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Rules & weight classes

Judo weight classes and the random weigh-in

Every other combat sport asks how light you were yesterday. Judo added a second question — how heavy are you now — and it is the more difficult one to game.

Combat sports have spent thirty years trying to regulate weight cutting by regulating the cut. Earlier weigh-ins, later weigh-ins, hydration tests at the scale, penalties for missing. All of it aimed at the descent.

Judo does something structurally different, and hardly anyone outside the sport has noticed. The International Judo Federation still runs an ordinary weigh-in the day before competition. Then, on the morning of the competition, it draws four athletes per category at random and weighs them again — and if you are more than five percent above your division's limit at that point, you do not compete.

That is a cap on the rebound. It does not care how much you took off. It cares how much you put back, and it makes the answer a condition of stepping onto the mat. This article sets out how the system works, quoting the IJF's own Sport and Organisation Rules, and explains why capping the regain is a genuinely different regulatory idea from everything the professional sports do.

5%

Maximum an athlete may exceed their category's limit at the random weigh-in on competition morning. Fail and you do not compete

IJF Sport and Organisation Rules, 14.08.2026, Rule 6.3

16:00

Local time of the official weigh-in at IJF events, held one day before competition and lasting 30 to 60 minutes

IJF SOR 14.08.2026, Rule 6.2.3

Once

Number of times an athlete may stand on the official scale during the weigh-in period. The recorded weight is the weight

IJF SOR 14.08.2026, Rule 6.2.4

4

Athletes drawn per category for the random weigh-in, excluding the plus categories, one hour before competition starts

IJF SOR 14.08.2026, Rule 6.3.1

What this comes down to
  • The IJF senior and junior categories carry no weight tolerance at all. The rulebook says so in the same sentence that lists them: an athlete must be within the limits of their inscribed category, "there is no additional weight tolerance."
  • The official weigh-in is one day before competition, at 16:00 local time, and lasts between 30 and 60 minutes. An athlete may stand on the official scale only once, and the recorded weight is final.
  • The random weigh-in happens on the morning of competition, opening one hour before the day's first contest. Four athletes per category are drawn by software, plus categories excluded, and the draw is published.
  • At that check, an athlete's weight cannot be more than 5% above the category's official maximum limit. For -73 kg that is 76.7 kg; for -57 kg it is 59.9 kg. Failure means exclusion from the competition, recorded as DNS or DSQ.
  • Judo also builds infrastructure around the scale: calibrated test scales in every official hotel from 08:00 to 22:00, and an unofficial weigh-in on the official scales opening 40 minutes before the real one, with no limit on the number of checks.
  • Cadets are the exception to the no-tolerance rule, and for a specific reason: they are not permitted to remove their underclothing, so 0.2 kg is added to compensate.
  • The design lesson is the transferable part. Capping the rebound removes the payoff from an aggressive cut rather than punishing the cut itself, which is a harder thing for an athlete to work around.

The categories, and the sentence that comes with them

The IJF Sport and Organisation Rules set the individual categories in Rule 6.1. For senior and junior competition they are:

Women Men
-48 kg — up to and including 48.0 kg -60 kg — up to and including 60.0 kg
-52 kg — over 48.0 up to and including 52.0 -66 kg — over 60.0 up to and including 66.0
-57 kg — over 52.0 up to and including 57.0 -73 kg — over 66.0 up to and including 73.0
-63 kg — over 57.0 up to and including 63.0 -81 kg — over 73.0 up to and including 81.0
-70 kg — over 63.0 up to and including 70.0 -90 kg — over 81.0 up to and including 90.0
-78 kg — over 70.0 up to and including 78.0 -100 kg — over 90.0 up to and including 100.0
+78 kg — over 78.0 kg +100 kg — over 100.0 kg

Seven divisions per gender, which is fewer than boxing has and fewer than MMA has, and each one bounded on both sides. That lower bound is worth pausing on: judo categories are ranges, not ceilings. A -66 kg athlete must be over 60.0 kg as well as at or under 66.0. Weighing under your category's floor is as disqualifying as weighing over its ceiling, and the rulebook treats both identically — Rule 6.2.5.2 covers an athlete who "weighs above or below their category limits" in one provision.

And then the clause that governs everything downstream, in the opening line of Rule 6.1:

Athletes competing in junior and senior events must be within the weight limits of a category in which they are inscribed (see 2.2.1), there is no additional weight tolerance.

