How To Build Yourself Like A Pro-Wrestler

Staying fit when you have to stay home all the time is tough, but it is also essential if you don’t want to come out of lockdown looking like you are made out of lard. As wrestling fans it is tempting to take a look at the workout routines that they undergo to stay in top condition and see if any of them are of use to us while we are stuck in our homes.

The training regimen for wrestlers starts with a warm-up that lasts between five and fifteen minutes and is something like a relaxed jog. This helps prepare muscle tissue and get the blood moving. After that, the typical day’s training programme for the professional WWE wrestler Seth Rollins sees him do a hardcore mix of l-sit progressions, parallette push-ups and handstand walks, followed by front squats and six sets of three reps – and that is less than half of his daily schedule! It is a workout routine that even people dedicated to building up their bodies would find tough to maintain, and will certainly be way too strenuous for most people who are just looking to keep themselves reasonably in shape during the lockdown. The former wrestler Vince McMahon has a regime that is almost as punishing, mixing barbell bench presses; hammer strength incline presses, machine bench presses and cable pressdowns. It is how he stays in such amazing shape at the age of 74. Although it is unlikely you will be able to follow these routines in full, making use of some aspects of their workouts can help you build those parts of your physique that you are most concerned about.

Building yourself is as much about mental strength as physical though – which is why sports psychology is a career option for sports fans. Just as you need mental strength to follow gruelling training regimes, you also need to be committed to eating right and resting properly. A typical meal for former top wrestler The Rock sees him eat a 10 ounce steak alongside three egg whites, two cups of oatmeal and a whole egg – with watermelon juice to drink. His meal plans focus strongly on getting enough protein, which also what you should be doing. For that reason, most of his diet blends protein rich foods like meat, eggs and whole grain with green vegetables such as broccoli. He combines that meal plan with workouts that are similar to those of McMahon and Rollins, but this has to be balanced with appropriate periods of rest, if you don’t want to burn out. Anything between 30 seconds and two minutes is a standard resting period to allow for muscle recovery.

The workout and nutrition regimes that wrestlers put themselves through to build their bodies are punishing by any standards and will be hard to maintain, but they can act as a basic guide for how to build your body while you are at home in lockdown.