Why Top Athletes Don't Look Like Fitness Influencers (Usually)
gq.com
gq.com
I don't even look fat with my clothes on lol
Julian wrote a great guide on this: https://www.julian.com/guide/muscle/
Pros optimize their bodies to win races, not followers. I wonder why this even has to be explained.
I would say that it's obvious to anyone that works out or is familiar with athletics. But take someone who may not be well versed in this space and it's easy to fool someone
In high school, I spent most of my spare time riding my bike. My pants were a size or two too big in the waist so my legs would fit in.
I was great at leg press, but I could barely bench the bar. Rock climbing isn't my sport, and I swim like a brick.
It’s more that the human body is very good at shedding the non required. The result is the same, but the logic is different, human physiology will actively and quickly cannibalise under-utilised muscle mass as muscle mass is expensive.
The same also seems true in football/soccer for reasons that I don't quite understand. It wasn't ever really my sport, and I don't get why those guys are so shredded everywhere. I'd expect to see more 'runner builds' than there seem to be. I guess the necessity for short bursts of intense strength/speed, and rolling 40 feet on the ground after somebody grazes you, changes the optimal body comp.
The same also seems true in football/soccer for
reasons that I don't quite understand. It wasn't
ever really my sport, and I don't get why those guys
are so shredded everywhere.
Soccer players are constantly making maximum-effort sprints with very limited recovery, and they have to contort themselves into weird positions to weave around their opponents and get or keep the ball. They need leanness and power for pure acceleration, but they also need balanced muscularity to protect them against injury. They're part sprinter, part distance runner and part gymnast.
An other component is that natural talent and skill can compensate for a lot of hard work. Not all, but a lot.
In more physical leagues like the EPL having some mass is also beneficial (unless you are Messi)
Visit Lumpinee sometime ;).
You'll be very surprised by the body types of winning fighters. Most of the Thai fighters have a runner bod, because of early childhood nutrition issues (most fighters come from Isaan, the poorest region of TH and started fighting as a way to make money in the very large illicit gambling scene)
And the best fighters I've trained with are all avid runners. At Woodenman, the fight team would always run 6-7 miles every morning before multiple training sessions.
Nong O told a friend he was frustrated that he only got access to modern training habits and nutrition so late into his career - he spent most his training just doing press ups for S&C
Compare that with fighters like Superbon who now do all kinds of explosive training.
The Saenchai kick off with Wonderboy was interesting - Saenchai's kick was beautiful there was almost no telegraph and it didn't look like he gave it his all but he was "only" kicking at about 47k whereas Wonderboy was maxed around 93k and Sensei Seth hit over 100k.
And that belies the physics of power - that its both technique and mass. I doubt Wonderboy or Seth's technique can hold a candle to Saenchai's.
Put it this way - would you rather eat a leg kick from Saenchai or Rico Verhoeven? Would you rather get punched by Naoya Inoue or Anthony Joshua?
Anyway comparing physiques - look at 100m sprinters vs 10k sprinters.
Justin Gatlin and Usain Bolt vs Mo Farah. That fast twitch explosive muscle tends to be bulkier... And footballers def run more like a sprinter than a long distance runner
In my experience training in BJJ, Muay Thai, and Judo, the ones at the tippy top look very fit and healthy, but aren't packed muscles of Adonis or washboard abs.
And these are people who have significant win records at Lumpinee, IBJJF, Olympics, etc. Even the fighters at the qualifier UFCs matches (the ones that start 5-6 hours before the main fight) tend to look more "normal".
Though, then again, I guess it depends what your definition of "fitness influencer aesthetic" is - is it someone who concentrates on washboard abs and aesthetics or someone who's conventionally attractive but also competitive in some sport.
That said, towards the very top of the UFC and OneFC pole, some amount of aesthetic training is included due to the whole marketing "schtick".
Also, according to some of my friends and trainers who have competed in UFC, OneFC, etc - there is a bit of an issue around PEDs towards the higher end of the spectrum that has a become a bit of a problem. The USADA and the UFC's new doping agency has become very lax on testing the past few years. McGregor wasn't the only fighter who has had issues surrounding doping - he's just more prominent and inculcating a "bad boy" image.
https://www.reddit.com/r/coys/comments/9orbvv/kanes_dad_bod_...
Edit: Excess muscle is a liability in many sports. Off the top of my head, neither running and climbing benefit from being "big" like what most fitness influencers aim for. Muscle is both heavy and requires additional energy/oxygen input to keep fed.
I would guess a majority of fitness influencers are somewhat genetically gifted in being fit. Whereas a quarterback might be genetically gifted at passing a football.
Being an athlete and optimizing your body for one specific sport may not be the most healthy and wholesome outcome for all of the body.