No tolerance. Not 100 grams, not a rounding allowance, not a "same-day discretion" clause. The scale records to one decimal place and 73.1 kg is not -73 kg.

The official weigh-in: one attempt, at four in the afternoon

Rule 6.2.3 fixes the timing:

For IJF events, the official weigh-in is scheduled one day before the competition at 16:00 local time. Any changes to this schedule (e.g., Olympic Games opening ceremony) must be approved by the IJF Sport Commission. The official weigh-in lasts between 30 and 60 minutes.

A fixed clock time is more useful than it sounds. In sports where the weigh-in is specified as a window — "24 to 36 hours before the contest" is typical — an athlete does not know how long their recovery period is until someone publishes a schedule. Judo's athletes know it in advance, every event, which means the descent can be planned against a real number rather than a range.

The procedure is precise about instrumentation and about privacy. Scales must be calibrated, electronic, of 200 kg capacity, and display exactly one decimal place — the rulebook goes as far as instructing that if a scale shows more digits, "the extra digits must be covered with tape." Weigh-in rooms are separated by gender, officials supervising must be of the same gender as the athletes, and photography or filming in the weigh-in area is strictly prohibited.

Athletes weigh in wearing only underclothing: underpants, optionally a vest top for men; underpants and a bra or vest top for women. Head coverings, watches, glasses, socks, jewellery and body piercings all come off. And then:

Athletes may remove underclothing without stepping off the scales to meet the weight limits of their category. Each athlete may stand on the scales only once during the official weigh-in period.

One presentation. The weight that is recorded is the weight. There is no second attempt twenty minutes later, which is why the rest of the infrastructure exists.

The infrastructure judo builds around the scale

This is the part of the IJF system that gets least attention and is arguably the most practically valuable thing in it.

Rule 6.2.1 requires pre-weight check rooms with calibrated scales, operational from the arrival of the first delegation and accessible throughout the event. Every official hotel must provide at least one set of calibrated test scales, available daily from 08:00 to 22:00, placed in a private room where athletes can undress and check their weight in confidence. Athletes may use them freely and without restriction.

Rule 6.2.2 then adds an unofficial weigh-in on the actual official scales, in the actual weigh-in location. It opens 40 minutes before the official weigh-in and closes 10 minutes before it, and there is no limit to the number of times an athlete may check their weight during that period.

Consider what those two provisions do together. They make it essentially impossible for an athlete to be surprised by the number. You can weigh yourself in your hotel at any hour, on a calibrated scale, in private, for the whole duration of the event. Then you can weigh yourself repeatedly on the exact scale that is about to make the ruling, in the exact room, up to ten minutes beforehand.

Most weigh-in disasters in combat sports are information failures rather than physiological ones — an athlete who believed they were 200 grams under and were not. Judo has spent a paragraph of rulebook and a set of hotel scales on removing that failure mode entirely, and the cost of doing so is trivially low. It is the single most copyable thing in the document.

The random weigh-in

Now the part that makes judo unusual. Rule 6.3:

Random weight checks for athletes will be organised and are the responsibility of the IJF Education and Coaching Commission. Random weigh-in is carried out for individual events only, there will be no random weigh-in for IJF Mixed Team events.

For IJF World Judo Tour (WJT) events the random weigh-in will open one hour before the start of the competition each day. The time limit to arrive to the random weigh-in is 30 minutes or 6 contests before the athlete's first contest at the latest.

The athletes must bring their accreditation for identification. The weight of the athlete cannot be more than 5 % higher than the official maximum weight limit of the category.

The mechanics are deliberately unpredictable. Rule 6.3.1: the draw is done by software, one hour before the start of competition, at the IJF IT position running the event, and four athletes per category are drawn — except in the plus categories, which have no upper limit to exceed. Rule 6.3.2: the list of drawn athletes is posted on the official notice board near the warm-up area and online. Rule 6.3.3: four volunteers operate it, two identifying athletes and two conducting the weigh-in in two separate private rooms, with test scales available so athletes can check themselves first.

And Rule 6.3.4, which supplies the consequence:

Anyone not passing the random weigh-in will not be allowed to take part in the competition. They will be marked as DNS or DSQ on the random weigh-in list.

Not a fine, not a percentage of the purse, not a catchweight. Exclusion, on the morning, after you have already made weight.

