Chad Gable Explains ‘Fun’ Fitness Routine, Improved Physique

Since Chad Gable returned from injury, nobody’s calling him “Shorty G” any more. Peers and audiences have noticed his improved physique and conditioning, and on a recent interview with Complex Graps he described the change in his approach.

On the difference between training for amateur versus pro:

“I think I had to finally turn some of my knowledge into wisdom. And what I mean by that is, I had been reading and researching stuff forever and had all these smart people telling me like what works. But I always wanted to do things my way. And my way was very hard-headed and driven from amateur wrestling. Just like the harder you work, then the more results you will see. It always paid off that way with amateur wrestling. But as far as like fitness, nutrition, all that stuff, it doesn’t really work like that. You know, like a physiology is different. There’s a science to it.”

On counter-intuitive advice working:

“So I was just running myself into the ground at times, I found. And when I backed off is actually when I started seeing all these crazy changes. And it took my trainer Jay Fujia to finally convince me of that, and beat it into my head, and a few other people along the way. Jason Phillips, a guy that I worked with in nutrition before that, finally convinced me to eat more. So it sounds insane to most people; probably like all these changes started happening when I started eating more and training less. Uh, which is wild, but that’s really what happened. Now, that’s not going to be the case for everybody, obviously, but it worked for me.”

On training being fun:

“I think just the older you get, the more you learn these kind of things and and let them set in. And like I said, it becomes wisdom. And to your point, it was really cool to see a lot of my peers kind of asking, ‘Who’s helping you? Who’s showing you how to do this stuff?’ And now it’s kind of spread and it’s cool, man. Everybody’s having fun with it again. And it’s I always say it’s supposed to be fun. Everybody looks at this fitness and nutrition stuff like it’s got to be torture. And you know, I’m in the 4 a.m. club, man. I get up, I don’t sleep, I just train hard. Look at when Arnold did it. How much fun did it look when Arnold Schwarzenegger was training? It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be cool. Make it cool again.”

Check out the whole thing below: