Rulon Gardner shows Olympians aren't normal people on Biggest Loser

yes he knows how to lose weight. yes he can push himself at least 10000x harder then anyone on the show. I'm saying this will help for the first however many weeks. eventually his natural body will take over, he'll gain muscle.

He will not gain muscle. With the very, very rare case and then only for total fitness beginners, it is impossible to gain muscle without eating an excess of calories. Obviously with the controlled diet and the massive cardio these guys are doing on the show, they are not eating an excessive of calories, thus no muscle gain.

Glad I'm not a wrestler wrote:

Like others said, any wrestler knows how to make weight by dehydrating himself.

But wrestlers dehydrate themselves to make a certain way, not to keep progressively losing weight week after week after week. If Gardner's 32 lb loss was mostly water this week, he won't be able to pull that same trick the next week and the week after without actually losing fat (and/or muscle).

*weight (not "way")

From the times I've watched the show, a lot of the people who do well are the relatively younger men who have some type of athletic background. Since he was a world class athlete in an intense sport only 6 years ago (Bronze medal in 2004) he can probably handle the exercise better than anybody. As evidence of this, he and his teammate won the 5k Treadmill Event while whooping it up.

remember that this is a SHOW. The producers can stage the weigh ins without warning to the contestants. Yet the producers may have weighed the contestants to know how they would stack up.

It's not all nice and tidy like edited on TV

Some 'weeks' may be shorter or longer.

I like Rulon but as pointed out previously he is a big man when lean-maybe 260-280. His potential loss percentage is not as great as most of these contestants. He can handle the pain and intensity.

Plyo Master wrote:

All I have to say is not even the most ardent Lance supporter thinks Karelin was clean. Got to love an Olympic Champ with the nickname, "The Experiment."

The undead comparison is especially appropriate given his use of cadaver derived HGH.

I think Karelin was clean. I think Lance was a doper. Karelin was the same size his entire career. He never had odd jaw growth, braces on his teeth or any of the symptoms associated with HGH use. I haven't seen the records to prove it, but it has been reported from several sources that his birth weight was 6.8kg (15lbs). Some people are just born freaks. And some of those freaks work their asses off.

How long until he brings his gold medal to the set and does a pep talk about never giving up?

Dr. Dent wrote:

While in grammar school, Rulon was impaled by an arrow in a show-and-tell incident.

Good god. The most exciting day of show and tell I remember is a crazy lady talking claiming holy water cured cancer. I wish I'd gone to his school.

make me some money wrote:

That isn't that much weight to lose. Most people have that much spackle like material built up in their colon.

LOL, I have a friend who believes this. When we were in HS CC 34 years ago, he was so thin you could see his heart beat, maybe 5'10", 120 lbs. Now he's a typical middle aged guy with a beer gut, maybe 180 pounds. He says it's that built up mystery material, and he's taking some herbal remedy. I told him it's just normal fat.

I laughed at this.

b runs wrote:

Loses 32 pounds in one week. Ridiculous. I smell a nine toed comeback.

The weight loss didn't prove anything, as every season, multiple guys lose 30 or more lbs in the first week.

I will agree with everyone on the fact that he should do very well on the show, assuming he doesn't screw up and get voted off.

I didn't see this show but did anyone cry? Some of the people on the show probably lose a pound or two in tears over the season.

The \"week\" isnt a week. It can be 10-14 days since it is entertainment. I bet he might have trouble with injury bc he obviously will think he can do anything but at that weight it could be harsh.

We have one former whale from this show (Coach Mo) who has the IQ of a rock and he lives in our town. This guy has been unbearable as he's tried to stretch out his 15 minutes of fame far too long. It's a slap in the face of anyone who actually puts in daily effort to keep from becoming a big fat turd.

Not saying Karelin was clean, but I have a close friend, not an athlete, who does weights 3x per week, and has the same body type.

He is 6'3", 248 lbs, and ripped solid. Unbelievable--and, he is totally clean. He's totally uncoordinated, and has no athletic ability whatsoever. In fact, he's not even that strong--but he looks identical to Karelin.

ppawee wrote:

32 pounds? How is this even possible? That's like 20,000 calories per day. It must be mostly water.

Math isn't your strong suit is it?

I only watched the first half of the first episode.

I could see the fear that the new trainers were past contestants on the show. I wouldn't want to be trained by a past contestant. Still, I would have taken the immunity.

1) If I wanted to lose weight, I'd know I'd have 28 days to spend working out. For someone liek Rulon, he knows how to train already so it is just a matter of spending the time to devote to the training.

2) If I wanted to try to win the show, I'd take the immunity and not workout that much. I'd keep the weight on so I could lose it later in the season and stay above the line.

If it is actually a 1 week period that was depicted on the show, he would have had to burn nearly 16,000 more calories per day than he consumed. So 20,000 isn't too far off. Obviously that changes if it's really 2 weeks between the weigh-ins.