The 5% table, in kilograms

The rulebook publishes the tolerances rather than leaving athletes to compute them. For senior and junior competition:

Category Random weigh-in limit
Women -48 kg up to and including 50.4 kg
Women -52 kg up to and including 54.6 kg
Women -57 kg up to and including 59.9 kg
Women -63 kg up to and including 66.2 kg
Women -70 kg up to and including 73.5 kg
Women -78 kg up to and including 81.9 kg
Men -60 kg up to and including 63.0 kg
Men -66 kg up to and including 69.3 kg
Men -73 kg up to and including 76.7 kg
Men -81 kg up to and including 85.1 kg
Men -90 kg up to and including 94.5 kg
Men -100 kg up to and including 105.0 kg

Look at the absolute values rather than the percentage and the constraint becomes concrete. A -57 kg athlete has 2.9 kg of headroom between the scale on Tuesday afternoon and the mat on Wednesday morning. A -73 kg athlete has 3.7 kg. A -100 kg athlete has 5 kg.

Those are not large numbers by the standards of the professional weight-cutting literature, where regains measured between weigh-in and competition run to several kilograms and more. They are, however, entirely sufficient for an athlete who arrived at the division honestly and needs to eat and drink normally overnight.

That is exactly the point of where the line was drawn. The rule does not punish recovery. It punishes recovery of a magnitude that only makes sense if a large volume of fluid was removed to begin with.

Why capping the rebound is a different idea

Every other regulatory approach in combat sports attacks the descent. Wrestling fixes a legal floor per athlete and caps the rate of loss, which is covered in wrestling weight certification. Some promotions and commissions add hydration testing at the scale. Others add check weights in the weeks before a bout. All of these ask the same question in different ways: is this athlete too light, too fast?

Judo's random weigh-in asks a different question entirely: is this athlete too heavy, right now?

The difference matters because of what an aggressive acute cut is actually for. Nobody dehydrates to five percent of body mass because they want to be lighter. They do it to be heavier than their opponent at the moment of competition while nominally sharing a division. The dehydration is a means; the rebound is the objective.

Cap the rebound and the means loses its purpose. An athlete who takes off four kilograms of fluid to make -73 kg and then cannot exceed 76.7 kg on the mat has done a great deal of damage to themselves in exchange for nothing they could not have had by walking around at 75 kg and eating dinner.

That is a more robust design than a penalty, because it does not depend on catching anybody doing anything. It simply removes the payoff. And the randomisation adds a second layer: since an athlete cannot know in advance whether they will be among the four drawn in their category, the only reliable strategy is to be compliant every morning.

A worked scenario at -73 kg

Take a hypothetical athlete whose habitual training weight is 80 kg and who competes at -73 kg. The ISSN position stand on combat-sport weight management puts off-camp weight at 12–15% above the division, which for -73 kg is roughly 81.8 to 84 kg — so 80 kg is comfortably inside the band the literature describes.

Weigh-in is at 16:00 on Tuesday. The athlete arrives at 72.8 kg, having descended over camp and taken a modest amount of fluid off in the final day. On Wednesday morning the random weigh-in opens an hour before the first contest, and this athlete's name is on the notice board.

The ceiling is 76.7 kg. Overnight the athlete has roughly 3.9 kg of headroom from their weigh-in figure, which is enough for a substantial refeed and rehydration without approaching it. They pass, and they fight.

Now change one variable. Suppose the same athlete had walked around at 88 kg — about 20% above the division — and made -73 kg through a much larger acute cut. Their body wants that fluid back and their coach wants them to have it, because the entire rationale of the cut was to compete near 88. The 76.7 kg ceiling is not a caution for that athlete. It is a wall, and it stands between them and the strategy they spent fight week executing.

The arithmetic is what does the regulating. Nobody has to catch them.

What the system does not do

Being fair to the design means being clear about its limits.

It is a sample, not a census. Four athletes per category are drawn. An athlete who is not drawn is not weighed. The rule works as a deterrent against a strategy rather than as a screen on every competitor.

Plus categories are excluded, necessarily — there is no maximum limit for +100 kg or +78 kg, so there is nothing to be five percent above. Whatever weight-management pressures exist in the open categories, this rule does not touch them.

It does not measure hydration. A five percent ceiling is a mass measurement. It says nothing about whether an athlete is adequately hydrated at the point of competing, and an athlete can pass it while dehydrated as easily as while recovered. The limitations of the tests that do attempt to measure hydration are the subject of hydration testing at weigh-ins, and they are considerable.

