Physique != Fitness

[Dhondy]

Lurks, this one's specially for you.:wink_smile: Freddie Flintoff is due to undergo his third ankle op. Simon Jones was one of the fittest blokes around, and has the dickiest knee possible. Michael Vaughan's knees & hamstrings are legendary. Shane Watson's pecs would put many tyros to shame, but he is in and out of the doctor's chair and thus, the national team, like nobody's business. And do I need to mention Shoaib's fitness record? Sometime back, Rahul Dravid was singled out on this place for his flabby abs on a beach. How many days of cricket has Rahul lost in a career of cricket? My point is that the reason the likes of Munaf are often injured is because the guy is too much of a wimp to play through even minor niggles. What he lacks is not strength but aerobic fitness. I doubt the fella could put on a couple of miles back to back without swooning. To me an ideal sportsman's physique would be what Allan Donald or Imran carried. Not a spare ounce of fat, and only as much muscle as necessary. Not necessarily beach Gods like Hayden or Watson, but absolutely supreme in aerobic (cardiovascular) fitness.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[kumble_rocks]

Lurks, this one's specially for you.:wink_smile: Freddie Flintoff is due to undergo his third ankle op. Simon Jones was one of the fittest blokes around, and has the dickiest knee possible. Michael Vaughan's knees & hamstrings are legendary. Shane Watson's pecs would put many tyros to shame, but he is in and out of the doctor's chair and thus, the national team, like nobody's business. And do I need to mention Shoaib's fitness record? Sometime back, Rahul Dravid was singled out on this place for his flabby abs on a beach. How many days of cricket has Rahul lost in a career of cricket? My point is that the reason the likes of Munaf are often injured is because the guy is too much of a wimp to play through even minor niggles. What he lacks is not strength but aerobic fitness. I doubt the fella could put on a couple of miles back to back without swooning. To me an ideal sportsman's physique would be what Allan Donald or Imran carried. Not a spare ounce of fat, and only as much muscle as necessary. Not necessarily beach Gods like Hayden or Watson, but absolutely supreme in aerobic (cardiovascular) fitness.

Not fair to compare fast bowlers with batsmen. Even unfit GR Vishwanath or Gavasker rarely missed matches due to injury. BTW, Imran khan lost nearly three years during his prime (1982 to 1985) to shin injury.

[Dhondy]

Michael Vaughan is a batsman, KR, as is Andy Symonds, predominantly. Don't tell me the latter tore his biceps bowling off spin.

[kumble_rocks]

Michael Vaughan is a batsman, KR, as is Andy Symonds, predominantly. Don't tell me the latter tore his biceps bowling off spin.

Don't know about Vaughn but wasn't Symond's injury due to fielding ? Anyway , I agree with your post about aerobic fitness being a must. But strength is equally important. It was Hayden's superior strength that enabled him to hit that unbelievable six of Malinga during the WC finals. As an avid follower of baseball, I have noticed that quite a few baseball hitters have juiced up. Guys like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Maguire, A-Rod etc are strong and muscular. And these are some of the best hitters baseball has ever produced. So , strength is a definitely a factor in addition to cardiovascular fitness. To me, kapil dev would be a better example than Imran for Aerobic fitness. Imran was a lousy fielder and a poor mover on the field. I guess he was the faster bowler , that could explain his injuries. And I don't believe that Gavasker or Vishy were aerobically fit.

[Lurker]

Dhondy. Ever wondered why the players you mention, most of them atleast, are all modern-era players? Is it down to the amount of cricket being played today or is it because of the physique-game correlation? You mentioned Flintoff, do you know his career was practically over till the time he decided to pull up his socks and do something about his health and fitness. In his Autobiography he clearly mentions it was the fitness that saved his career. Today he is missing all those games because he is not disciplined enough anymore. On the last Ashes trip he was widely seen drinking and atleast on occassion came close to drowning which made a big media splash. Simon Jones has a problem with his knees, unfortunately thats his weak area. It has little to do with the fact that he is built like a professional model. If anything that(his health) helps him. Think it like this. Would a person with 10% body fat put more stress on his knee or a person of 20% body fat? If you look at Simon Jones there is little or no fat on his body at all, it is just that he has a very bad knee. I bet if instead of 10 stones had he weighed 11 he would have worse issues. You are correct that players like Donald were great athletes. They were also very superimposing physically. I mean the only person in South African team that I thought were better built than Donald were McMillan and Klusener. Else Donald was quite a well-shaped athlete. Imran was frankly more ascthetical than anything else. Looked good but 40% played less cricket in 20 years than Kapil did in 15. Bottomline great physique do NOT make a player. However if two players are of same capability the better player would be the one who has a better fitness. Or if there are two teams with similar players the team who is fitter would have a better chance at winning. xxx

