What are the physical demands of a professional sportsman?

What does it take to make it in professional sports? We all know that it takes talent and skill to make it up the ladder in sports, but there is also the physical side of it. What we don’t see is the sheer commitment it takes in terms of physical preparation. Here is a breakdown of what a typical professional sport requires:

Training

A typical training regime for such an athlete will involve training almost every day. In some sports, they train at least twice a day. The training will be a balance between sports specific training (like swimming) and other methodologies such as strength training. They are typically intense and grueling. In order to improve, they are pushed constantly to hit new targets.

Diet

The other side of this is diet. In order to repair the body and help recovery, the athletes need to eat the right food at the right time. Even actors that need specific physiques for movies will carry around bags of food given to them by their trainers. This level of eating is painful and is only done to ensure growth. Zac Effron is known to carry a bag with premixed protein shakes to drink every couple of hours.

Recovery

The final part is recovery. The human body can only recover so quickly from all that exercise. Even eating at a surplus and with supplements, we cannot support working out every day, let alone twice a day at those intensities. This is where techniques such as deep tissue massage and ice baths are thrown in between all the working out, eating and sleeping.