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Fitness First with Sale Sharks - week two

2/ 7/2008

WEEK two of our exclusive column with Sale Sharks' head of athletic performance, Steve Walsh ...

YOU don’t need a six pack to enjoy sport...

"The thing that I’ve found over the years is that I’ve worked with some players and athletes and you look at their bodies and you think where did you get that body from?

But when it comes to what they do on the park or what they are as a rugby player it doesn’t correlate.

In life people have this prototype idea about what somebody should look like - for a fella it’s chiselled looks and big arms.

I’ll always remember this film ‘Doc Savage - the Man of Bronze’ and he’s like that prototype. In real life it doesn’t work because some people haven’t got that body type - you have endomorph (big boned and rounded), ectomorph (tall and slender) and mesomorph, which is the Doc Savage one, the stereotype - muscular. A lot of people are mixes of these types and ultimately it is down to breeding. In rugby league the perfect example would be Luke Burgess the big 18-year-old at Bradford. He weighs about 110 kilos, he’s massive but then his mum is a strapping six foot odd woman, his dad was a big man and his two younger brothers are massive - it’s all about breeding.

Anyone can be an athlete in what they want to do, they can be good but you can’t put in what God left out. That’s a fact. I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work and it definitely didn’t work with me!

You don’t need a six pack to enjoy training and enjoy sport, what you need to be is healthy. People have to accept that we are different shapes and sizes and it isn’t a big drama, it isn’t a big problem you’ve just got to embrace what you’ve got and get on with it. Especially with women, surely somebody who looks like they’ve just got out of Belsen can’t be normal? People shouldn’t aspire to look like that."

THE opinions expressed in this column are those of Steve Walsh and do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper or its editor.