Poll: who is the best trained athelete?

[The Willow Sword]

1. a martial artist(of any style lets say with 10 years experience)

2. A Marine or Navy Seal.

3. a NFL football player.

4. an olympic Gymnist.

5. a triathelete.


which one would you choose and why?

i choose the NFL football player,,,simply because they have, in my opinion the best flexability and stamina for thier weight,,and football players can weigh a bunch and it be all muscle. i trained with a football player before when i was teaching and for the life of me all i was thinking was(this guy will be my friend and ally rather than an atagonist) this guy was big and could move like lightning.

[FatherDog]

Best trained at what?

I'd pick the gymnast for best overall level of fitness. Gymnasts are among the strongest athletes on a pound for pound basis, and their flexibility and sense of balance is unparalleled. The NFL player is probably strongest in terms of absolute strength, and has good anaerobic conditioning. The Marine/Navy Seal probably is the most prepared for the greatest number of adverse situations.

You're not just comparing apples and oranges here, you're rating a bushel of fruit.

[The Willow Sword]

You're not just comparing apples and oranges here, you're rating a bushel of fruit

haha yeah,,,im just trying to get an idea of the level at which we as martial artists see ourselves in comparison with the other atheletes out there. sometimes i think we give ourselves too much credit. true we train hard(someof us,,,,ha not me lately).

i will agree with you that the gymnist is overall the best in flexability. but i have seen nfl guys do backflips on the field in thier gear,,and i was impressed to see that.

[Serpent]

Also, everyone on your list with the exception of the MAist probably trains full-time. Most MAists have day jobs and can only train part-time.

[IronFist]

A better question would probably be, "Which of the following doesn't use steroids?"

The answer is either the average martial artist (unless he competes in NHB type stuff like Pride or UFC), or the Navy Seal, although they might use some type of drugs, I haven't heard about it. Most recreational martial artists don't, however.

Olympic level athletes, NHL football players, and triathletes (world class) do. They have to to be the best. Yes, it's partially about genetics, but it's also about who among everyone with the best genetics has the best chemist. The upper echelons of any pro sport are full of steroids.

I vote for the gymnast, however, in the original poll.

IronFist

[SevenStar]

gymnast

[ZIM]

Barishnikov would choke out Royce. With his calves. :D

[Ford Prefect]

I picked SEAL just because they can run circles around the gymnasts, but are still quite strong. There is really too much criteria to really narrow it down to just one. All the people mentioned (with the exception of martial artist) would have a pretty good level of fitness in one regard or the other.

[IronFist]

Originally posted by ghthomason


Ah, those whacky NHL Football players....When will they ever learn to quit playing football on ice?

For the record, the NFL tests all players for perfomance enhacing drugs, and if sed player is found to have any quantity of a banned substance in their body, they are suspended from the game. Too many positive tests garner a lifetime expulsion.

Those boys are all natural.

Bull****. They get tested so they must be clean? Yeah, ok.

Look at the average linebacker from 50 years ago and compare him with today. You think the average 50lbs increase is due to better training and nutrition? I don't.

Have you ever heard of masking agents? Pro bodybuilders are "tested," too. You think they're clean? Wrong again.

It's kind of like world records. A human can only run a mile so fast, even with the best genetics. Do you think people would keep watching the olympics if new world records were not being set each year? No. It would be boring. Drugs are a way to overcome natural and genetic limitations. When you take those with the best genetics and give them drugs, they become your olympic athletes.

IronFist

[Serpent]

Originally posted by IronFist


Bull****. They get tested so they must be clean? Yeah, ok.

Look at the average linebacker from 50 years ago and compare him with today. You think the average 50lbs increase is due to better training and nutrition? I don't.


No man, it's all the growth hormones in KFC Colonel Burgers.

[rubthebuddha]

the NBA, however, is a different story. i've said it before and i'll say it again:

Sam Perkins.

[WinterPalm]

I picked martial artist of ten years. If they train in a legit school, they have an advantage of being able to fight, which is real world, a health side like qi gong or other internal practices, which is definately real world and besides, how many champ football players can still do what they do at eighty?

[Ming Yue]

Of that list, the football player, I think.

Determination, competitiveness, speed, agility, strength, focus, endurance, toughness, and in some cases, grace.

[IronFist]

and Lyle Alzado died from Cancer caused by steroid abuse.

I love this. I assume such a statement is the result of your own personal research and not something the media said that you're repeating. Can you please tell me how steroids cause cancer?

