FOOTBALLERS ARE many things. They’re some of the fittest athletes on earth, for starters. And they have incredible endurance, regularly covering more than 10km of ground in a match. But hunks of muscle they are not, with the occasional exception like Adama Traore and Adebayo Akinfenwa. Rio Ferdinand was no such exception. Despite standing six foot two, Ferdinand spent most of his playing career at a lithe 85kg.
That changed after he retired. Within a few years, Ferdinand managed to put on nearly 20kg. Although, he admits it was a “dirty bulk” – adding muscle without thinking much about body composition. “In clothes, I looked really good,” he told Men’s Health UK. “But without clothes on the beach, I’d look a bit flabby.”
Ferdinand began the process of dieting, cycling between bulks and cuts to achieve his ideal frame. This took some time and experimentation. “My main thing was to try to maintain the weight and size, just clean up and cut to become a bit more chiselled. But I was never able to do it because the cut was such a strict cut, it just wasn’t realistic for my lifestyle. I have such a fast-paced lifestyle and I need energy to work and to get up and go. But the cuts I was doing were zero carbs and I just couldn’t maintain it.”
Eventually, Ferdinand sought the advice of a nutritionist, who got his diet in order. “He was more like, ‘It’s not zero carbs, I’m just going to take your carbs down. And then sometimes I might substitute your carbs for fats, cheese or avocado’. So I still feel full. My problem is that I love food and you can’t tell me no carbs. He’s given me a good idea of what kind of alternatives I can have on the move. And it isn’t like if you have a day off or a bad day it’s the end of the world.”
Ferdinand’s training routine has also been revitalised. “There’s a holistic approach to what I’m doing now and hopefully that’s going to put me in good stead,” he says. “Rather than fixing things when they’re broken, you actually prevent [injuries]. I know my shit now. But I’m 47 years old. It took me all that time.”
Nowadays, he sticks to a consistent routine, training three to four times a week, though never for more than an hour at a time. Sessions are adjusted in real time depending on how he’s feeling and whether any issues crop up. Despite his fondness for the bench press, he’ll switch to a floor press if his shoulders are playing up. He deadlifts with a trap bar and uses kneeling landmine presses to build his front delts.
The bench press and pull-ups remain key benchmarks for tracking his strength. Ferdinand regularly aims for 100kg on the barbell, while pull-ups help him assess strength relative to bodyweight. Like most footballers of his generation, heavy upper-body lifting simply wasn’t part of the job. “In football you just don’t do this type of thing,” he says. “It wasn’t ever part of my regime.” Now, it’s irreplaceable.
