One look at the viral picture of sumo wrestler Ura Kazuki’s legs and it’s tempting to assume his training consists of little more than squatting heavy, eating everything in sight and then squatting heavy again.
To be fair, you probably don’t develop thighs that look capable of supporting a motorway bridge without doing plenty of the above.
But size is only half the story.
Ura is known throughout sumo as ‘the Acrobat’, a nickname earned through his unusually agile, unpredictable style. Despite weighing well north of 130kg, he’s capable of launching himself across the ring, dropping into extreme positions and producing the sort of explosive movement you wouldn’t normally associate with a man who looks as though he generates his own gravity field.
In other words, he isn’t just big for big’s sake. He can move.
This is arguably more important in sumo than in almost any other pursuit where mass is part of the job description. The objective may be simple – force your opponent out of the ring or make them touch the floor with anything other than the soles of their feet – but achieving it requires a sophisticated blend of size, strength, balance, mobility and speed.
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A wrestler needs to stay low enough to avoid being uprooted, absorb the force of another enormous man crashing into them, then drive through the floor hard enough to return the favour. Growing a large, powerful lower body helps create a low centre of gravity while providing the engine needed to explode forwards.
Why Sumo Wrestlers Build Such Powerful Legs
Exercise scientist Dr Mike Israetel made the same point while reacting to footage of sumo wrestlers training.
‘That’s where all of your power, it’s where connection to the ground comes from,’ he said of the sport’s lower-body emphasis, before adding that without a strong base, ‘you can just get snapped up like a twig’.
So, how do they build legs like Ura’s?
Traditional sumo training contains a huge amount of bodyweight work. Wrestlers repeatedly practise deep, wide-stance squats, high-legged stomps and sliding drills performed from a permanently crouched position. These movements build strength and muscular endurance while also teaching wrestlers to stay balanced, mobile and powerful close to the floor.
Israetel noted reports of wrestlers performing 200-300 bodyweight squats every day. His verdict? ‘Not ideal.’
He argued that reducing that volume to a third – or even a quarter – and supplementing it with resisted squats, leg presses and deficit deadlifts could make wrestlers ‘significantly stronger and more explosive’.
He was more complimentary about the sport’s sliding drills. Performed from a low stance, they keep constant tension on the quads while challenging balance and mobility. For a 200kg wrestler, Israetel noted, that still represents enough resistance to drive hypertrophy and strength gains.
He also praised partner-resisted drills, where athletes are pulled backwards as they try to drive forwards, calling them ‘very good for athletic pursuits’ – albeit something that would probably benefit from being combined with more conventional resistance training.
What You Can Learn from Ura’s Training
The takeaway isn’t that a few bodyweight drills are the secret to building Ura’s legs. Genetics are clearly doing some heavy lifting here – pun intended. So is a huge calorie intake. Sumo wrestlers reportedly consume around 8,000 calories a day, much of it in the form of chankonabe – a calorie-dense stew packed with meat, fish, eggs, tofu and vegetables, usually served alongside unfathomably large portions of rice.
All that aside, when you weigh more than 130kg, simply walking around means your legs are spending the entire day underneath the equivalent of a heavily loaded barbell.
But there is something worth stealing.
If you want bigger legs, heavy squats, deadlifts and leg presses remain difficult to beat. If you want bigger legs that can also move, jump, change direction and produce force quickly, strength work should only be the start of the conversation.
Squat deep. Jump. Bound. Sprint. Lunge in different directions. Use bodyweight movements to explore positions that heavy lifting alone may never take you into.
For us, the most impressive thing about Ura’s legs isn’t their size. It’s the fact they haven’t stopped him moving like a man half his size.
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