Sumo wrestling - gaining weight for success

"Sumo is a competitive contact sport where a wrestler (rikishi) attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring (dohy) or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally.
The sumo tradition is very ancient and includes many ritual elements. Life as a rikishi is highly regimented, with rules laid down by the Sumo Association."

(Wikipedia)

I was always astonished about how a great number of women, specially in gipsy or Arabic cultures, are able to turn their adolescent 90-60-90 bodies into a bell-like XXL mass of fat after having found a husband and having given birth to their first child. How can such a complete change happen in such a short time?
The same question I ask myself whenever I see a photo of one of these monumental Sumo wrestlers. I mean, if it were big and strong black men with big and heavy bones, who turn into huge Buddhas... but no, it's delicate little Japanese who dedicate their lives to convert their figure - perfect for ballett or ski-jumping - into something that wasn't genetically meant for them.

The Japanese, not prone to overweight as race, have developed a method to successfully gain weight despite of their unfavorable genetics. Starting the training at a tender age and with not more than 20 - 40 kilos on their ribs, their goal is to gain as much fat and muscle mass as they can. There are no weight divisions for sumo wrestlers - one who hasn't reached more than 100 kilos will have a serious disadvantage when facing a combatant who at least doubles his weight.

The basic diet rules for their quick weight gain are:

• Skip breakfast
• Exercise on empty stomach
• Sleep a long siesta after a XXL-size lunch
• Eat late in the day and go to bed with full stomach
• Eat with others in social atmosphere
• Drink large amounts of alcohol (beer)

Sumo wrestlers are NOT leading the life of a Homer Simpson, eating donuts and watching TV all day long. Not at all. They eat very healthy food and their lifestyle is highly regimented. They only eat twice a day but their meals are gigantic, equivalent to five or ten regular meals! By doing so, they tell their bodies to store the ingested energy in fat deposits. By skipping breakfast and exercising on empty stomach the metabolic rates stay low, burning less fat, and the wrestlers are so hungry by lunchtime that they can eat larger amounts of food. Of course, they are not able to eat the huge portions they are supposed to ingest from the very beginning on, even if they force themselves to eat more than their bodies can take. They have to progressively train their stomachs to stretch and accommodate larger volumes. They even have special massages to turn the intestines more flexible!

Sleeping for four or five hours after intaking large amounts of food helps the wrestlers to conserve as much energy as possible. Don't forget that they have to gain weight despite of hours of daily exercise. Sleeping and exercise are also necessary for muscles to grow. A sumo wrestler is not only a mass of fat; he's rather like a nucleus of muscle mass - necessary for the simple movements during the combat - wearing a thick coat of wobbling blubber. The fat around abdomen and hips lowers their center of gravity and makes it harder to push them out of balance.
Some wrestlers are remarkably strong and also flexible. Konishiki (a native Hawaiian past grand champion, of 300 kilos) could finish 70 pieces of sushi and 100 bottles of beer in one sitting but he could also dance the night away and do splits.

The menu they eat twice a day never changes. The chanko-nabe consists of some type of protein (fish, seafood, chicken or meat) in a fish broth stew with rice and vegetables. In many training camps wrestlers are encouraged to drink alcohol with their meals - a traditional means of putting on weight more quickly. Alcohol makes the cortisol level rise; cortisol is a stress hormone that directs fat to be deposited in the abdominal area (beer belly).

Sumo wrestlers are trained in so-called "stables" where they don't do anything else but training, eating and sleeping. Well, almost anything else. At the beginning, the stablemasters treat them like slaves to shape their character and prepare them to become fighters.

Actually, when they start, they seem to be trained both to become a sumo wrestler and an average house-wife in a conservative society: doing the housework for their companions while being treated like shit, sometimes being beaten up by their trainers and - gaining weight till turning into a 45 years-old obese mother and housewife.
They stay in the camp all day long except for a short trip to the store to buy food.





Sumo stables don't take unfit overweight children for their training. They look for healthy and strong youngsters who can take, physically and mentally, the rigorous training and lifestyle.
Rikishis (wrestlers) have to grow their hair long to form a topknot and wear the traditional Japanese dress when in public. They always have to obey their stablemaster; breaking the rules can result in fines, suspension or even severe physical punishment.

In the past, many poor boys from rural areas were encouraged by their parents to enter a sumo stable. Nowadays, it is known that sumo is a very dangerous sport (their life expectancy is 10 years below the average) and not so popular anymore among Japanese teenagers. Hawaiians or Polynesian descent have found success in sumo wrestling as they seem to be physically built for the sport. They have big frames, heavy bones and put on weight effortlessly (the next time you visit Hawaii, look what the fast-food society did to the natives). It takes about 10 years for a Japanese wrestler to reach fighting weight, but much less for a Hawaiian one.


What I find really entertaining is that, being Sumo wrestling a sport not accessible to women and being Japanese women quite petite, the Sumo wrestlers actually imitate the aesthetic of a fat woman wearing a tanga and showing nothing but the raw, jelly-like reality. Imagine a feminine sport with obese women pulling at the opponent's tanga string (must be quite painful, if you know what I mean) - would we like to see that? And I also wonder about the foreigners that have recently been accepted to the stables? Do they have to wax their bikini zone every month or does their contract include laser hair removal? If not, it must be quite disgusting for the audience....

Talking about women: there are actually some women trying to become sumo wrestlers, even though feminine sumo is very unpopular. 14-year-old Samantha from Australia is one of them...

To finish: Nowadays, being obesity one of the diseases that most have to be worried about, the Japanese, who are one of the tiniest and slimmest races on earth, try to do everything to become obese and make money by exhibiting their unhealthy bodies. They are sent to special camps to gain weight in record time, while even Chinese children are turning into Hamburger-eating Buddhas and have to spend months in camps to achieve just the opposite - to lose weight and lead a more healthy life.

In the photo, two amateur sumo wrestlers face each other during a baby-crying contest in Tokyo in 2007. 84 babies took part in the event which is held to pray for the babies' health and growth. The winner is the baby who cries the loudest (Reuters).