[gator]

Dhonds.... u r misunderstanding wat Lurks and myself were trying to point out in the Dravdi-Flab thread.... we were not expecting him to be built like Mike Tyson... But an athlete who is paid full-time has no other job than to work out and atleast not carry ugly fat when other full-time professionals like a few of us, manage time to work out and look much better shape.... if RD is fit according to u, he can only get fitter and better once he loses tht fat.... the focus is on the laziness in this team... they dont work out regularly enuf, they dont diet and refrain from fattening foods.... and i find it hard to comprehend this... if someone is paying u to do it, why the fack not?

[CC1981]

Is it down to the amount of cricket being played today or is it because of the physique-game correlation?

Amount of cricket played is hogwash. All in all, Malcolm Marshall played 408 FC games and 440 one-dayers for example. That is way more than any bowler active today or even recently finished careers. Infact, players from the 70s/80s spent more days/year playing professional cricket than players today do.

[Dhondy]

Simon Jones surely weighs more than 10 stone. I'd argue he should have weighed less. Whatever he weighs, my point is that fitness has all to do with cardiovascular fitness and little to do with being specatacularly bemuscled. In broad terms, you need some muscles on you because you burn more calories that way, but being bulky, say like Kallis, Symonds or Hayden, offers no advantage IMO. Do you not find it instructive that the most successful fast bowlers of yesteryears were lean and wiry- take Richard Hadlee, Michael Holding or Imran for example? How about McGrath or Pollock, the greats of this genre with the greatest longevity? I would really like to see evidence that beyond a certain threshold, the acquisition of muscle adds anything to your well being. Let me clarify that. 1. Does it make you live longer? 2. Does it increase your endurance? 3. Does it stop you from getting injured? 4. Does it prolong your career? It may help you bowl faster for short periods of time, because of the large number of fast twitch muscle fibres, but IMO that comes at a price. Fast bowlers should generate speed through rhythm and not brute strength, just as the greats named above did. Maybe there's a lesson in there for Messrs. Jones, Akhtar, Flintoff, Watson et al.

[CC1981]

f RD is fit according to u, he can only get fitter and better once he loses tht fat

Not necessarily. I had stamina problems when i went 'too' lean and mean (by no means skinny, i mean losing all excess fat and looking really trim). Stamina was lot better when i put on 5 pounds of pure fat. I don't care how fat one looks on field. If he can field like Aravinda deSilva, he can carry his beer-belly all around the field like a little napoleon as far as i am concerned !

[CC1981]

Dhondy, Mikey Holding had a great run-up and his delivery action was perhaps the best seen ever for a fast bowler. Only one who's action impressed me as much was Alan Donald. Mind you, the kind of effort Holding put every over would make our Zaheers and Pathans look like lazy gits- he used to actually bend his back while bowling- often his knuckles would graze the turf in the followthrough. That kind of effort is like 1 ball per session quota for Zaks or Irfu.

[gator]

Not necessarily. I had stamina problems when i went 'too' lean and mean (by no means skinny, i mean losing all excess fat and looking really trim). Stamina was lot better when i put on 5 pounds of pure fat. I don't care how fat one looks on field. If he can field like Aravinda deSilva, he can carry his beer-belly all around the field like a little napoleon as far as i am concerned !

u r sounding like ramesh powar... he claimed tht, if he lost the fat, he will be weaker.... man, it is unbelievable, the amount of ignorance tht we, as indians, carry in this field.... CC, u r using stamina very vaguely... if it means running 10 miles... yes, u have some fat stored, which u can use as energy.... but all the same, u will be consuming more energy, putting more strain on ur muscles and joints, and over-working ur heart.... on the other hand, if u were trying to get some instant energy during the workout through glucose or other instant carbs.... u will not need those fat reserves, and ur body as a whole will be more efficient and faster with lesser strain on joints.... aravinda de silva played in an era of beer-bellies.... cricket is moving more towards athleticism....

