Is Wrestling Worth It?

Wrestling is a very demanding sport physically, emotionally, and mentally. Being a wrestler takes its toll on your body which makes your body weak and not able to play for many years.

Usually wrestlers don't play much longer after college because their bodies are so tired from the constant fluctuation of weight gain/loss and muscle, forcing their bodies to regurgitate food or starve, the intense workout regimes, and the wear and tear of muscle and bones from being hit and/or injured over the years.

Wrestling is not one of those sports that you can play for your entire life, your body can't physically keep up this strain. So years down the line what happens to wrestlers bodies? Can they still play? Do they have chronic injuries from when they were wrestling? Are they out of shape? All these things are important to see if wrestling affects, in a harmful way, the post-wrestlers future physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Mark Burner who is now 55, played wrestling for Yale University and suffers everyday from his years of playing.

“I have really bad knees”, said Burner “I can't run very well because I have arthritis in both knees. When I was wrestling I was forced to starve myself to get into the lower weight class, I basically gave myself an eating disorder and now it's a constant struggle.”

Burner is hurting not only physically but mentally and emotionally because eating disorders are not only physically damaging but they are very much physiological. Eating disorders cannot be fixed by telling someone who is anorexic to eat or a bulimic to stop throwing up or a compulsive over eater to not eat so much. They have to overcome their mental self, to change their mentality of their body image and to see that they are perfect the way they are.

Most people think that men would never have an eating disorder because why would they have low self-esteem of their body image. But once wrestling is over for good, post-wrestlers are thinking they are ugly or fat because they no longer have 8% body fat and they resort to the one thing they can control—food. This is a life long condition, it never goes away the only way not to die from it is to be very conscious of your disorder and control it.

Wrestling has also affected Burner physically by all the injuries.

“My knees have actually gotten worse and I'm considering getting new ones.” said Burner “I also have a bad lower back and ankles. I loved wrestling but it definitely has taken it's toll on my body especially in recent years—I'm really feeling the beatings from when I was younger now being older and bigger.”

Wrestling is a great sport when looked at with an iced cold eye. But when you looked at the deaths of young men who are trying to lose weight for the wrestling weight classes or the serious affects of eating disorders that some may have the rest of their lives or the psychological pain they are put in by wrestling that will affect them later years, you think—is wrestling really worth it? Because I don't think it is if someone can change the rules so they are not so men do not need to put them through so much pain then I would approve of it. But risking a mans life for a sport hardly seems worth it.