How Much Sumo Wrestler is in You

All sports have their distinctive body types. Back strokers are generally tall and lanky. Distance runners are usually the same. Breast strokers are often much shorter and muscular. Basketball players are typically very tall. Football players are at least two hundred fifty pounds.

The average person just working out may or may not be constitutionally like this. If they are, they may be a diamond in the rough. But most of the time the average person is of average height and weight,, never really caring about Olympic medals or outstanding fitness fame. Nor do they really care about looking like a champion body builder. All they really want is to be healthy, while possibly getting more proficient at their routines. That is because their health is of primary importance.

Therefore, what the average person wants is more easily understood in terms of what they do not want (as opposed to what they do want.) In other words, no one of this standard fitness group ever wants to be like a Sumo Wrestler. They do not want to be overly big, very heavy, out of healthy proportion to their friends, relatives and neighbors. They do not ever want to be  thought of as being overweight, having middles which proudly protrude over their workout gear. No amount of prowess in a sport could ever make them want this-- the way the good Sumo Wrestlers are.

Perhaps because of our American ideals of fitness and being in shape, we are all completely repulsed by these Japanese athletes,no matter how proficient they may truly be. How can they possibly be proud of how they look? How can they possibly get that way and stay that way on purpose? Why did they not choose something like Olympic diving or even track and field in stead when they were very young? Surely they must have known that carrying around too much weight would never be worth the glory of outdoing a Sumo opponent, did they not? 

These are no more than rhetorical questions. Most of us do not care about the answers. They merely express our aversion to being obese, regardless of how strong or immovable that this might make us. We simply do not want to be like this. We want to have a trim or slender waist and an ideal weight which is easiest on our hearts and other organs.

Nevertheless, some of us do exactly what the Sumo Wrestlers do to maintain their prowess. This is best thought of in terms of what we do not do even if we know that we should. For example, we do not properly diet. That is because fast food is cheap, tasty and fills us up. Or, we do not take our supplements, even though they are known factors for the escalation of metabolism, energy production and nutrient assimilation. And, as if that's not enough, we don't stop eating  until we are full, never seeming to care about the number of calories, the quantities of what we must digest and the types of food we consume relative to optimal energy consumption. To top it all off, we do not even think to walk or climb stairs for 15 minutes immediately after eating to keep from getting sluggish. Nevertheless, we may actually end up doing our workout, strangely trusting that this will magically make everything come out right in the end

If we are like this, we are following the training life style of a Sumo Wrestler. That is what they do to stay big, powerful and immovable in the contest circle. That is what makes them best able to win. To them obese is highly desirable.

We may not be obese today, but how much like them are we? As a guess, all too much in far too many instances. All that many of us needs to be completely and authentically Sumo would be a daily very large bowl of tapioca right before a two hour afternoon nap. That would make us fit right in.

The message should thus be clear : if we know what not to do to be just like a Sumo Wrestler, then we all ought to know how to get fit and stay that way forever. Make sense?

For further thought about a Western fitness lifestyle order my book Think and Grow Fit. order my book Think and Grow Fit.


Posted by mark clemens at 10/20/2010 8:13 AM
Categories: Better with age, baby boomers, Lose weight, Take off years, Think and Grow Fit, Foreverfitness, Fountain of Youth
Tags: markclemens forevefitness rockystallone janefonda daratorres jacklalanne
 

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