TV's Distortion of How Big People Are

QMany

QMany

All-American
Sorry for one of the most awkward thread titles ever. Really didn't know how else to say it. :D

I was having a conversation with one of my buddies and we came to a hypothesis, so I wanted to pose the question to HuskerBoard.

What impact does seeing an athlete on TV have on their size perception?

Few examples, all from Saturday stoked this topic:

  • We were watching some of the PGA Tour coverage, and Tiger looks huge! In his presser, his arms were enormous. I looked it up, he is 6'1.5" and 185 lbs. Those are my exact specs, I lifts weights everyday, and I look NOTHING like TW.
  • We went out in Columbia and ran into the Mizzou basketball team. Phil Pressey is TINY. He looked like he might be 5'9" and 155 lbs. He was with most of their frontcourt. These dudes are sooooooo tall, but in person, they are much skinnier than they look on TV.
  • Russell Westbrook is only 6'3" and my buddy didn't think some of the things he can do are physically possible for someone that size.

tiger.woods.jpg


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Russell Westbrook may only be 6'3" but he has really long arms, and he can jump probably better than anybody in the NBA, perhaps with exception to Blake Griffin. He's also REALLY fast, and smooth.

Yes, Pressey is small. You can tell even on TV he's a little dude, but he can play ball.

I've never thought Tiger looked very big. If you really lift weights every single day, you aren't doing your body any favors. Take a day or two off every week from lifting and supplant it with either an off day or a couple of cardio days such as playing pickup basketball games. When you do lift, do 70% the weight and 2x the reps. Every set that you do on almost every lift, do it until failure (until your muscles won't let you do another rep). After that, just eat a crap ton of carbs, protein (1.5x your weight in grams of protein), and plenty of healthy fats (almonds).

 
HuskerShark said:
Russell Westbrook may only be 6'3" but he has really long arms, and he can jump probably better than anybody in the NBA, perhaps with exception to Blake Griffin. He's also REALLY fast, and smooth.

Yes, Pressey is small. You can tell even on TV he's a little dude, but he can play ball.

I've never thought Tiger looked very big. If you really lift weights every single day, you aren't doing your body any favors. Take a day or two off every week from lifting and supplant it with either an off day or a couple of cardio days such as playing pickup basketball games. When you do lift, do 70% the weight and 2x the reps. Every set that you do on almost every lift, do it until failure (until your muscles won't let you do another rep). After that, just eat a crap ton of carbs, protein (1.5x your weight in grams of protein), and plenty of healthy fats (almonds).
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That was more a figure of speech. I have a lifting regime similar to what you listed. Played college basketball and my best friend and lifting partner is a personal trainer.

Russell Westbrook is kind of an anomaly in this discussion. I agree with your assessment, and his athleticism is freaky.

 
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With as much money as Tiger has he can afford any supplement, trainer, dietitian he wants. He's a big dude though, he look like he should be playing football or baseball.

 
Our hypothesis kind of went back to the old adage, "television adds 10 pounds."

I think TV "widens" people out. It makes them look my stockier and stronger.

At the same time, it doesn't accurately reflect height. These Mizzou FW and C were MONSTERS in real-life but don't look that tall on camera.

 
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QMany said:
Tiger just doesn't look like a 185 lb. man.
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I think the big thing about Tiger is his core strength. That's what has always helped him to separate himself from everyone else in the game of golf because he uses his core to help him drive the ball farther than anybody else.

 
Q, my guess with Tiger is probably that the weight stat just isn't accurate or up-to-date.

If he truly is 6'1" at 185, then his legs must be relatively tiny. Because I agree - his arms look pretty big.

 
I have no idea what your back ground is in weight training but I would guess that Tiger working with personal trainers and a professional athlete takes it to another level than someone just staying in shape.

I watched a show years ago on his strength training and it is nowhere close to the typical golfer.

As for how TV affects how they look, every once in a while I will go down and watch the Huskers come out of the locker room for the tunnel walk under the stadium. I do agree that TV can make it hard to see really how big someone is. I think it was Dennard that had absolutely HUGE arms. On TV I had never realized how big he was. On the flip side, sometimes a lineman can seem smaller than I think they look in a game. I'm 6'3" and 195 lbs so height of players usually doesn't shock me.

I think sometimes it's the clothes or uniform they are wearing. For instance, a O lineman can look really fat on TV because they have the skin tight jerseys now. Then, I had the pleasure of being around Marcell Jones a few times and in street clothes he didn't seem like he as fat at all.

 
aspeedlin4589 said:
With as much money as Tiger has he can afford any supplement, trainer, dietitian he wants.
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Cool story to go along with this. I have caddied for a few players on some mini-tours. One of them has worked with Sean Foley and is around that professional golf instruction and golf training "scene" a lot. He was telling me that when Tiger is learning each new swing, his physical trainer is with him almost every day. If there is a position or move that he needs to be in but can't get there without impediment, they will stop instruction there for a few days until the trainer can work on his imbalances/hindrances through stretching/yoga/etc.

 
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Undone said:
Q, my guess with Tiger is probably that the weight stat just isn't accurate or up-to-date.

If he truly is 6'1" at 185, then his legs must be relatively tiny. Because I agree - his arms look pretty big.
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I thought about the weight statistic being out of date. That is probably some of the problem.

In that photo above, his legs don't look small.

I have read that when he was at Stanford, he was very wiry and skinny, but was pound-for-pound one of the stronger athletes in their athletic program.

 
Yeah, he's clearly a physical juggernaut. Neural muscle connectivity, and all that.

On a different train of thought, I'd be really curious to see T-Magic on a scale right now. Seems he's got to weigh more than huskers.com shows on the roster.

 
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