And it applies to IJF events. National championships, continental events run under other rules, university competition and club-level judo may or may not implement it. Rule 6.3 specifies World Judo Tour events for the one-hour timing; the general provision is an IJF one. Ask your national federation what applies to your competition rather than assuming the international rule reaches down.

What the literature says about judo athletes

There is a reason judo produced a rule of this kind, and it shows up in the research.

A 2022 cross-sectional survey published in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine asked 132 combat-sport athletes about their weight-cutting practices and their symptoms, using a modified Sport Concussion Assessment Tool checklist. Median reported weight cut across the sample was 6.6% of body mass. When symptom severity during a weight cut was compared between disciplines, judo athletes scored highest — a mean of 67.5, against 36.5 for kickboxing and Muay Thai, 38.0 for boxing and 31.9 for Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Two caveats travel with that finding and both are important. It is self-reported symptom recall, not a measured physiological outcome, and the authors say so. And the judo subgroup within a 132-athlete survey is small, so the comparison between disciplines is suggestive rather than settled.

What it does establish is that the perception inside the sport — that judo weight cutting was a serious problem worth legislating against — was not invented. The relationship between weight cutting and concussion-symptom confusion is covered in more depth in weight cutting and concussion symptoms.

What breaks first in a judo weight plan

The failure modes in this format are specific to it, and they arrive in a recognisable order.

The category choice goes wrong first, months out. Judo's gaps are wide — 7 kg between -66 and -73, 9 kg between -81 and -90 — so the decision between two adjacent categories is a much bigger commitment than in a sport where the divisions sit three pounds apart. An athlete who picks the lower category because they can reach it once has signed up to hold it through a season of competition, not to touch it on one Tuesday afternoon.

Then the two ceilings start to squeeze from both ends. The official weigh-in sets a maximum on Tuesday and the random weigh-in sets a maximum on Wednesday, and they are only 5% apart. An athlete whose habitual weight sits far above the division is trying to be very light in the afternoon and only slightly less light the following morning, which is a narrower corridor than the single-scale sports ask anyone to walk.

Then the one-attempt rule turns a small error into a finished tournament. There is no second presentation and no tolerance to absorb a 200-gram miscalculation. The unofficial weigh-in and the hotel test scales exist precisely to prevent this, and an athlete who does not use them has declined the one safety net the rules provide.

And then the multi-day structure compounds everything. At a tournament an athlete may need to pass the random weigh-in on more than one morning, on progressively less recovery, while fighting. A plan that only works on day one is not a plan for a tournament.

The detection signal for all of it is the same boring one it always is: a scale, used in the same conditions, early enough in preparation for a trend to mean something. That is most of what fight camp planning is for, and it is worth more in this format than any fight-week technique, because this format has deliberately removed the fight-week techniques.

Cadets, juniors and the 0.2 kg

The one place the IJF grants tolerance is instructive about why it withholds it everywhere else.

Rule 6.1 provides that athletes in cadet events are not allowed to remove their underclothing at the weigh-in — men must wear underpants and optionally a vest top, women underpants and a bra or vest top — and that to compensate "an additional 0.2 kg will be allowed i.e., for the category -44 kg the limit will be -44.2 kg."

That is not a weight allowance. It is a garment allowance, granted because a safeguarding rule removed an option the senior athletes have. The tolerance table for the cadet random weigh-in applies the same logic, adding the 0.2 kg on top of the 5%.

The cadet ladder itself runs from -40 kg for girls and -50 kg for boys upward. It exists to bracket adolescents by size. Nothing in the adult weight-cutting literature — including every percentage quoted in this article — was derived from cohorts of growing athletes, and extrapolating downward into them has nothing underneath it. The appropriate weight for a cadet is the one they are.

What we could not verify

  • Implementation at national level. We quote the IJF Sport and Organisation Rules version dated 14 August 2026. Whether and how national federations implement the random weigh-in in domestic competition varies and we did not survey it. Ask yours.
  • Any published evaluation of the rule's effect. We did not locate research measuring whether the random weigh-in has changed weight-cutting behaviour, injury rates or competitive outcomes in judo. The design argument in this article is a design argument, not an outcome finding.
  • The judo symptom-severity comparison. The 67.5 mean score comes from a self-report survey of 132 athletes across six disciplines; the judo subgroup is small and the measure is recall rather than a physiological outcome. We report it as what it is.
  • Whether the 5% figure has an evidential basis. The rulebook states the threshold; it does not publish a derivation. We did not find one. It may be a reasoned compromise like the NCAA's 1.020, or it may be a round number, and we are not in a position to say which.
  • Nothing here is specific to you. Not your category, your body composition, your medical history, or the competition you are entering.

