What I don't understand is how everyone says if you are trying to build muscle you shouldn't be doing more than 2-3 cardio workouts a week, otherwise you start to lose muscle. Looking at AFL players, it doesn't quite make sense. They do lots of gym, and a hell of a lot of running, and somehow they don't lose muscle. Look at guys like nick reiwolt and ben brown from north melbourne. They are absolute endurance machines, and are somehow very bulky at the same time. So, does lots of cardio really burn away muscle? Or is it all just a myth...
What I don't understand
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That’s cos they are on the juice, natural body builders are lucky to put on a couple of kilos in a year n they do very little cardio cos it can effect muscle growth yet Afl players put on 5/6kilo of muscle in a pre-season while doing copious amounts of running, doesn’t take a scientist to work it out.
Look at Majak Daw, he was skin n bone at 15, few years later he’s a tank!
Cardios cals too hard to calculate?
They're literally recorded by various cardio machines, which also record your weight.
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Agreed, the majority footballers aren't really big muscular guys - say comparing them to natural body builders. Footy is all about running these days so players have moved away from the bulky physiques of the 90s. You may get someone like Daw he is built like natural body builder - but ask any north fan and I'd say one of his downfalls is his endurance.
If you could ask a footballer these days if they would prefer to add 3-5kgs of weight over a per season or reduce their 2km time by 20 seconds they'd opt for the latter.
PoppedCorn
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Abletts back lol
Everyone's on the gear
Everyone's on the gear
Evidence?
I myself put on 7kgs in about 3 months when I first started doing weights and I'm pretty sure I was clean
Cardio machines calorie calculation are incorrect.
Heat n BMI come into play , plus different types of cardio have different effects on resting metabolism post exercise hence too many variables , it’s guess work at best.
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Prob hitting the weights, then hitting the HG's, followed by a frothy... Going for the wagyu effect.
They're around the mark at least
Kids who put on 5kgs in an off-season are doing 605 max of what a normal afl pre-season so they're not probably not even running as much as they do in their last year of TAC where they train 4 nights a week and sometimes play 2 games of footy per weekend if they're doing rep and school footy
They have everything at their disposal when in the AFL (pre-cooked meals, supp's, recovery), all outside stress (yr 12, cash) is now eradicated plus environment is a huge plus here too
Myself I would have been doing footy training 3/week (always started with a 3km time trial in those days), another 3 - 5km run/week, basketball 1 - 2 times a week, eating kfc and drinking shit loads of piss
Not so hard if you get them young which the AFL do
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Some clubs even ask players to go easy on supplements - Tim English last year put on ~10 kgs without Whey Protein supps!
Players who bulk up too quickly can sacrifice other parts of their game and every player has an individually tailored and monitored diet, training and recovery regime.
FWIW a lot of players aren't that big - I'm only 90kgs and there are very few footballers I've met I would find genuinely intimidating (I'd say Gehrig & Mick Martyn - today - are the two most imposing). Luke Darcy and Troy Simmonds were surprisingly skinny for example, even during their playing days.
Players who bulk up too quickly can sacrifice other parts of their game and every player has an individually tailored and monitored diet, training and recovery regime.
FWIW a lot of players aren't that big - I'm only 90kgs and there are very few footballers I've met I would find genuinely intimidating (I'd say Gehrig & Mick Martyn - today - are the two most imposing). Luke Darcy and Troy Simmonds were surprisingly skinny for example, even during their playing days.
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Most AFL players now don't have much bulk, its a running game now. They are lean and certainly have excellent athletic physiques but none of them are big action movie looking dudes.
Interestingly Troy was on TV the other night, movie is 13 years old but I remember how jacked everyone said Brad Pitt was when it was released, compare that to the say Zac Efron in Baywatch from last year and Pitt looks like a skinny kid just starting out in the gym.
Hollywood and society in general seems to have gone back to the 80's (Stallone, Arnie and JCVD) with what we expect our male leads to look like whilst the AFL has just evolved into a different type of athlete.
Interestingly Troy was on TV the other night, movie is 13 years old but I remember how jacked everyone said Brad Pitt was when it was released, compare that to the say Zac Efron in Baywatch from last year and Pitt looks like a skinny kid just starting out in the gym.
Hollywood and society in general seems to have gone back to the 80's (Stallone, Arnie and JCVD) with what we expect our male leads to look like whilst the AFL has just evolved into a different type of athlete.
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I agree, the players always look good during the game with a pump on and oiled up, but in person they don't look big IMO. Having seen some of the photos during pre-season where they are training without a top - they mostly don't seem to have a good chest or core.
low level bodybuilders
Probably true
Take a look at Sinclairs rig in this
Reckon thats around average, not many ripped abs going around
It'd be up to the players personally to some extent though
http://www.saints.com.au/video/2017-11-08/2018-preseason-day-one
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His rig looks pretty average IMO. I feel like you could go to the gym any night and see at least 5 guys in better shape than him.
Meanwhile, this is him with a pump on and oil:
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Players have reasonably low BF levels, less than your average joe. But they don't have the muscle mass your above average gym goer will. There is no reason to carry that extra mass. Hence low body but now muscles to really pop out. This is all strictly comparing to some natural body builders or instagram models
Plus footy players need to eat calorie surplus for all the training and recovery. It would to hard to constantly diet and have 100% out put and recovery
Plus footy players need to eat calorie surplus for all the training and recovery. It would to hard to constantly diet and have 100% out put and recovery