Because it's all fake. It's all doctored. It's lighting, airbrushing, filters, and whatever other increasingly advanced AI-augmented techniques are being used to make digital images look hyper-real and impossibly good.
If anything amazes me it's how many people fail to understand this. I guess the millions doomscrolling on the couch in their underwear have not seen what an actual great body looks like, so they believe the fitness "photos" on IG are real. Thus the scrolls continue and the money flows...
Getting a pump, having good downlighting, and being picky about what you eat that day are all things that will make a lot of people who appear soft in other conditions look freaky.
I’ve seen it for myself. Downlighting and a pump is your real body.
perception is reality, and most people are bombarded by these images in TV, movies, video games, and social media. that is their normal, and they've been getting those images since they were kids, when He-Man and Barbie were their role models.
I believe the term is "hypernormalization"
This started changing back in the 80s with the popularity of Schwarzenegger and later Stallone.
In many ways, the unrealistic body expectations that used to be applied mostly to women are now applied across the board.
It’s fairly common that “body builder” looking individuals don’t have the physical stamina nor strength to qualify to become special forces.
Theres one thing to look strong and another to be strong.
Another is Worlds Strongest Man.
Strength training apparently has only very very little effect on that. [1] [2] [3]
Generally, to increase the maximum oxygen consumption, one has to exercise at about 90% of the maximum heart rate. This usually doesn't happen during strength training.
[1] https://eurapa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s11556-013...
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7453510/
[3] http://www.saskathletics.ca/images/pdfs/concurrent%20enduran...
Wirey station hands can, skinny and|or fat farmers can, I still can and my father (still alive, born 1935) still can.
Sustained steady physical work is a thing that seems largely orthoganal to gym fit.
I don't think muscle mass == muscle strength.
Granted Tom has becomes a lot more chiseled as of late, but his time as the football GOAT is done and his time as an influencer is now.
You can read (most) of the story here https://ravinkumar.com/WhyFitness.html#WhyFitness
But in summary I'd say, exercise is great, getting lean isn't necessarily great. In this picture three years ago I was the leanest I ever was, which like the article says, looks great, but doesn't always feel great. I wasn't even body builder lean which would have been a new level of suffering.
Since then I've put on fat again, not as much as before, but enough to be a point where I'm happy with where I look, I don't need to track macros etc.
My suggestion is use the influencers as motivation, but unless you really want to sacrifice a lot don't try to be them. But no matter how you look, exercising has a number of positive effects and I'm very happy to have reversed the trend in my late 20's. Even though I don't get paid to look good at my job, feeling great both inside and outside of my job has changed my life
I am at my best when I am at a calorie deficit. I have such clearer focus.
It's annoying because I actually want to put on weight (and also happen to love eating) but it directly impacts my ability to work.
If only I could eat and train like a professional athlete...
> If only I could eat and train like a professional athlete... Sometimes I feel the same!
I'm pretty sure the entrenched interests (like Under Armor) were furious when Usyk and before him Ruiz took out AJ.
Only one of the three aforementioned boxers are "built like Hercules" as a colleague once put it.
but they can flex on endorsements, and that means having a face and body that sell.
Look at the insane difference of superheroes from the 60s/70s and in the 2000s.
What's worse is how those "role physique roles" are blatant lies. People genuinely believe that Dwayne Johnson or Hugh Jackman (when preparing for his wolverine role) aren't under all kind of meds and steroids, and those actors lie about it as well.
Obtaining a physique even vaguely similar in size and body fat % as what you see on TV and social media naturally is just not possible.
But whereas society refused the ridiculous standards of female modelling and modelling itself moved from those 90s extremes family Disney movies are getting filled with drug filled actors setting impossible and ridiculous standards.
Even if they aren't on gear, looking shredded on screen is literally their full-time job. It's much easier to get shredded when you have a chef prepare all your meals according to your dietician's meal plan and you train with your personal trainer as often as your body can recover, with all three taxed as business expenses.
It's very different from having a day job that expects you to sit in a chair for 40+ hours a day. All your training and nutrition happens on top of that.
Would you expect a champion shot putter, a champion marathon runner, a champion cycle sprinter, a champion gymnast, a champion table tennis player, a champion boxer and a champion jockey to look the same?
Of course you wouldn't. Oh, they'll all look athletic - but the shot putter will be a tower of strength, the marathon runner lean and weather-beaten, the cycle sprinter will be about 50% thighs by volume, and so on.
For some reason, fitness influencers and Hollywood superhero actors all seem to go for the same look, though. And both jobs have absolutely no steroid testing. What a coincidence!
This is just a body positivity spiel. The main point of the article is also inherently ridiculous, comparing bodybuilding fitness influencers to people of an entirely different sport makes no sense. How GQ has fallen, from spreading self improvement tips, to shaming people for having six packs.