[gator]

Do you not find it instructive that the most successful fast bowlers of yesteryears were lean and wiry- take Richard Hadlee, Michael Holding or Imran for example? How about McGrath or Pollock, the greats of this genre with the greatest longevity?

do any of them carry as much fat in thier belly as RD?

[CC1981]

u r sounding like ramesh powar... he claimed tht, if he lost the fat, he will be weaker.... man, it is unbelievable, the amount of ignorance tht we, as indians, carry in this field....

This was my personal experience. I did get tired out a lot faster when i went from 'little fat' to 'almost no fat'. I also reversed it by gaining about 5 pounds of fat ( eating a lot of cakes) and i noticed a corresponding gain in stamina significantly too. I used to play tennis pretty seriously as a teenager and when i tried to look like Jim Courier, my energy took a total nosedive. Looking like mini-Agassi helped me a lot better. Bear in mind i am talking about a physique somewhat like RD's, not RP's.

aravinda de silva played in an era of beer-bellies.... cricket is moving more towards athleticism....

Do you even remember Aravinda's fielding ? Dude, his fielding would've been top class even by the current Aussie standards. Apart from Punter,Symonds & Hussey, Aravinda is as good as ANY other Aussie fielder today. He was super-quick in his running. Dont forget either that Aravinda during SL's glory days in the mid 90s used to pinch singles like mad and he'd routinely out-run Jayasurya (who is fit as a horse FYI), Mahanama, Tillekratne, Ranatunga, etc. Only one faster than Aravinda in the entire SL team back then was Kalu. Being fat doesnt mean you cannot be really nimble on your feet, particularly if you are a short guy. This guy i recently played badminton with - a fat indonesian shorty dude- covered the court like he was a michael chang in his youth.

CC, u r using stamina very vaguely... if it means running 10 miles...

Yes, that is what i mean by stamina. Or playing tennis for 2 hrs straight in 35C heat/playing football for full 90 minutes/etc etc. I am not talking about muscle-fatigue, i am talking about stamina- which means long period of physical activity. Oh and a prediction for fitness : Nadal is either gonna become horribly slower in his mid 20s or he's gonna get fatter. Guy has zero fat content in his body. Which means by the 4th set, he is running purely on his energy drinks while Federer is burning his bodyfat. He can get away with that when he is 19-20 years old but at 25-26, he cant expect energy-drink to carry him in the 4th set onwards.

[Dhondy]

Gats, you are mistaking a lack of tone in the abs as fat. Look at the human skeleton. In the region of the stomach, there is a forward curve, called the lumbar lordosis. It is natural for the stomach area to be slightly protuberant therefore. If you do lots of sit-ups or similar exercises, you tone up your obliques and rectus muscles so that the stomach area no longer protrudes. That looks great, but the real test of whether you are fit, and whether you are at a cardiovascular risk lies not in how toned your abs are, but in the circumferance of your abdomen. If you are an Asian, and your abdominal girth is >37 inches (40 inches for Caucasians), you are at risk of cardiovascular events in the future, i.e. stroke, heart attacks- doesn't matter how toned your abs are. Calculate your body mass index and tell me- how many of you have a BMI between 20 and 25? If it is over 25, and particularly over 30, you are in big trouble. Pumping iron ain't gonna help you- you gotta get on the treadmill or into the swimming pool. [bMI= weight in kg/(height in meters)^2]

[CC1981]

Dhonds, me: Height : 5'7" Weight: 140 lbs Pant size: 32 inches. Kya matlab is sab ka ? :confused_smile:

[kumble_rocks]

Dhonds, me: Height : 5'7" Weight: 140 lbs Pant size: 32 inches. Kya matlab is sab ka ? :confused_smile:

Jeez mate, you sure you can take on Bheem ?:embaressed_smile::embaressed_smile:

[Dhondy]

A BMI of around 22. That's excellent, CC.

[CC1981]

Jeez mate' date=' you sure you can take on Bheem ?:embaressed_smile::embaressed_smile:[/quote'] I got guns. :teeth_smile: PS: Put it this way- i won't mind taking anyone on so long as they arnt qualified in the Justin Langer mode. Lets just say that i have similar(though far less) training in my resume. :tounge_smile:

[CC1981]

A BMI of around 22. That's excellent, CC.

Please elaborate , Doc. Excellent as in 'not to worry' excellent ? Or is it 'excellent but too close to one of the extremes' ?