Finn Balor On Why He Does No Cardio, Facing Bray Wyatt, Workout Changes After 2016 Injury
Finn Balor recently spoke with GQ and revealed that he does no cardio. Balor was asked if abs are made in the gym, or in the kitchen.
"I think it's a little bit of both. Obviously, they go hand in hand. But I would lean more towards made in the kitchen. I can tell you right now that I do absolutely zero cardio," Balor said.
Balor elaborated and said he won't do any kind of training that will jeopardize what he does in the ring. He continued, "If I go into a regular gym, I will sit on the bike for six minutes simply to transition my brain from being in civilization to the gym. Not for any sort of calorie burn or warmup or anything like that. Don't ask me why it's six minutes, that's just a weird OCD thing that I have. And I won't train for more than an hour. There will be a long period beforehand with some active stretching, and then I'll do a little bit of accessory work first. I won't do anything that's going to jeopardize what I do in the ring, so I'm not going to do any heavy squats, any heavy deadlifts. I'm more worried about the accessory work and making sure all the joints are in place with rotation, especially with my shoulder injuries in the past. I want to do all that accessory work first when I'm fresh, I'm concentrating, I'm focused, and then I'll hit a little bit hypertrophy bodybuilding towards the end, but we're talking maybe three drop sets of rows, or something like that."
Balor is set to face Bray Wyatt's "Fiend character at Sunday's WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view. He was asked if he does anything from a training or diet perspective to better prepare himself for an opponent like Balor, who is so strong, fast and "freakishly athletic" for his size.
"No, I'm a creature of habit," Balor said. "I find that I've gotten to where I am based on my skill and my ability. I won't change my style or my training or my diet if I'm fighting Bray Wyatt or Brock Lesnar or Seth Rollins or Braun Strowman. It doesn't really affect me. I'm comfortable in my body, I'm comfortable with my training, and I have confidence in myself as a performer in the moment, so I shouldn't have to adapt my training to help counter other people's strengths and weaknesses. I should rely on my strengths."
Balor was forced to relinquish the WWE Universal Title back in 2016 after becoming the inaugural champion by defeating Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. Balor torn his labrum during the match and was on the shelf for several months. He was asked if that injury forced him to make any significant changes to his diet or training.
"A little known fact: I've been dogged by a left rotator cuff injury since I was 19," Balor revealed. "I've been coping with that my whole career. And then, of course, I completely destroyed the right shoulder. So pretty ironic that the shoulder that's been bugging me my whole career has now become the stronger shoulder. But I got to do my rehab with Kevin Wilk in Birmingham, Alabama, and he taught me a lot about stabilization and different methods of fatiguing the joint without having to lift overhead. So I won't ever do any overhead presses anymore. Everything will be nice and narrow. Really, it taught me how to train a lot smarter. I think, honestly, it's improved my physique in the last three years as a result of the accessory work and paying more attention to the details, as opposed to just going to that one-rep max bench press or big overhead press. Sometimes bringing it back to basics and working on the baby stuff is what's important."