what makes samoans so athletic and agile?

possibly a pointless question, but im just watching the 2003 royal rumble, and watching rikishi do his superkick made me think how on earth do samoans with their obviously different body type, be able to do such moves. he also manages to do that thing where he appears to turn himself inside out when clotheslined. umaga was another who often did high speed and high flying moves. the usos have shown themselves to be very athletic also. the rock could also be used as an example

and samoa joe. yes i think they are agile because they probably have been training for years to wrestle and they probably dont even think ooo im fat i shouldnt be able to do that they just keep training til they can do that superkick etc. got to admire them for the effort they put in

I think sjh5678 pretty much nailed it.

i was supposed to put joe in that list but forgot, snuka is another.

im not convinced its either of those though. you couldnt train any regular fat american/british guy to do such moves.

google offers little info. a little about mental attributes and discipline. but not exactly that they dont see fat as a boundary

One word - History, Its their history man!

JamesLincs wrote:i was supposed to put joe in that list but forgot, snuka is another.

im not convinced its either of those though. you couldnt train any regular fat american/british guy to do such moves.

google offers little info. a little about mental attributes and discipline. but not exactly that they dont see fat as a boundary

True, you couldn't train a regular large (fat) person to perform "high risk" wrestling moves. What you might be overlooking is that, for starters, guys like Joe have been doing this for years and have a hell of a lot of training and conditioning, to the point they have developed the strength and flexibility to pull off those moves, despite their body mass.

Although he's not Samoan, another example you could use is Bully Ray. He doesn't do high risk moves very often be he can do them, as well as the odd high kick.

I can't talk about WWE but I've noticed quite a few TNA wrestlers, while obviously in good shape, don't have the stereotypical "ripped" physiques you might expect (probably about a 50/50 split). This leads me to think that its quite possible to just train your body over time to perform these moves, without necessarily being superfit and lean.

Getting back on topic, I'm guessing Samoans have a genetic pre-disposition towards "chunkiness", but also have a good strength-to-weight ratio, probably helped by their warrior culture, rugby, lots of heavy manual labour etc. No idea about the speed and agility - although again those are useful rugby traits - but I'm guessing a person can train to acquire those attributes.