Sumo Exercises for Everyone

I’m completely addicted to Sumo. It’s become my favorite sport.

When most westerners think of Sumo, they tend to think of big fat guys bouncing off of each other. But when you watch just a single Sumo match, the amount of strength, agility, and fitness required by the wrestlers (“Rikshi”) becomes instantly obvious. Athletes of other sports around the world look up to Sumo wrestlers, and some even travel to Japan to train with them… and inevitably get schooled by their brutal daily training regimen.

Since most of us “normal” people couldn’t possibly train as intensely as an average Sumo wrestler, it’s hard to imagine that we could benefit from some of their daily exercises. Fortunately, the Japan Sumo Association has adapted several of these exercises into simple fitness routines that can be done by just about anyone, without the need for any equipment or large space.

The “Sumo Kenko Taiso” are daily exercises that generally focus on some of the most important physical requirements of Sumo wrestling: Balance, Lower Abdominal Strength, and Backbone Stability. That sounds exactly like the key physical requirements of anyone as they age, right?

My personal favorite is “shiko”, the iconic sumo foot-stomping ritual. It’s much harder than it looks, and a little too easy to cheat. But when you get it right, it’s really satisfying. (Somehow, my family always knows when I’m doing this exercise…)

On the official web site, you can download two PDF files with descriptions and illustrations of the Sumo Kenko Taiso exercises. And on the Sumo Prime Time YouTube channel, you can also find some video tutorials by the charismatic and entertaining Sumo announcer Hiro Morita, who is also a licensed Sumo trainer. I believe these are also on Facebook.

I had some trouble using the official PDFs. They wouldn’t print on multiple pages, nor could I highlight text for some reason. So I decided to transcribe them to Markdown, and post the exercises here on my site. (I also lightly edited the text where there were typos or odd formatting.) I hope this makes these great daily exercises more accessible, and that more people can incorporate this fitness into their daily lives.

Sumo Kenko Taiso - Sumo Exercises

Hakkiyoi!

Please note that I’m not affiliated with the Japan Sumo Association, and that all content on the Sumo Kenko Taiso page is copyright ©2005 Nihon Sumo Kyokai.