An alternative structured weight management protocol to rapid weight loss in mixed martial arts

The medical question

How much weight do professional MMA fighters lose and regain around the weigh-in when a nutritionist supervises the cut, and what symptoms do they report?

The Fight Medicine Research Institute uses this evidence to frame questions about supervised weight cutting, fluid restriction and recovery between the weigh-in and the bout. The study’s lack of a comparison group and its reliance on body mass and self-reported symptoms determine which questions it can inform.

Summary

Thirty-one professional MMA fighters on a supervised diet and fluid plan lost a mean of 7.25 kg in the week before the weigh-in and regained a mean of 7.5 kg before their bouts.

What the work reports

• Thirty-one professional MMA fighters in Brazil followed a diet and fluid plan supervised by a sports nutritionist: an individual diet in the weeks before the bout, three stages of energy restriction in the days before the weigh-in, with fluid intake first raised and then cut, and planned rehydration and refeeding after the weigh-in.
• Fighters lost a mean of 7.25 kg (10.56% of body mass) in the week before the weigh-in and regained a mean of 7.5 kg (11.25%) in the 30 hours after it. Fatigue was reported by 58% of fighters, cramps by 32% and dizziness by 22%; no fighter reported fainting or chest pain.
• The authors conclude that the protocol was effective for rapid weight loss and allowed complete weight recovery, and they report that 21 of the 31 fighters (67.7%) won their bouts. They recommend that fighters avoid rapid weight loss whenever possible, and they do not recommend these methods for people under 18 or for fighters with existing medical conditions such as kidney problems.

Limits to keep in mind

• There was no control group: each fighter’s weight before the weight-loss phase was the only comparison, so the study cannot show how this protocol compares with other ways of making weight.
• The authors note that training was recorded but not controlled, and that sauna use, hot baths and training in plastic suits were not directly monitored.
• The article reports body mass, the weight-loss methods fighters used and the symptoms they reported; it reports no blood or urine tests, and the authors state that psychological effects were not evaluated.
• All fighters were from Rio de Janeiro, and the authors say the findings may not apply in other countries.

Source issues recorded

• Table 4 of the article lists mean body mass as 72.38 kg before rapid weight loss, 64.8 kg after it and 72 kg after the recovery period. Those means differ by 7.58 kg and 7.2 kg, while the article reports a mean loss of 7.25 kg and a mean regain of 7.5 kg. This record gives the figures as the source reports them.

Publication status and notices

Published in Frontiers in Nutrition, a peer-reviewed journal. Brief research report in Frontiers in Nutrition.

Form of this work: Version of record. The version of record is the final article as issued by its publisher.

No correction or retraction notice was found in Crossref or Europe PMC when this record was checked.

Fight Medicine Research Institute contribution

Fight Medicine Research Institute selected and catalogued this study, prepared an original research summary, verified its bibliographic details, and maintains the associated citation record.

PDF files

Article details

Relationship

External research catalogued by the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The original authors, journal and DOI are unchanged.

Published online

8 October 2025

Repository date

8 October 2025 (Europe PMC first-publication date)

Date used here

8 October 2025 (Crossref publisher deposit, online publication date)

Rights

CC BY 4.0. Open access under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0), as recorded by Europe PMC and the licence link in the source record. The summary on this page is Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own wording. No text or figure from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.

Source check

12 November 2026, against PubMed Central full text, Crossref and Europe PMC. Checked under the direction of Casey C. Sears, Founder. An LLM was utilized as a research tool with direct human oversight.

Appraisal

The check covered bibliographic details, links, licence and notices. It is not a formal critical appraisal of the full paper.

Clinical review

None. This record is a research summary, not clinical education.

Funding and conflicts

The article states that the research received funding from Capes (Fundação Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior). The authors declare no commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Catalog

FH-057, added 12 November 2026

Cite the original work

These files cite the work by its own authors, journal and DOI. Fight Medicine Research Institute appears only in a note, as curator of this catalog page.

Clóvis Albuquerque Maurício, Guilherme Giannini Artioli, Aleksandro Ferreira Gonçalves, Rafael Pereira Azevedo Teixeira, Victor Vieira, Ciro José Brito, et al.. An alternative structured weight management protocol to rapid weight loss in mixed martial arts: a prospective interventional study of pre-competition weight management strategies in professional athletes. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2025;12:1581698. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2025.1581698

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Related on this website

• Fighter Health: Weight cutting, hydration, kidney health and nutrition