Camp is done.
The ritual stays.
Fight week changes most of a routine. This lesson covers what stays the same.
In short
Keep the routine you trained with.
Nothing new in fight week.
Your coach and doctor run the cut.
On this page
01 Nothing new02 The last hard sessions03 The cut is not a DIY job04 Weigh-in to walkout05 Fighting away from home06 After the fight01
Nothing new
Fight week is not the time to test anything. No new foods, no new supplements, no new drink. Everything that goes into your body that week should have been through a hard session with you already.
That is the reason to build the routine in camp. By fight week it is not a decision. It is what you do.
02
The last hard sessions
Training gets shorter and sharper as the fight gets close. You will sweat less than you did in the middle of camp. The routine stays the same anyway.
Same stick, same bottle, same moment as every other week.
03
The cut is not a DIY job
Most combat athletes cut weight, and much of the fast loss in the final days is water. The research on it is blunt: rapid dehydration carries real risk, and a fighter who has not recovered from it performs worse.
This page will not tell you how to do it. Your coach and your doctor run the cut and what comes after it. Follow their plan, not a web page.
04
Weigh-in to walkout
The hours between the scale and the walkout are for putting back fluid, salt and fuel. How much, how fast and in what order is your team's call, and it should be written down before you step on the scale.
Thrive on Five is a daily training product. It is not a weight-cut tool, and it does not replace a recovery plan made for you.
05
Fighting away from home
Flights are dry. Hotel rooms are dry. A new city can be far hotter or more humid than the gym you trained in, and the body takes one to two weeks to adapt to heat.
Pack your own sticks and your own bottle. The fewer things that change, the better.
06
After the fight
Win or lose, the body has just been through the hardest week of camp. Eat, drink and sleep before anything else.
Then go back to the routine. The camp is done. The ritual stays.
Sources: Barley OR, Chapman DW, Abbiss CR. The current state of weight-cutting in combat sports. Sports, 2019. Reale R, Slater G, Burke LM. Acute-weight-loss strategies for combat sports and applications to Olympic success. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2017. Sawka MN et al. American College of Sports Medicine position stand: Exercise and fluid replacement. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2007. This lesson is general education, not medical advice.
