Top BJJ competitor PJ Barch recently opened up about his time in wrestling and one of the crazy weight-cutting methods that he used back then. Although Barch is best known for his success in no gi Jiu-Jitsu, he actually started out his combat sports career as a wrestler in high school. Obviously weight-cutting is present in pretty much every combat sport, but the culture around wrestling has historically pushed the idea hard on young competitors. It’s no surprise then that Barch has undergone more than his fair share of weight-cuts over the years, but he actually resorted to some pretty drastic measures.
Although things like saunas and water-loading are pretty common, Barch actually wound up taking Adderall in order to suppress his appetite:
“I guess it kind of started with like hanging out with older wrestling kids my sophomore year, because I was going on these trips to all over the place to wrestle and things with these different club programs and stuff, and I was hanging out with some older wrestling kids. One of them had told me, because we would do anything to lose weight, and they’re like: ‘there’s this stuff called Adderall, and Adderall makes you not eat, so you can cut a ton of weight.’”
Barch explained that even though he started taking it, he didn’t fully understand the effects:
“I started, during wrestling season, carrying Adderall around or taking it sometimes. Meanwhile, I didn’t know I was really getting high and stuff too.”
BJJ is not free of these kinds of practices either though and elite competitors have even accused other teams of going so far as giving children PEDs. In any sport, people are always going to look for any advantage they can get over their opposition. As Barch pointed out though, that can often lead to negative consequences down the road:
“I mean, I took it for probably a good reason to start, but I ended up kind of being a little bit of a fiend for the stuff… I got caught with it in school my junior year, and this went pretty bad. I actually ended up having to change high schools and stuff. It was a pretty turbulent couple of years, to be honest.”
The full interview with PJ Barch where he talks about the weight-cutting methods he used for high school wrestling was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of The Grappler’s Perspective:
