6 Pioneers of Fitness Who Revolutionised Their Sport
Getting fitter and healthier is all about upping your game. Be it in the gym, in the kitchen or on the pitch. To inspire us to greatness, we look at the fitness pioneers in sport who shook up their game and forced the competition to follow their lead
1 Cricket: Virat Kohli
In the year 2000, Indian cricket didn’t even have a strength and conditioning coach, now it arguably has the fittest cricketer on the planet in Virat Kohli. In the past 12 months, India’s talismanic captain has bludgeoned his way into the ICC’s top three batters in the world and dragged the Test team to the summit of the world rankings, dismantling a strong England side along the way.
Driving his charge to the top has been a visible physical transformation that has reinforced his already famed competitive intensity. His muscular approach has ruffled feathers but shaken up the game and set the standard for all newcomers to follow. And because his training is so tough, the hours he spends out on the crease is a walk in the park.
Game-changing methods:
Kohli advocates training short and sharp instead of slow and steady. That means 15 minutes of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) on the bike or treadmill in his home gym, heavy squats and powerful — and mightily impressive — Olympic lifts.
Shake up your game:
You don’t have to put in hours to reap any benefits from exercise. Little and often is far more effective.
Further reading: 5 Ultimate Injury Comebacks — From Milk To The Magic Sponge
2 Golf: Rory McIlroy
Golf and fitness has not always shared an amicable relationship, with its unhurried pace and the Cuban cigar-puffing Miguel Angel Jimenez demonstrating a low handicap rather than high VO₂ max takes precedence. However, it’s no fluke that the lean 14-time major winner Tiger Woods and, more recently, the brawny Rory McIlroy, rose to the top.
After a slender McIlroy narrowly missed out on the US PGA Championship in 2010, he consulted exercise physiologist Dr Steve McGregor and started toiling through heavy metal weights sessions to bulk up. He said it aided both his posture and powers of recovery after a long day on the fairway, adding: “Since I started training I’ve won four majors and got to world number one. So it can only help”.
Game-changing methods:
Despite the fact he’ll rarely break sweat on the course, McIlroy mixes up powerful sled sprints, lots of heavy lower body lifts and rotational resistance band moves with a core circuit of four abs exercises back-to-back.
Shake up your game:
It’s worth doing some resistance exercises even if you don’t do strenuous exercise. It’ll help strengthen your bones now and for later life.
Further reading: Muscles Behind The Moment: Andy Murray Wins Gold
3 Tennis: Serena Williams
Bar the baseline elegance of Roger Federer, the higher echelons of professional tennis are characterised by raw power, speed and outrageous anaerobic capacity. Success has been dictated through diet, like Novak Djokovic’s avoidance of gluten, or through devotion to pilates and plyometric workouts like three-time Grand Slam winner Lindsay Davenport.
But no-one has taken fitness more seriously than American all-court star Serena Williams. After several injuries threatened to curtail a glittering career, Williams consulted “career-extension specialist” Mackie Shilstone to improve her recovery. She also took up Bikram yoga and dance-related fitness classes to aid flexibility. With injuries behind her, she then set about tearing the competition apart on her way to a phenomenal 23 Grand Slam titles.
Game-changing methods:
Shilstone, who also revitalised an ageing Peyton Manning at the twilight of his NFL career, made Williams follow a dedicated recovery routine for her shoulders after matches to help reverse the strain put through them in game.
Shake up your game:
After a run or workout, focus on stretching the muscles and joints you used most to speed up their recovery.
Further reading: 657 Reasons Your Muscles Are Amazing
4 Rugby: Josh Lewsey
Rugby union has been playing catch up with football since it turned professional in 1995, over a century after the round-ball game. But today it’s leading the way in the use of sports science to transform average Joes into lighting fast, monstrously powerful man mountains — an average of 10–15kg heavier than in the pre-pro era. Sparking the transition in 1997 was England head coach Sir Clive Woodward. One of his first moves was to appoint strength and conditioning guru Dave Reddin who helped transform the players into elite athletes, characterised by the doggedly fit Josh Lewsey.
A former British Army officer, Lewsey brought an unparalleled discipline to training that set the standard among his teammates and led by example on the field — as the Wallaby’s Mat Rogers can attest (watch, and wince, below). With these three spearheading England’s fitness revolution, the team now had the solid foundations that would lead to their famous World Cup win in 2003.
Game-changing methods:
Lewsey understood a poor diet would undermine any effort in the gym or on the training field. In came protein shakes, whole foods and a curb on alcohol consumption. And with it the average build of a rugby player went from round to ripped.
Shake up your game:
You can’t out-train a poor diet. Match your good effort to be active with good food on your plate. And, as you’ll see below, there’s no reason to slow down after you hang up your playing boots.
5 Boxing: Muhammad Ali
The original GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), Muhammad Ali transformed the sport in and outside the ring. Unlike his feared first adversary, Sonny Liston, Ali abstained from heavy post-fight drinking sessions, recognising his body couldn’t take a pounding outside and in, and ran seven miles every day ensuring he had the cardio to last the distance. His long time trainer Angelo Dundee, professed he was the first one in the gym, and the last to leave, regardless of the highs or lows affecting his 61-fight career.
The Louisville Lip combined his powerful heavyweight frame with a balletic grace and speed that was unprecedented in his era, setting the gold standard all future heavyweights have aspired to follow. Today, Britain’s champion heavyweight Anthony Joshua has the power, poise and pace that attests to the success of the Ali blueprint. And, as you’ll see on his Instagram below, the Watford-born power puncher is constantly looking for new ways in the gym, on the track and even in the sandpit to get the edge in the ring.
Game-changing methods:
Ali followed a daily diet of fruit, green vegetables and bountiful amounts of steak and chicken, washed down with litres (several) of water.
Shake up your game:
A single percentage drop in hydration can have a huge deficit to performance. Science says so, and Ali knew that. Keep yourself hydrated with around 2 litres of water per day.
6 Football: Cristiano Ronaldo
What onlookers sometimes ignore about “The Beautiful Game” is that behind the simulations, imaginary yellow card waving and indulgent knee slide celebrations, footballers at the pinnacle of the sport are phenomenal workaholic specimens of physical fitness. Even the ludicrously gifted yet diminutive Lionel Messi would put the vast majority to shame over a 100m sprint or marathon. Even on a cold night in Stoke.
But none can argue with the meticulous dedication Cristiano Ronaldo has applied to getting himself match — and cover model — fit. Something he’s more than happy to show off mid-match at any opportunity.
Game-changing methods:
Don’t be fooled by claims Ronaldo does thousands of daily crunches — that would likely leave him doubled over with stomach cramps. Instead, when they can drag him off the training field, he spends his time with resistance bands, doing recovery laps in the pool, explosive moves called plyometrics, and a lot of interval sprints to keep his body fat percentage below 10%. Oh, and doing his favourite pilates move…. (see below).
Shake up your game:
None of the above would be as effective if he drank like a (drunk) fish. Ronaldo’s been teetotal since 2005. You don’t have to be as saintly, but it’s worth avoiding alcohol on nights after exercise to let your body recover fully.
Words by Nick Manser
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