Many people see wrestling as a six minute brawl between two opponents wearing stretchy singlets, but it’s so much more. Sophomore Eli Loyd has faced the struggles of high school wrestling for two years and has placed at state as only a freshman.

Loyd expressed the struggles of high school wrestling and the challenging aspects of it. “The first weight cut,” Loyd says, “is always the worst because your body’s not used to the dieting and working out but your muscles continue to shrink throughout the season as you get more lean so it gets easier.”  If a wrestler is still struggling to cut weight once the season starts, morning workouts are expected everyday, on top of the practices everyday after school.

A typical week of practice includes sprints everyday. On Monday’s, 100 percent effort is given because that’s the day that everyone is overweight. It’s all about shedding weight. Loyd explains how after their 30 second break, monkey rolls start and “your muscles start to give in due to exhaustion, but you keep beating them up to build endurance and strength.”

Including the sprints before and after practice, the wrestlers sit in the sauna completely exhausted, usually in layers of sweat, for “as long as we can take it, which usually ends up in us getting cotton mouth and not being able to breathe,” as Loyd puts it.

Head coach Jake Larsen tells the wrestlers it’s okay if you’re sore the day before meet day because all of the training is for the end goal of a state title, not the match the next day. Then comes meet day. On meet days, the wrestlers aren’t allowed to eat or drink anything. After weigh-ins, “you drink more than you ever thought possible and force yourself to eat even if you aren’t hungry because you need the nutrients to stay healthy,” claims Loyd.

Wrestling is just as much a mental sport as it is physical. Keeping your body at a specific weight, 132 pounds in Loyd’s case, is extremely challenging because even a glass of water can throw it off. Just maintaining weight is a struggle for the wrestlers, but they keep grinding and giving it all they have at practice in hopes of achieving that state title in two short weeks. It’s a weekly battle of working hard, dropping weight, not eating and then eating so much you feel sick. Then, it starts right back over that following Monday.