The night before a match, Frank Molinaro would be in the sauna, frantically riding a bike to sweat off five or six pounds.
The redshirt sophomore, who wrestled at 141 pounds last season, would cut an average of 13-14 pounds every week. Once he got down to scratch weight, the pounds he had just lost would come back, and he'd repeat the strenuous procedure.
And it showed in his health, his mother said. A critical care nurse, Michele Molinaro saw her son come down with mono, strep that got into his blood, a virus that created ulcerations in his throat and a fever of 102 degrees.
However, this season is a different story.
Under the Penn State wrestling team's new coach, Cael Sanderson, the team has moved from starving off weight the night before a match to a more measured approach that takes weight down gradually.
In preparation for the Nov. 5 Intrasquad meet, the Nittany Lions had to weigh in each week prior to their match and come in two pounds lighter until they were down to the correct weight.
This technique is in contrast to previous seasons, when many wrestlers didn't think about their weight until a few days before a match. They would then skip meals and put in extra workouts to force the excess weight off.
"We don't cut weight -- we do weight management here," strength and conditioning coach Shawn Contos said. "People outside of the sport of wrestling have given that term 'weight-cutting' a negative connotation, and rightfully so. It takes away from how the kids perform on the mat and stuff, and we can't have that."
Molinaro swears by the new weight management procedure. Even though he has moved up a weight class this season to wrestle at 149 pounds, he's seen a huge difference in how his weight has come off. Instead of focusing on losing weight in practice, he can now concentrate on wrestling and improving, which is helping him lose weight twice as quickly while gaining experience.
"My weight was the breaking point for me," said Molinaro, who is 23-3 this season. "I turned everything around going up a weight class. I'm twice as focused, and I'm finally having fun wrestling again. I can't say I was having that much fun wrestling in the last four years. I'm wrestling the best I ever have, so I have the best of both worlds right now."
With this philosophy of gradually shedding pounds, Sanderson said his team is not going to cut very much weight at all throughout the season. He said this is something he felt needed to be addressed shortly after his arrival to State College.
"There's a lot of science in how you cut weight, but the first step is being disciplined," Sanderson said. "There's no point in losing weight if you're not going to be able to perform."
Eating for success
Kristine Clark, director of sports nutrition for intercollegiate athletics at Penn State, has an office that is located directly next to the wrestling offices in Rec Hall. She has seen more wrestlers this season than any other time in her 20-year tenure.
On average this year, Clark has had about five or six wrestlers come into her office to talk about nutrition and their diets. She said this number is higher than it has been in the past and the athletes are coming in much earlier than they had before.
"In my experience, wrestlers are notorious for waiting until the last minute to cut weight, and they do it the wrong way," Clark said. "I think that the coach of our wrestling program is highly aware of the role nutrition plays in athletic performance and encourages his team to lose weight, or gain weight, the right way."
The coaching staff encourages the Lions to eat rather than starve themselves when it comes to losing weight. If any of the wrestlers express concern about their lack of eating, they will either be sent to Clark's office or they know they should make an appointment themselves.
Freshman 157-pounder David Taylor said he went to Clark's office early in the season after he was feeling fatigued and wasn't performing at his highest level. Clark told him to eat a banana every day for breakfast. Once he did that, he started feeling more energetic.
"I think whenever you have a nutritionist at your hand just to go up and have an appointment with, even if you're not going to follow it, I think you should go, just to get an idea because they know what they're doing," Taylor said.
Assistant coach Casey Cunningham, who has spent time studying nutrition and has gained knowledge in his time involved in the sport, is another source the wrestlers go to when looking over their diets. He tells wrestlers to eat six small meals a day rather than not eating at all or trying to lose weight by eating large meals.
Contos said the wrestlers' bodies are a lot like racecars: Eating a lot is like putting ethanol in the gas tank, and the car won't perform. On the other hand, if they aren't putting anything into the tank, they will be running on empty.
"If you have five, six small meals throughout the day and you're drinking good, pure stuff like water, your body is going to flush things out a lot faster," Cunningham said. "Guys that are doing that are losing a lot more weight during practice, and the water comes off a lot easier. They're feeling a lot better because they're fueling their bodies throughout the day."
Scaling up the differences
The night before every match, the Penn State wrestling team has a newly founded ritual to prepare them to make weight -- eating at Subway.
This season, the wrestlers are all down to weight the night before a meet, allowing nearly the whole team to enjoy this treat. In past seasons, everyone but the heavyweight wrestlers would have been fasting.
"We feel like this is a lot better than what we used to do," sophomore 184-pounder Clay Steadman said. "When I do what Cael says and cut my weight gradually, I definitely feel better wrestling, and I feel like I cut my weight right, so I've really got nothing else to worry about."
Only halfway through their season, coaches and wrestlers who were around the program last season and years prior said they have already seen a difference in performance because of the weight management techniques.
Sophomore Quentin Wright said the differences can be seen not only on the mat, but injury-wise, too. Because people are taking better care of their bodies and dropping weight in a more healthy way, the team has far less injuries than it has in the past, he said.
Last season around winter break, 11 team members were out with shoulder injuries, he said. Even more complained of pain in other places.
"It really affects you both mentally and physically," junior 125-pounder Brad Pataky said. "When I first came to school here, I used to cut weight at the last second, and now I started cutting weight slower. I noticed my legs started feeling better and just my body and mind felt better."
With the techniques of dropping weight gradually as well as eating six small meals a day, the coaches hope the Lions can use practices for improving skills and technique, rather than focusing on weight.
Previously, it was common practice for the wrestlers to wear sweats to practice to help work off some of the excess water weight before a match. Now, Sanderson and the rest of the coaching staff don't allow their wrestlers to wear sweats to workouts.
Senior 165-pounder Dan Vallimont said with the attention being taken away from the numbers on the scale during practice, his teammates have been able to make huge improvements on the mat -- and the weight just comes off on its own.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Steadman said teammate Mike Lorenzo, a junior 165-pounder, lost 10 pounds in one practice by working hard on technique -- while wearing a T-shirt and shorts -- and following the instructions Sanderson gave to the team.
"You can tell when a kid is coming to practice to lose weight versus a kid who is coming to practice to get better," Sanderson said. "We want our guys coming to practice to get better. That's how you make progress throughout the year."
The Lions have felt the difference in their performances already this season, and Pataky said everyone on the team is looking and feeling better.
The wrestlers and coaches who are returning from last season have stood by Sanderson's weight management and nutrition philosophies and believe they will see success by following through with what he says.
"I think what Coach has done has been great," assistant coach Matt Dernlan said of Sanderson.
"We know losing weight is the reality of the sport, but while you're losing weight, get better while you're doing it. We seek to gain an advantage no matter what we're doing."
