Sport-Related Weight Gain

Very often in sports the emphasis on team has gotten to the point that young athletes are asked to make sacrifices for the team that may not be in the best interest of their own health. While being a team player and team work are great skills to have in life, you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your health to please others.

In the last 20 years the average weight of a National Football League (NFL) lineman has grown from 281 pounds to 318 pounds.  The notion that bigger is better seems to dominate the thinking among lineman. Unfortunately this mentality has had a great influence on college and high school football players as well. As a result there has been a growing concern among doctors and researchers on how this quest for increased bulk affects the athlete’s health.

 

In a study that was published in the January 2007 edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association, 45 percent of more than 3,600 high school linemen in Iowa were found to be overweight (which is classified as having a body mass index between 25 and 29.9) and an additional 9 percent were classified being obese (BMI in excess of 30). The October 2007 edition of The Journal of Pediatrics contained a study of 650 young football players (ages 9 to 14) in Michigan. The results of this research reflected the findings of the Iowa study, as 45 percent of the young players were found to be either overweight or obese. For purposes of comparison, the prevalence of overweight among male children and adolescents in the United States is about 18 percent. 

 

The news was not much better for the pros. Thomas Hargrove noted in his Jan. 31, 2006 article on the Scripps-Howard News Service website cited a study involving former players in the National Football League revealed that a stunning number of heavy former athletes were dying young:

 

·         The heaviest athletes are more than twice as likely to die before their 50th birthday as their teammates, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of 3,850 professional-football players who have died in the last century.

 

·         Most of the 130 players born since 1955 who have died were among the heaviest athletes in sports history, according to the study. One-fifth died of heart diseases, and 77 were so overweight that doctors would have classified them as obese, 

 

In a study reported in the Journal of Athletic Training (Nov 2008) researchers found that nearly half of a sample of collegiate offensive and defensive linemen who underwent a battery of tests for the study had metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions (increased blood pressure, elevated insulin levels, excess body fat around the waist or abnormal cholesterol levels) that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. This means the players had at least three of five risk factors that indicate a person has higher chances of developing heart disease and diabetes than those without the risk factors.

 

There are other risks that are unique to the growing athlete. Extra weight places more stress on the growing bones of adolescents than it does on those of fully grown adults, increasing the likelihood of injury. In addition, young athletes’ growth plates, areas of growing tissue near the ends of the long bones in children and adolescents who have not yet reached the point of being fully grown, may be placed at increased risk of injury when an individual is overweight. If a growing child or adolescent is obese, there is the possibility that his or her bone growth will be stunted, and his or her joints could also be at risk for early degeneration and arthritis due to excessive wear and tear as a direct consequence of the additional/excessive weight.

While it is a common misconception that muscle will turn into fat once an athlete stops working out, it is unfortunately all too common for athletes who consume large amounts of calories to gain a disproportionate amount of fat once they stop exercising regularly, which is very unhealthy.  The goal should be to gain lean muscle and not fat and once the extra muscle mass is not as important, to then continue with healthy exercise (weight training and aerobic exercise) while reducing calorie intake in order to slowly and gradually reduce unnecessary excess muscle bulk and fat in order to reach and maintain an optimal level of health and fitness. The habit of ‘bulking up’ by taking in lots of extra calories doesn’t improve performance and creates many health risks. Increasing lean muscle mass, getting stronger and improving speed and explosiveness will help you be a better and more successful athlete. Extra body fat will not. Don’t be as concerned with your body weight as with your body composition. Don’t let your percent of body fat go above 30%. If you can increase your lean body mass (muscle) without increasing body fat, you will be much better off than focusing on increasing body weight by  increasing mostly body fat. If you are able to increase muscle by eating and exercising properly, you just have to be careful to reduce calories as you reduce your level of calories burned off once your high intensity training reduces. If you don’t, you WILL eventually get fat and unhealthy and it will look like your muscle has turned into fat. 

For athletes who want to gain weight or bulk up it might be a good idea to go to your doctor or see someone who specializes in sports medicine to see if there are any other options. Sports doctors’ assessment often includes looking at your Body Mass Index (BMI) along with considering fat to muscle ratio. He/she may be able to suggest some things to further improve your strength and conditioning. A nutritionist, athletic trainer, or certified fitness expert may also be helpful in making sure that you are eating the right foods and improving your strength and lean muscle mass instead of body fat. It is one thing to gain weight by increasing lean muscle mass through proper conditioning and nutrition and it’s something entirely different if you just get big and fat by ‘pigging out’ by eating 4 Big Macs at a time or by consuming other high calorie, low nutritional value foods. You might want to have a body composition analysis done so you can get a good idea of what your percent body fat and lean muscle mass is before you make any decisions about gaining weight.