them, their words are not always wise. While their martial arts skill, publicity agents, magazine editors, tournament sponsors, and onscreen charisma have helped make them a household name in the martial arts world, they remain human, and as such, they make mistakes in their training practices, technical application and their nutrition. Look at the diets of some well-known fighters and martial arts action stars, and it’s amazing they can perform at all, let alone do well. Here are some examples:
Boxing champion George Foreman prides himself on eating cheeseburgers at least once a day, yet he competed against younger, stronger and faster opponents on an international level. Co-author Christensen attended Foreman’s last fight in Las Vegas and says he was overweight and his punching form was terrible. Still he knocked out Michael Moorer with a punch that would have done the same to an elephant. There are a number of reasons that account for Foreman’s ability to overcome his poor physicality: As a tall heavyweight, he possessed natural power in his punches and had experience boxing some of the greatest champions of his era, giving him invaluable ring experience and savvy the others didn’t have.Consider martial arts actor Jackie Chan who we have seen perform incredible acrobatic martial arts and often bone breaking stunts. When asked in an interview about his diet, he answered, “I eat everything. Most important is training.”2 Say what? In all due respect, please don’t follow Chan’s poor dietary practice. We love the guy and hope he ages well in spite of his diet and on-set injuries.Once when co-author Demeere was coaching the Belgian wushu team at a European championship, he noticed a man in the dining hall where the teams ate. The man, in his late 30’s, short and clearly overweight, always topped off his meals with several beers. Demeere assumed he was one of the coaches setting a bad example but later learned to his amazement that he was a competitor. In fact, he fought to victory in match after match, even knocking out several of his opponents. Although his last match was a tough one, he still managed to take home the gold.Christensen wrote an article for Karate Illustrated magazine several years ago about the negative impact of using marijuana (it slows thinking, reaction time and so on). A few months after the piece appeared, a top tournament competitor, a man in his late 30s, confronted Christensen and aggressively challenged the information in the article. “I smoke it all the time,” he said. “I even smoked it last night at an all-night party.” After the conversation, the man went on to win the tournament. Like George Foreman, he was far from the best technical fighter at the competition, but he had tremendous experience, ring savvy and knowledge as to what it took to win at tag karate. He dropped out of sight a few years later and we hope he has retained his health.According to Davis Miller, author of The Tao of Bruce Lee and others, Lee was in terrible health the last six months of his life. Though he looked fantastic in his last picture, Enter the Dragon, his weight loss and low body fat, according to Davis, were two of many serious factors that led to his death. He squashed the assertion made by some that Lee was on a liquid diet those last months, but says he hadn’t been eating well and may, according to some doctors, have had an eating disorder.3
The moral of these examples is that some people can do it all wrong, ignore the rules that apply to the rest of us and still be a champion. In this chapter we look into how this is possible and what it means to average martial artists.
A scientist (imagine Jerry Lewis in the Nutty Professor) was probably sitting on a park bench checking out passersby when he came up with the term “somotypes,” since the more simplistic term, “body type” must have been, well, just too simplistic for him. He discovered there are three and the one you possess is a matter of genetic predisposition. In other words, you only have your parents to blame for not giving you a naturally ripped body. No, you can’t change the genes they gave you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t change your appearance to some degree.
Certain fighters early in their careers possess incredibly ripped and lean physiques, but as time passes, their bodies become heavier and more muscular. People like muay Thai champion Rob Kaman or boxing champion Michael Moorer are two such examples. They began their careers lean and mean, but evolved later to heavy and mean. Their new look wasn’t from fat gain but quality muscular weight, a result of changes in their training and diet. More on this in a moment.
Here are the three somotypes:
Ectomorph
Ectomorphs generally have low body fat, small bones and very little muscle mass. They are often thought of as slender or wiry and have high metabolisms that burn calories at an accelerated rate. Many ectomorphs gravitate towards endurance sports, such as long-distance running.
Endomorph
Endomorphs have large bones, high body fat and not a lot of muscle mass. If that isn’t bad enough, they are cursed with a slow metabolism. It’s not always easy for endomorphs wanting to participate in sports, but with effort and knowledge of nutrition and training, they can do it.
Mesomorph
Mesomorphs are the lucky guys. They have low to medium body fat levels and lots of muscle mass. Their bone size is medium to large and they enjoy a medium metabolism rate. Mesomorphs are generally natural athletes and do very well in power-oriented sports.
Before you look in the mirror to determine your somotypes, know that these are just easy labels and that it’s rare for someone to fit as snug as a glove into one specific category; most people overlap. For example, your authors are endomorphs leaning toward mesomorph. You, however, might be a mesomorph leaning toward endomorph. It’s beyond the scope of this book to go deeply into somotypes, and we don’t have to since you need only a basic idea of the three to help you understand your body type. If you lucked out and were born a mesomorph, you should feel fortunate, but if you were born an endomorph or ectomorph, you just have to face reality and understand that you have to train harder than those lucky mesomorphs to improve your physique and turn it into a fighting machine.
Somotypes of champions
Let’s say there is a champion standing before us who is a mesomorph, leaning a little towards ectomorph. He has low body fat, well-developed musculature and a high metabolism (we so hate this guy). While there are many top athletes who achieve these features through hard training, our man started out this way. He even had a six-pack and defined triceps when he was a baby. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but the point is that he has never had to put effort into his physique.
When this mesomorph began training in the martial arts, an endeavor for which he had a natural talent (are you starting to hate him, too?), he quickly developed fighting endurance, technical skill, more muscle and flexibility. Since he already had a fast metabolism that burned calories at an accelerated rate, the addition of martial arts training to his life stoked this fire even more. It’s as if this guy is bathed in a celestial light and can do no wrong. It’s also how he can get away with eating an absurdly unhealthy diet.
All his daily cheeseburgers, fries, beer, pop and cookies are thrown seemingly into a white-hot blazing furnace, never to show their ugly selves on his body. On top of this, his superior genetic makeup allows him to train, compete and perform superlatively despite his lousy diet.
So what happens when martial artists read an article that quotes a national champion as saying that he drinks lots of beer and eats lots of pizza just like that champ described above? What happens when fans of a martial art movie hero hears that their idol uses cocaine? The sad answer is that some will emulate their hero.
One big-name, irresponsible tournament champion, who conducts numerous seminars, brags about how he loves fast-food burgers. This from a fighter who holds advanced college degrees. It’s our unasked for opinion that there is an ethical responsibility that goes along with the role of champion or movie martial arts hero. These people fought for that position and once there, they should conduct themselves as leaders
