Brumbieman
Dick Tooth (41)
Reading an article about the kiwi's strength and conditioning methods, with things like players being sent off to the farm to go wrestle cattle and sheep, as PART of their fitness regime, it got me thinking.
We obviously take a very serious attitude to fitness, but is it the wrong type? Too much gym time, but not enough actual work outside it? In the Army they talk about being fit to fight. You can be fit and strong, but as soon as you get into a fight, or have to haul arse for extended periods of time/dig a bogged artillery weapon out/cut down trees etc etc, the gym/treadmill-fit men drop like flies.
Players like Andrew Hore are (I think) the one's who spend the morning wrestling cattle and then go to rugby training. and lets face it: he looks like something that escaped from the hill tribes of Game of Thrones, and has only just been relieved of his battle axe and skull necklace.
Compare him to players like Beiber, Cooper, Beale, Digby, Higginbotham etc etc, who look like male models that have been in a day spa when they're not admiring each others pecs in the mirror at the gym, and I think it may go some way to explaining why we just don't have that hardness, and bottomless pit of endurance.
Also, you are what you eat. What's the bet that Hore eats half of one of the cows/sheep that kicked him (but the one who kick him the softest, the one who landed the best shot is probably rewarded) whilst drenching them, for breakfast? This is tenuous at best, but milk in New Zealand doesn't legally have to be pasteurised. A good chunk of the players, especially the guys who own farms, they would just drink the milk straight when it still has all its vitamins and cultures (which is what people started drinking milk for).
This sort of lifestyle/diet, it makes me wonder if its the difference? I'd wager Beiber eats lots of sushi, drinks vitamin water, has skinny latte's and eats lots of official protein powders/Suisse stuff. Do you reckon many of our players concsiously try to eat lots of Vitamin C?
Vitamin C is the single most important ingredient required for the production of collagen and elastin, which is what tendons/ligaments/muscles etc etc need to maintain their suppleness and durability. With him being out for the whole international season with a....hamstring strain......does this sound logical?
We have an alarming number of soft tissue injuries at the moment, should diet be investigated? But more, traditional lines of diet? Eg organic vegetables and meat, unprocessed vitamins/milk, natural forms of protein like eggs and sweet potato, instead of heavily processed and manufactured supplements?
We obviously take a very serious attitude to fitness, but is it the wrong type? Too much gym time, but not enough actual work outside it? In the Army they talk about being fit to fight. You can be fit and strong, but as soon as you get into a fight, or have to haul arse for extended periods of time/dig a bogged artillery weapon out/cut down trees etc etc, the gym/treadmill-fit men drop like flies.
Players like Andrew Hore are (I think) the one's who spend the morning wrestling cattle and then go to rugby training. and lets face it: he looks like something that escaped from the hill tribes of Game of Thrones, and has only just been relieved of his battle axe and skull necklace.
Compare him to players like Beiber, Cooper, Beale, Digby, Higginbotham etc etc, who look like male models that have been in a day spa when they're not admiring each others pecs in the mirror at the gym, and I think it may go some way to explaining why we just don't have that hardness, and bottomless pit of endurance.
Also, you are what you eat. What's the bet that Hore eats half of one of the cows/sheep that kicked him (but the one who kick him the softest, the one who landed the best shot is probably rewarded) whilst drenching them, for breakfast? This is tenuous at best, but milk in New Zealand doesn't legally have to be pasteurised. A good chunk of the players, especially the guys who own farms, they would just drink the milk straight when it still has all its vitamins and cultures (which is what people started drinking milk for).
This sort of lifestyle/diet, it makes me wonder if its the difference? I'd wager Beiber eats lots of sushi, drinks vitamin water, has skinny latte's and eats lots of official protein powders/Suisse stuff. Do you reckon many of our players concsiously try to eat lots of Vitamin C?
Vitamin C is the single most important ingredient required for the production of collagen and elastin, which is what tendons/ligaments/muscles etc etc need to maintain their suppleness and durability. With him being out for the whole international season with a....hamstring strain......does this sound logical?
We have an alarming number of soft tissue injuries at the moment, should diet be investigated? But more, traditional lines of diet? Eg organic vegetables and meat, unprocessed vitamins/milk, natural forms of protein like eggs and sweet potato, instead of heavily processed and manufactured supplements?
