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The myth of the athletic body type

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Smallcock

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When we think of the perfect athletic body, an image of Michael Jordan comes to mind. Broad shoulders, lots of muscle, imposing. But many of sports highest achievers don't possess the stereotypical body at all.

Some examples:

Wayne Gretzky - the best hockey player of all time was tall and lanky.
Babe Ruth - a baseball legend who looked like he ate a lot of ice cream
Tom Brady - slow, unathletic, weak looking, yet the best quarterback of all time
Kevin Durant - one of the best bball players but looks like a tall weak toothpick
Peyton Manning - small shoulders
Lionel Messi - small unassuming fellow that handles a soccer ball better than anyone since Pele
Jon Bones Jones - perhaps the best MMA fighter of all time is tall, skinny

The list goes on.

Now we add overweight American of Mexican descent Andy Ruiz Jr to the list as he became boxing's heavyweight champion a few nights ago - the first boxing heavyweight champ of Mexican descent. The first to man beat Anthony Joshua.


Looks can be deceiving. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't be something just because you don't look the part.
 
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Darts

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Let's not forget Junior. They are the exceptions. The vast majority of athletes don't look like Babe Ruth. I have a pic of a naked Mickey Mantle. That guy looked like a Greek God.
 
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shack

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Including this guy in a list with Gretzky, Ruth, Brady and Manning is just wrong.
 
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likwid

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A heavyset guy like Ruiz could fight/tank hits though. Those type of guys just have a lot of power and durability. The guys that lift the most at the gym are huge but are not cut. Bruce Lee also stated that eventually size does matter. Its like The Mountain (GoT) vs Oberyn, getting hit will cause much more damage to the smaller opponent.
 
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Grimnul

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likwid said:
A heavyset guy like Ruiz could fight/tank hits though. Those type of guys just have a lot of power and durability. The guys that lift the most at the gym are huge but are not cut. Bruce Lee also stated that eventually size does matter. Its like The Mountain (GoT) vs Oberyn, getting hit will cause much more damage to the smaller opponent.
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It’s why combat sports have weight classes. Technique is extremely important, but there’s definitely a point where the size discrepancy gets so big that technique kind of goes out the window. For example, back when I did Muay Thai, we had a seminar at my gym with a Thai girl who was a multiple time Muay Thai champion. I’d been training for maybe 2 years at that point, and I sparred with her and despite the discrepancy in technique, I would just overwhelm her. All I’d really have to do is just bumrush her and even throwing sloppy strikes, I’d just run right over her because she was literally less than half my size. She just did not have the power to stop me or keep me off of her.
 
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Smallcock

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likwid said:
A heavyset guy like Ruiz could fight/tank hits though. Those type of guys just have a lot of power and durability. The guys that lift the most at the gym are huge but are not cut. Bruce Lee also stated that eventually size does matter. Its like The Mountain (GoT) vs Oberyn, getting hit will cause much more damage to the smaller opponent.
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Anthony Joshua is 6'6" of pure muscle. Ruiz is 6'2" of fat. If size was the factor in this fight (height, weight, reach), it would have given Joshua an enormous advantage.

Technique (boxing from inside where Joshua had no defense) and speed (sharper faster harder accurate punches) were the deciding factors in this fight.
 
luvyeah

luvyeah

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It should be noted that most, if not all the strongmen are give or take 20% bf.

Take a look at Brian shaw ~22% bf.

 
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Smallcock

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Add perhaps the greatest MMA heavyweight to date Fedor Emelianenko to the list. Somewhat flabby but had the best ground and pound in the sport and a ferocious overhand right that knocked out top tier opponents.

To illustrate the point about technique and knowledge, over sheer brute strength and size, check out this fight between 150 pound martial arts expert and a 250 pound body builder. Strength is also different from athleticism.

 
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Grimnul

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Well, BJJ is a bit different. Pretty much the whole point of BJJ is to be able to defeat opponents much larger than you. It’s not really so applicable in MMA these days, since everyone knows BJJ now, but back in the Royce Gracie days, he was tying much bigger dudes in knots.

Striking is different, though. Size and strength matter a lot. Smaller people can’t generate as much force, so the power difference between a small fighter and a big fighter can be very decisive. It’s like I said above, that Thai girl, despite being a world champion, couldn’t hit hard enough to keep me away, and I could pretty much overrun her at will. In Muay Thai, size difference can be especially important because of how much clinch fighting there is. You do not want to clinch up with someone twice your size.
 
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JackBurton

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You know, you might be on to something here.

Some of the toughest men I’ve ever met have beer bellies and are tough as nails, able to work all day as a roughneck then go out at night and bar fight.

Tank Abbott was a bar brawler and his career in the UFC is well documented. He’s chubby, tho I wouldn’t say that to his face lol.

Maybe there is an evolutionary advantage to having some weight around the middle that correlated to being tough?
 
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Grimnul

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JackBurton said:
You know, you might be on to something here.

Some of the toughest men I’ve ever met have beer bellies and are tough as nails, able to work all day as a roughneck then go out at night and bar fight.

Tank Abbott was a bar brawler and his career in the UFC is well documented. He’s chubby, tho I wouldn’t say that to his face lol.

Maybe there is an evolutionary advantage to having some weight around the middle that correlated to being tough?
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Daniel Cormier, Fedor, Mark Hunt... quite a few chubby dudes who’ve done very well in MMA.
 
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superstar_88

The Chiseler
Jan 4, 2008
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Imagine if they had an athletic body. You make it sound like having an unathletic body is better. You picked out a handful. How bout the multitude of others.
 
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islandman4567

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Roy "big country" Nelson

The amount of times that guy has left me saying , "WTF just happened?" ,lol.
 
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basketcase

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Sorry smallcock. There is a reason why the vast majority of athletes are fit and it is because it improved their performance. Yes there are specific sports (fighting mainly) where fit means different things and there are people talented enough to overcome a lack of fitness but that is not the norm.

Hell, even curling is becoming dominated by young(er) fit people.
 
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Smallcock

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superstar_88 said:
Imagine if they had an athletic body. You make it sound like having an unathletic body is better. You picked out a handful. How bout the multitude of others.
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That handful happen to be the BEST in their respective domain out of all the multitudes of others, that's why.
 
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Grimnul

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superstar_88 said:
Imagine if they had an athletic body. You make it sound like having an unathletic body is better. You picked out a handful. How bout the multitude of others.
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Daniel Cormier was fighting at 205 for quite a while, even won the title (albeit because Jon Jones is a habitual fuck up), but he actually seems to be better at heavyweight when he looks like he just stepped out of a buffet. I don’t think anyone can argue that DC isn’t an elite athlete.
 
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superstar_88

The Chiseler
Jan 4, 2008
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They are all the best? Really? Myth of the athletic body? That title is an epic fail. Next thread from you will be "myth of the small weenie".
 
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