Questions fighters ask

What are the judo weight classes?

The IJF runs seven categories per gender for senior and junior competition. For women: -48, -52, -57, -63, -70, -78 and +78 kg. For men: -60, -66, -73, -81, -90, -100 and +100 kg. Each bounded category is a range rather than a ceiling — a -66 kg athlete must be over 60.0 kg as well as at or under 66.0 kg — and the rulebook is explicit that for junior and senior events "there is no additional weight tolerance." Cadet categories differ and carry a 0.2 kg allowance because cadets are not permitted to remove their underclothing at the scale.

What is the IJF random weigh-in?

A second, unannounced weight check on the morning of competition. Software draws four athletes per category one hour before the day's competition begins, excluding the plus categories, and the drawn names are posted on the official notice board near the warm-up area and published online. Those athletes must present themselves — no later than 30 minutes or six contests before their first bout — and their weight cannot be more than 5% above the official maximum limit for their category. Anyone who fails is not allowed to take part in the competition and is recorded as DNS or DSQ on the random weigh-in list.

What is the 5% rule in judo?

It is a ceiling on how heavy an athlete may be at the random weigh-in on competition morning, set at five percent above their category's maximum limit. The rulebook publishes the resulting figures: -57 kg becomes 59.9 kg, -73 kg becomes 76.7 kg, -90 kg becomes 94.5 kg, and so on. Unlike almost every other weight rule in combat sports, it constrains the regain rather than the descent. Its practical effect is to remove the competitive payoff from a large acute cut, because the mass an athlete would have gained back is the mass that ends their tournament.

When is the judo weigh-in?

At IJF events, one day before the competition at 16:00 local time, lasting between 30 and 60 minutes, with any schedule change requiring IJF Sport Commission approval. Before it, an unofficial weigh-in on the same official scales opens 40 minutes ahead and closes 10 minutes before the official session, with unlimited checks permitted. Separately, calibrated test scales must be available in each official hotel daily from 08:00 to 22:00 for the duration of the event. The fixed clock time is unusual and useful: athletes know their exact recovery window in advance rather than inferring it from a range.

How many times can a judoka get on the scale?

Once at the official weigh-in. The rulebook states that each athlete may stand on the scales only once during the official weigh-in period and that the supervising official records the weight in kilograms to one decimal place. Athletes may remove underclothing without stepping off the scale in order to meet the limit, which is the only adjustment available at that moment. Before the official session, however, there is no limit on checks: the unofficial weigh-in uses the same scales in the same room, and hotel test scales are available all day.

What happens if a judoka misses weight?

Exclusion. Rule 6.2.5.2 provides that an athlete who weighs above or below their category limits has the exact weight recorded and signed by a weigh-in official, an IJF Sport Commission member and the athlete or a delegation representative, is marked DSQ on the weigh-in list, and is excluded from the competition. There is no catchweight mechanism, no fine-and-fight provision and no percentage-of-purse arrangement of the kind professional commissions use. Failing to appear at all is recorded as DNS and carries the same exclusion, with special cases such as force majeure decided by the IJF Sport Commission.

Can judo athletes cut weight?

They can descend to a division, and the same longitudinal principles apply as anywhere else. What the format strongly discourages is a large acute fluid cut, because the 5% random weigh-in ceiling on competition morning removes the benefit an acute cut is meant to produce. The 2025 ISSN position stand describes acute water-loss methods during fight week at optimally around 2–4% of body mass within 24 hours of weigh-in, and attaches a supervision requirement inside the same sentence — but that description assumes a recovery window whose value judo has deliberately capped. Borrowing the figure across formats is the error the stand's own framing warns against.

Is the random weigh-in at every judo competition?

The rulebook specifies it as an IJF provision, with the one-hour timing set for World Judo Tour events, and states it is carried out for individual events only with no random weigh-in for IJF Mixed Team events. Whether national championships and domestic competition implement it depends on the national federation, and we did not survey implementation across federations. If you are competing below international level, ask your federation directly rather than assuming either that it applies or that it does not.

Why are the plus categories excluded from the random weigh-in?

