 |
| >>>>>Don't Believe It All<<<<< |
I've always advocated since I was 20 years old to not
believe everything that is said in the muscle magazines especially with a
celebrity on the cover. I've never done pro wrestling or even trained to become
one but I have put in a lot of study, trained in the old-time strongman game
and looked into a lot of athletes and the way they trained so that’s why it’s a
theory. Don’t believe all the training you read about a wrestler in a magazine
because you may not realize that it’s not all there.
For the
most part when you read about a wrestler’s routine in the magazines or on the
net or whatever, you've got to look at another angle from what you're reading
or listening to. For the most part I’m not doubting those guys bust their ass
day in and out but they're not telling you the whole story. When you read a
routine you automatically think that’s exactly what they do, not all true.
Think about it, for a full-time wrestler, they travel up to 300 days out of the
year at best, they get if they’re lucky a good hour or so of training at the
gym or so and eat, than get to the arena for the night’s show to cut promos,
tapings and do a 10-30 min. match. There’s no way in hell they can train that
hard nearly every day or up to 4 times a week and not be completely exhausted.
Most of those guys train pretty simple while on the road and I’ll talk about
that in just a bit.
Back in the
old days when the bodybuilding craze was just for those who were actually into
it, athletes who traveled a lot like wrestlers did, gyms weren't that popular,
you'd be lucky to find one in a few cities in the entire state. Most of those
guys relied on what they can find useful but for the most part did bodyweight
training and wrestled. Let me give you an example: Lou Thesz, one of the
all-time greats who can go an hour with just about anyone who can keep up with
him, he probably lifted a few weights here and there but mostly Push-ups,
Bridging and Wrestling were his mainstays on the road. Ric Flair; 16-time world
champ and the king of hour long broadways, carried a deck of cards with him and
at the studios where promos and most of the matches occurred, he would put
himself through Push-ups, Sit-ups & Squats, if he happened to find a gym on
the road he used it to the best he could. Karl Gotch did practically nothing
but Bodyweight exercises on the road and it kept him in phenomenal shape.
Superstar
Billy Graham was practically the first wrestler who took the bodybuilding look and
made it the focal point of today’s wrestlers such as John Cena, Batista, Triple
H, Scott Steiner and others. When you train like that plus are on the road for
practically a full year with only 7-10 days being at home, it puts a whole new
level of perspective and how really all that contributes to the way they eat,
rested and what have you. Simplistic Training for a Pro Wrestler is doing
enough exercise for both strength and endurance that are at a very different
level than most athletes and using compound and full body exercises.
Today, gyms
are practically in every damn city in the entire country and provide training
for every type of sport or athletic endeavor there is. Most wrestlers today can
go to a gym for a little while before heading to a show and be ready for the
night’s matches and promo cuts. I'm not putting these guys down because they’re
awesome of what they're capable of and plenty of them are in pretty damn good
shape but they don’t share their true training ideals because a lot of the
public really only looks at the hardcore stuff they do in the gym and think
that they have a lot of time in there to stay fit and read about the routines
in the magazines or what they might say on WWE’s Websites but the reality is, they
do train their ass off but not as extreme as some might put on paper or an
online interview.
Take away
the drugs, pills, injuries or whatever those guys endure and take and you have
an athlete that trains by a necessity and has to be efficient in their training
to stick to be able to matches that can go as long as an hour and many of them
can’t unless you're a Antonio Ceasaro or a Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Ric Flair,
Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and guys of that caliber. They really do in my
opinion do pretty simple exercises but I'm not doubting they do the isolated
crap either yet in the end, they can't afford to spend 3 hours at the gym and
muster up enough muscle and all that to go into a match or cut many promos in a
single and not feel like collapsing. They train when they need to, to be in top
shape and keep their build as long as possible.
So the next
time you want to be inspired by a pro wrestler and want to train and be like
them, be a little more realistic, use common sense and think about what could
be going on with them if they actually 100% trained like they write about in
those magazines because you'd be surprised what they go through if it was
remotely true. Although I stopped watching Wrestling on TV, I still have DVDs
that have wrestlers talk about the real side of how they trained, got into the
business and what they put themselves through on the road for that long period
of time. I admire some of these guys but I love realistic, no bullshit and fun
old school training for any sport or just being in awesome shape as well.
