Physical Training

Question
Hi Joe!

I'm an actor-combatant and professional stunt woman who has her foot in the local pro wrestling scene's door. I'm on the petite side (5'5", 120 lbs.), and I know in terms of physical safety as well as looking the part, it's important to build muscle.

I've been working out pretty hard for the past few years: 20-30 minutes of cardio (usually on a exercise bike), 100 pushups, 100 crunches, curls, side bends, machine weights, and the occasional dance class, in addition to weekly wrestling training. But I don't see any physical changes happening.

I'm not really trying to bulk up that much, but I wouldn't mind putting on a few more pounds of muscle. Any suggestions on how to get the pro wrestling body?

I'd also like to hear your suggestions for conditioning, and what workouts are best for the aspiring wrestler.

Thanks so much!
Jessi

Answer
The best thing you can do for cardio for wrestling, really, is to wrestle. Your work outs are not bad. I would recommend to slowly go into running for an hour each day to get better with cardio too. So keep to 30 then go up 5 minutes each week until you reach that hour level.

Outside of that, you can always up your protein per day and do high weight reps. The way to lose weight or go leaner is to do lower weights at a higher rep rate. The way to get stronger and bigger is to do higher weights with less rep rate.

That combined with higher protein certainly could help. If you're sitting at 1800 calories per day, try 2400 and see how that works combined with your work-outs per day. It might help. If you start to feel sluggish, that is normal when you change up diets. If it hurts your cardio after a week of sluggishness, take it down a bit. But go up about 500 or 600 calories initially and see how it goes. Do keep working out or you will gain bad weight.

These things very well could help with bulking up.

I will say that regardless of this being done, nothing is better than training. It will be the best thing for you and as long as you do that, everything else pays off. So try and look into a school at your local areas and go with that.

Keep in mind, many smaller girls have worked with WWE in the past like AJ Lee just as one example, and succeeded. So size is not as big of an issue for women as it is for men in this game.

Do try what I mentioned above, weigh yourself and take a picture of yourself today. Then go one month with what I mentioned and see if you notice any change. Get back with me then to know if it is helping or hurting your progress and we'll discuss what we can do next.

Have a good day!