One of my sons is 12 and 170 lbs so he has to wrestle heavy weight. Sometimes the other wrestlers way 190lbs. He has a little problem with them out weighting him, but seems to have more speed than they do most of the time. At first he tried to keep it under 165 so he wouldn't be so outweighed, but it was a scary stuggle EVERY week that he may not get to wrestle. We just decided that his body wants to weight 170 and he would just have to deal with the brackets he was put in. There is hardly any kids that wrestle in this weight (at least in the tournaments we have gone to each week), so he has done really well. This is my sons 1st year at wrestling. We have played football and baseball since they were 4/5 yrs old. I've never really watched wrestling until last year. We watched a friend a couple of times, and my kids decided they wanted to try it this year instead of basketball (that was just keeping them active till baseball season) Boy am I a beleiver in the sport now!!! In just the past 3/4 months I have really seen what it has done for my kids, and they love it. The exercise they do in practice has been great for them. You are using ALL your muscles in a match and at practice of course. They have gotten better and better every week, and have replaced the fat with muscle!! They even want to juggle baseball and wrestling over the summer. (I'm not sure they can do that) but we will continue in this sport from now on. It is going to help them in ALL of their sports through college.