Thanks,

IronFist

[The Willow Sword]

I had the opportunity to train(for a very short time) with a retired alternate wingback for the philadelphia eagles. he retired because of knee problems(but this did not take away from his strength or agility).
his overall power and flexability amazed me for a guy as big as he was. true the gymnist has power and flexability but certainly not for combat. the marine or navy seal is a close second in my book for they ARE trained for combat but still have to maintain a certain amount of light weight to do the things that they do,,but i do not discredit or belittle what these guys are capable of.
as far as the martial artist with 10 years experience. this is a touchy subject for even though the martial artist is learning how to fight and discipline himself/herself,,the fact of the matter is that most of the maists that i have seen including myself do not train as much or as hard as say an nfl football player or a gymnist and certainly not as much as a marine or navy seal. when it comes to the street and being in say a militia for hit and run tactics i think that we as martial artists would do very well in.
the triathelete i just threw in there because i needed filler for the
poll,,,although after thinking about the triathelete,,these guys/gals crosstrain alot and probably have as much endurance if not more so than the gymnist or the nfl football player.

but hands down i would have to choose the football player,,putting all steroid use aside,,think about it,,,a 245 lb 6'0 nfl veteran with full gear on running like they do with the agility speed and power that they HAVE to generate,,,i would dsay that in the world of athletics and martial arts they are the best trained.
and alot of these football guys DO train in a martial art.

[rubthebuddha]

try here for more on lyle alzado (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4672).

i was a huge raider fan in my kid and teen years. i remember a few weeks before he died, he appeared on tv for an interview. donning a bandana because his cancer treatments had nixed all his hair, the poor guy looked like a waif compared to his earlier, tough years. that was the first time i ever saw a football player cry. he freely admitted that it was the steroids that cause his brain cancer.

[IronFist]

Guys, please do some research.

Steroids do not cause brain cancer. There are no steroid receptors in the brain.

he freely admitted that it was the steroids that cause his brain cancer.

Uh, maybe that's what he thought. His doctor admitted that steroids could not have caused his death (by cancer).

Ok, right before Lyle died, he came clean about his AAS (Anabolic Androgenic Steroids) use. What a good way for the media to exploit how "evil" steroids are.

The only cases of steroid use that have been linked to cancer involve C17 alpha alkylated compounds. This is a chemical modification that allows AAS to be used orally (as opposed to intraveinously). Anyway, everyone knows that oral things must pass through the liver. Continuous use of these oral compounds over a long period of time can seriously stress the liver (this is why many people take Milk Thistle, a liver protectant, along with oral steroids). All the cases of liver cancer and subsequent cancer occured in patients who already had some form of liver damage before being administered the oral steroid. Again, these were patients and not athletes. They were being given Anadrol-50, if you wish to research this further.

IronFist

[IronFist]

ghthomason, since you insist on antagonizing me.

Here are some football stats to back me up:

Forget the last 50 years. How about the last 10 years? For the Detroit Lions:

In 1990, the average weight of linemen was 284.6 lbs
In 2000, the average weight of linemen was 330.6 lbs

Over 40lbs gain average in the last 10 years? I don't think that has anything to do with better training knowledge or nutrition

Welcome to the world of sports pharmacology.

Do some research and talk to people in the industry before you argue with me anymore.

IronFist

[IronFist]

Ok, there's a reliable source. :rolleyes: It lists "Limb loss..." as a side effect, too.

I suppose, if you're injecting SEO and you accidently dump the whole thing into your bicep vein insead of the muscle head, it could become infected and may result in amputation.

But that's stretching it a bit, don't you think?

And if you want to get specific about it, SEO isn't even an technically an AAS, is it?

Do you even read what I post? Or do you just cut and paste articles from websites you don't know anything about?

IronFist

[IronFist]

I thought we were talking linebackers here....

Linemen are fat....fat....fat....

You think Leon Lett is an olympic-class athlete? Linemen are fat because they need bulk to block. I don't see any linemen running a 4.5 40-yard dash.

It is now blatantly clear to me that you haven't even done the first bit of research pertaining to steroids.

Steroids do not automatically add muscle. Can we get a little more naïve? Powerlifters use a lot of steroids, too? Do they look like walking heaps of MUSCLE to you?

Steroid research aside, the first bit of biological research you could do would inform you that you can't add muscle without adding FAT with it. Don't believe the EAS ads. Sorry. They body is either in caloric surplus or deficit. You don't burn fat and add muscle at the same time. The point is, they are very muscular under all the fat (kind of like a bodybuilder who gets all fat when he bulks in the offseason). They just choose to keep the fat as added mass because it benefits their sport.

The point is, it is impossible to achieve such a substantial increase in body mass, muscle or fat, without the use of drugs.

IronFist

[BeiKongHui]

Steroids do not cause brain cancer.

Oh, but they do. That's pretty common knowledge at that.

