This culture of competing with injuries results in many wrestlers worsening their condition and turning manageable injuries into serious chronic problems. To prevent themselves from losing their healthy salary, sumo wrestlers will continue to compete even if their body is severely compromised. Sumo wrestlers are often unable to take off to heal from injuries because even if they miss a couple of tournaments they are quickly demoted to the unpaid divisions. Many top sumo wrestlers are forced to retire after accumulating too many injuries particularly damaged discs in their back and torn ligaments in their knee. It is very common to see sumo wrestlers with heavy knee braces and strapping as they battle with long term and severe injuries. The sport of sumo also places severe stress on Rikishis’ backs and knees which is further increased by the sheer weight of the wrestlers. They also strike each other with their open hands and hit each other with their shoulders. Sumo wrestlers compete on a hard and often slippery clay surface and smash into each other at a violent speed. With a pint of beer having 200 calories a Rikishi can slam a couple of pints, add a few hundred calories to his daily total and then let his body work on his beer gut as he takes a nap. Sumo wrestlers drink beer because it is an easy way to consume empty calories that will quickly turn to fat. It is not uncommon for Rikishi to consume over 5 pints of beer daily! No doctor would recommend anybody no matter how many hours they spend in the gym to drink so much beer. Sumo wrestlers also have another very unhealthy habit…beer drinking! Sumo wrestlers love drinking beer and they can consume incredible amounts. The sumo diet is very extreme as they eat up to bowls of rice everyday and kilos of meat, fish, chicken which is all combined into a hot pot stew. It is common for sumo wrestlers to die in their 50s and 60s from stomach and pancreatic cancers. The stomach and intestines is not meant to consume kilos of food everyday and process 6000 + calories! The standard sumo diet places enormous stress on the digestion system. While sumo wrestlers do mitigate the negative effects of obesity such as heart attacks and strokes through their vigorous training routines they still suffer many other health problems including stomach issues. The average top ranked sumo wrestler weighs over 350 pounds at just 6f1 which is morbidly obese by any metric. Sumo wrestling is not a healthy sport as athletes force feed themselves to put on huge amounts of weight and swell to well over 300 pounds. Due to their unhealthy lifestyle the average sumo wrestler dies in their 60s and lives 10 years less than the average Japanese man. They also suffer many stomach problems due to force feeding. Sumo wrestlers are not healthy and suffer from back and knee issues due to their enormous weight. Does working out neutralize being fat or is sumo wrestling still unhealthy? Let’s find out! Everyone knows that sumo wrestlers have large amounts of fat but at the same time they are impressive athletes who spend hours everyday training.

Are sumo wrestlers healthy