Because there is nothing to be five percent above. The +100 kg and +78 kg categories have a lower bound but no upper limit, so a percentage tolerance on a maximum weight has no value to compute. The rulebook's draw provision specifies four athletes per category "except those that are plus categories". This is a straightforward consequence of how the rule is constructed rather than a judgement that weight management is unimportant in the open categories.

Does judo test hydration at the weigh-in?

Not under the Sport and Organisation Rules provisions covered here. The random weigh-in measures mass, not hydration status, and an athlete can pass it either well hydrated or poorly hydrated. That is a real limitation of the design, and it is worth being clear that judo's rule is a behavioural deterrent rather than a health screen. Sports that do test hydration — NCAA wrestling's specific gravity gate, some promotions' fight-week testing — encounter their own accuracy problems, which are substantial enough to deserve their own treatment.

How much can a judoka safely regain overnight?

There is no published figure for what is safe to regain, and this article will not offer one. What the rules establish is what is permitted: 5% above the category limit at the random weigh-in, which is 2.9 kg for a -57 kg athlete, 3.7 kg for -73 kg and 5.0 kg for -100 kg. Whether an individual athlete should approach that ceiling depends on how they reached the division, how much of the loss was fluid, and factors no rulebook or article can assess. Recovery after an acute loss involves fluid, sodium and carbohydrate together and is a medical question when the loss was large.

Why does judo have fewer weight classes than boxing?

Because the sports solve different problems. Boxing's eighteen-division professional ladder evolved around individual matchmaking and title lineages, where narrow divisions create more championships and more marketable fights. Judo's seven categories per gender are tournament brackets in an Olympic sport, and a bracket needs enough entrants to be competitive. The consequence for athletes is that judo's gaps are wider in absolute terms — 7 kg between -66 and -73 — so the choice between two adjacent divisions is a larger decision than it is in a sport where three pounds separates them.

What is the unofficial weigh-in for?

To remove surprises. It opens 40 minutes before the official weigh-in, uses the same official scales in the same location, and permits an unlimited number of checks up until 10 minutes before the official session begins. Taken together with the requirement that every official hotel provide calibrated test scales in a private room from 08:00 to 22:00, it means no IJF athlete should ever be uncertain about their weight going into the room that matters. Most weigh-in failures are information failures, and this is the cheapest structural fix any combat sport has found for them.

Sources

Sourced to

  1. Sport and Organisation Rules of the International Judo Federation, version 14.08.2026 — International Judo Federation, 14 August 2026; Rule 2.2 (weight categories), Rule 6.1–6.3.4 (weigh-in, compliance, random weigh-in)
  2. IJF Documents — International Judo Federation official document repository, source of the current SOR version and its revision date
  3. International society of sports nutrition position stand: nutrition and weight cut strategies for mixed martial arts and other combat sports — Ricci AA et al., Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2025;22(1):2467909. DOI 10.1080/15502783.2025.2467909, PMID 40059405
  4. A Survey of Combat Athletes' Rapid Weight Loss Practices and Evaluation of the Relationship With Concussion Symptom Recall — Uddin N, Waldron M, Patterson SD, Winter S, Tallent J, Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 2022. PMID 35325898
  5. A survey of combat athletes' rapid weight loss practices and evaluation of the relationship with concussion symptom recall (accepted manuscript) — University of Essex Research Repository, full accepted text including per-discipline symptom severity means
  6. Muscle contraction velocity, strength and power output changes following different degrees of hypohydration in competitive olympic combat sports — Pallarés JG et al., Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2016;13:10. DOI 10.1186/s12970-016-0121-3, PMID 26957952
  7. An alternative structured weight management protocol to rapid weight loss in mixed martial arts: a prospective interventional study — Maurício CA et al., Frontiers in Nutrition, 8 October 2025;12:1581698. DOI 10.3389/fnut.2025.1581698, PMID 41132567
  8. 2025-26 NCAA Men's Wrestling Weight Management Program Packet — National Collegiate Athletic Association, 13 August 2025, cited for contrast between floor-based and rebound-based regulation
  9. Acute-Weight-Loss Strategies for Combat Sports and Applications to Olympic Success — Reale R, Slater G, Burke LM, International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2017;12(2):142–151. DOI 10.1123/ijspp.2016-0211
  10. Fat-Free Mass Is Positively Associated With Urine Specific Gravity in Athletes and Active Adults: A Quantitative Review — Wilson PB, Winter IP, Translational Sports Medicine, 9 December 2024;2024:8827027. DOI 10.1155/tsm2/8827027, PMID 39686918

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