Muscle up « and » play pool!

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Monti

Well-known member
Jo Rogan has said he doesn’t think lifting and pool go together.
He has got in my head. I recently started the gym , middle age guy , not big muscle guy but I do some weights. Since then I am playing terrible.

What are your thoughts on this. I’m expecting to hear from some big lads who are also high Fargo rates so I çan set my mind straight again 😂
 
Monti said:
Jo Rogan has said he doesn’t think lifting and pool go together.
He has got in my head. I recently started the gym , middle age guy , not big muscle guy but I do some weights. Since then I am playing terrible.

What are your thoughts on this. I’m expecting to hear from some big lads who are also high Fargo rates so I çan set my mind straight again 😂
Click to expand...
I think aerobic is essential, of course. I got lessons from a European champion who used to do weight work specifically to improve his arm's twitch strength.

I think until your muscles stabilize, and your body learns how to use them, you will have problems.

And then, consider Mike Massey. It was a mistake to bet against his one-armed push-ups.
 
My suggestion Monti is to workout to firm up and not so much as to aim to bulk up if that makes sense .

I played some of my best pool back when I worked on water wells and windmills on a regular basis , my tools of choice were two 24" aluminum offset pipe wrenches then setting a pipe break and pulling or pushing the hydrologic lever to either lift or set the pipe from the water well .
 
Sinewy muscles and tendons exhibit greater flexibility without sacrificing much strength versus bulking up.
There is nothing in the pool stroke that requires power, not even the break shot. You can attain very good
results controlling the speed of your stroke that determines the produced amount of energy in the cue ball.

The pool stroke is a fluid motion so you need to exercise so you do not limit nor reduce your arm flexibility.
Smooth and steady is so much easier to accomplish when your arm and shoulders aren’t tight or engorged.
from pumping iron. You can still maintain a athletic frame. It merely requires different exercise routines & lifting.
 
He isn’t the first to say that. I think it was the great Jimmy Caras (and possibly Ralph Greenleaf too) who refused to do any kind of physical exercise for fear of messing up their muscles for playing pool.

Look at all almost all the modern top players- Gorst, Filler, both Ko’s, Albin, Shaw, all skinny guys, most under 6ft.
Feijen and Hohmann are two who stand out as consistently training hard with weights but neither are super bulky.
 
I've been averaging 5 days a week at the gym for the past 35 years or so. I got before work. I've never taken any steroids or anything similar, but I've always tried to get as big as possible while lifting casually and without supplements. It has never negatively impacted my stroke or game. If anything, working out helps keep your body stronger as we age and that keeps the aches and pains away...which helps your game.
 
It is curious to read how players view their pool game which is a presumptuous task by its very nature.

So if someone were to write I’ve never exercised in my life, eat way too much sugar and it’s never affected
my pool game, I wonder how the heck they could ever possibly know without having at least tried? Is their
pool play so skillful that it couldn’t be improved? And “if” changing something, such as cutting out sugar, as
an example, helped them actually play better, more relaxed, then isn’t it logical that consuming too much
sugar was indeed negatively impacting their pool play despite the player thinking it wasn’t?

It seems to me that until, or unless, you actually try something that might be different, maybe even contrary to
what you think, believe or espouse, you can never be certain that you are, or were, right in your position. Sure,
you can argue all you want about what you believe but until you tried doing something differently, albeit even
slightly, it will always remain you might have been wrong all along and just never bothered to ever find out.

The truth is everyone’s body and anatomy is different. So what works for one of us might fail miserably for another.
 
clearly you don't need muscle mass to play pool. but being in generally good health/shape can't hurt.

When I started playing again after a 25 year layoff, and about a 50-75 pound weight gain, the first thing I noticed was my gut and how to adjust my arm stroke around it. In college I was about 175 and at age 45 I was a svelte 250.

Guys and gals of all shapes and sizes have played...from Tommy Kennedy and Johnny Archer to Minnesota Fats.
 
Good health and muscle mass are kind of connected, albeit a stretch. Muscles and pool play have little to do with each other aside from stamina. It goes without saying that everyone is blessed with muscles and tendons that provide us with strength, mobility, dexterity, and flexibility. You can be in excellent health and never lift a single weight, perform any type of cardio or ever visit a gym. Fitness is important for our longevity, enjoyment and health. Exercise is a way of trying to attain and maintain one’s over fitness. But rest, nutrition and mental relaxation are equally, if not more important. Back to the orig. subject about becoming muscular from exercise, it hasn’t any connection at all with playing better pool. FYI, pool isn’t a game of strength.
 
Monti said:
Jo Rogan has said he doesn’t think lifting and pool go together.
He has got in my head. I recently started the gym , middle age guy , not big muscle guy but I do some weights. Since then I am playing terrible.

What are your thoughts on this. I’m expecting to hear from some big lads who are also high Fargo rates so I çan set my mind straight again 😂
Click to expand...
The only muscle mass you need to play pool is between your ears!!😉
 
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