Weight control: Wrestlers coping with new rules for shedding pounds

The image of a wrestler, jogging with layers of sweats on to drop those last couple pounds before a big meet is one that has existed for as long as the sport has been contested at the scholastic level.

For years, it was an accepted part of the sport to try and sweat away a final couple of pounds. But since the 1997 deaths of three collegiate wrestlers trying to cut weight made national news, measures have been taken to keep that from happening ever again.

For several years, there has been a minimum body-fat percentage allowed for high school grapplers of seven percent for boys and 12 percent for girls. This season, the...