clear that the points Sinn and Anderson had made were key. Ensure you have the right support network, and start early. Eat right and stop sweating about how much water weight you can drop at the end.

“I personally think anyone that is disciplined enough and if that person knows several weeks in advance, they have a fight coming up and need to drop this or that amount of weight.

They should get their meals in check, up their cardio and not have to worry about how much water weight they can get off to make weight.

“Their body weight should already be close to the number needed to fight. It’s almost easy to tell who does it right and who does it wrong. Those that do it right look full of energy in the cage and those that do it wrong gas out quickly, they look miserable and a lot of times, they suffer the loss due to the lack of discipline leading into the fight.”

There is no getting away from the differences in male and female bodies, or the challenges that fighters face in making weight. Taking a pre-fight preparation schedule that works for most men and applying it to women might not be the answer.

Thankfully that is something that the fighters I spoke to, and the support networks they have around them, are well aware of. The strategies implemented by them suggest that it is the approach to weight cutting in women’s MMA that should continue to evolve, not the rules on weighing-in.