Will Daly on Weight and Strength Maintenance

Question:
I have a question for the lightweights. I’m 5’10 natural 167 lbs. My dream is to make the U-23 Lightweight team. I have been reading everything I can about loosing weight and still staying strong. Do you have any tips for making weight? Also any foods you would recommend? Any help would be greatly appreciated. - Erik B.

Long-term weight and strength maintenance

First thing you have to do is figure out your natural weight and your body fat percentage at that weight. Generally, for senior team we try to be no heavier than 165 during the off season, and when selection is taking place people are 160 or below. With that being said, if you are trying to be a lightweight your body fat should be between 5-8 percent in the off season and should not get below 3% in racing season. For some people this means they do have to lose some muscle mass to make weight. To stay strong and not put on mass, endurance weights are the general trend, combined with a healthy diet of really healthy fruits and vegetables instead of sweets, it is not to hard to manage your weight through out the year. Much of weight management is however very personal. You have to figure out what works for you through experimentation. Some guys use pizza and jelly beans and other guys go so far as to weigh everything they put in their bodies.

The most important thing is to really to make sure you are eating healthy and smart. Salad seems healthy but you will never be able to perform on a diet of salad. You need plenty of carbs, protein, and even some healthy fat (salmon for instance is very fatty but also very healthy) in order to handle a heavy practice load and perform. Lastly, remember that if you try to lose weight by dieting instead of changing your diet, you run the risk of slowing your metabolism. You will have an even harder time losing weight and may even gain weight.

- Will Daly, 2009 USA LM4-

Will Daly has been a national team member since graduating from Boston University in 2006. He was a member of both the 2009 USA LM4- and the 2008 USA LM4- that raced at the Beijing Olympics.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 10:41 am. It is filed under ATHLETE BLOGS, QUESTION/ANSWERS, Rowers, TEAM USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.