Here's an intersting article about the effects of steroids:
Anabolic Steroids: Cheating through chemistry (http://hcs.harvard.edu/~hsr/99_hsr_webpage/hsr/winter97/steroid.html)

[IronFist]

Holy ****, people.

L I S T E N _ T O _ M E :

THERE ARE NO STEROID RECEPTORS IN THE BRAIN.

THEREFORE, STEROIDS CANNOT CAUSE BRAIN CANCER.

Lyle's brain cancer was NOT caused by steroids.

Please do some ****ing research. Go back and reread my posts. Buy a chemistry book.

Lyle Alanzo was not a doctor, and when he said his steroids caused his cancer, he didn't know what he was talking about. His own doctor even said that his steroid use could not have caused it.

I'm done arguing, unless someone gives me some chemical proof of how steroids cause cancer. CHEMICAL PROOF does not mean "this website says so." It means "here is the process by which AAS causes cancer."

IronFist

[The Willow Sword]

Cancer is a real *****. i was always told that steroid use had more harmful effects on your wanger than anything. shrunken testicles,,,impotence. as far as the brain is concerned,,if the brain does not have steroid receptors,,does that mean that the steroids have NO effect on the brain whatsoever? i mean the steroid travels through the bloodstream,,and the brain recieves blood for it needs the glucose and O2.
i mean they said for a long time that smoking didnt cause cancer and now they say it does,,i mean i dont know what to believe anymore,,the great Gods in the light box that i worship and who tells me everything have really been confusing poor thak;) :p :rolleyes:

[Ford Prefect]

Gotta agree with IF on the steroids thing. There was never one shred evidence put forward on how the steroids Alzado used caused his cancer. It is all speculation. There is also no research linking use of anabolic steroids with brain cancer. (I'm not positive about other types of cancer though) I don't advocate the use of steroids, but there is quite a lot of myth surrounding use of the drug.

[tedward]

Anyways, I rated the martial artist (as a whole) as the least fit of the four mentioned. Of course there are exceptions.

[Qi dup]

anabolic steroids, like just about any other drug, can be used and abused. I read the article you posted and it gave a lot of worst case senarios. However, it failed to mention the usage in the problems it brought up. I saw it had numbers like (2) for a refrence probably, but I couldnt' find them anywhere. There are a lto of different steroids out there. It's not like theres just this one drug that everyone shoots into there ass and becomes a huge beast. If these people are smart with there steroid use, it shouldn't really cause them any problems. There is scentific studies to back this up. however, anyome can abuse anabolic steroids and have many of the side affects that you are talking about. Like i said above, most drugs can be abused. Think of Asprin. It's bad for you, and it will ruin your stomach and intestines and cause you to die. How does that sound? Un reasonable probably. That's because it is. Asrpin is a good pain kill and, when taken properly, shouldn't harm you in any way. However, lets say I take ten or twenty, and I've got problems. none the less, what I said about it killing you can be true. It's all in how you use it. The same goes for steroids.

[IronFist]

Qi Dup, no one is saying that steroids don't have side effects. The more androgenic it is, generally the more side effects there are. I'm just saying that brain cancer is not one of the side effects.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't used them and I'm definately not trying to encourage others to use them. If used intelligently, however, they're not as bad as most people think.

IronFist

[Qi dup]

That's what i'm trying to say. I must have come off wrong in my post. Oh well, it doesn't matter.

[rubthebuddha]

no worries, guys. just the knowledge that some roids shrink nads is enough.

[ricksitterly]

in regards to the "50 lb increase" in the average NFL player.
I was reading a study recently that pointed out the overall increase in testosterone (in both males and females) over the past 4 decades or so. This is not drug related, and only referring to natural testosterone levels in your average person (both athletes and non-athletes). Surely there are other factors, but this could help explain why today's athletes are bigger, faster, and stronger than ever before. I suppose this could have something to do with evolution or something, but who knows, I just found it interesting.

[wall]

Firstly we are comparing unrelated disciplines:

Olympic gymnast - best power-to-weight ratio, balance and flexibility

Tri-athlete - best aerobic endurance

NFL player - best maximum strenght and speed

Navy Seal - best "environmental" endurance (ability to exert considerable aerobic or anaerobic or strenght effort under adverse environmental circumstances for a prolonged time)

The 10 year martial artist has one fundamental difference to all of the bove: he's not a professional. The above are all professionals training somewhere between 4 to 10 hours daily, whilst if we exclude teachers or professional fighters your average 10yr MA student at most trains 1-2hours daily after work. Very different.
BUT if we compare the average 10yr serious MA student with the average 10yr recreational tennis player, or gym member, or social basketball player, then it would be a farer comparison and the MA student would probably come out on top (assuming serious training).

C