An exercise physiologist explains what it will take to win Australian Ninja Warrior

THESE twins aren’t super buff, but they totally nailed the Ninja Warrior course. Here’s why they could win them the competition.

MODERN gym culture is full of myths - carbs are bad, gluten is the devil — and that the bloke with the biggest muscles is always the strongest.

But the stars of Nine’s new hit show Australian Ninja Warrior, which premiered to a massive 1.68 million viewers last night, are working overtime to dispel that myth.

Queensland twins Brodie and Dylan Pawson, 22, claimed the two fastest times on the challenging obstacle course during the first heat.

The brothers swung from silk ropes and climbed moving ladders with alarming ease, thanks to a decade of doing parkour, training their bodies to jump and swing over obstacles in real life, urban environments.

The Pawsons don’t look like the massive, bulked-up guys who hang around the weights section at the gym. They’re lean and agile, but with bulging forearms.

It takes a different kind of strength to succeed at Ninja Warrior than we usually see celebrated by the fitness industry.

As fellow contestant Katie Williams told news.com.au on the weekend, training for Ninja Warrior requires a unique set of skills - mostly arm strength and grip endurance.

“It’s crazy training. You can’t just go to a normal gym and train for Ninja Warrior,” Williams said.

“You have to have rock climbing walls and things that move, because you need forearm strength and cognitive ability to see where your next movement is.

“You have to be able to hold your body weight for several minutes. “It’s bloody hard, because you’re using your forearms and they fatigue.

“I think I put on three kilograms of muscle mostly in my arms, because so much of what I was doing was with my upper body.”

Brisbane twins Brodie (R) and Dylan (L) Pawson won the first heat on Ninja Warrior last night, thanks to years of parkour training.

Sydney exercise physiologist Dr Bill Sukala says traditional gym training - lifting lots of heavy weights - doesn’t help at all with this kind of competition.

“It’s important to remember the size of a person’s muscles does not always equate to their strength,” Dr Sukala told news.com.au.

“You could be really strong in the gym - the bodybuilder type with massive muscles - but if you put them on a show like Ninja Warrior they wouldn’t perform that well,” he said.

“If you look at rockclimbers, they tend to be really lean, but they can climb these massive brick walls and they train themselves to be able to sustain that tension for a really long time.

“The bodybuilder that thinks he can muscle his way through, he will fatigue and his forearms will give out and his grip will weaken. Rock climbing training gives you a strong grip, but also the ability to maintain for a certain period of time.”

The twins say they’re highly competitive and always try to out-speed and out jump each other.

Dr Sukala says having a good strength to mass ratio - your body’s strength relative to its weight — is important to succeed on the course.

“I’ve seen all these athletes, people who if you saw them walking down the street, you’d think ‘Wow, they’re so buff and strong, their muscles are massive’, with bad strength to mass ratio. Yes, they have muscles, but they’re not what you’d call functional muscles,” Dr Sukala said.

“If you have someone who is really muscly but lean, so their body weight is really light, they’re going to climb the ropes really quickly.

“Someone with lots of muscles who is really bottom heavy with a 150kg body mass, they might be strong, but does the strength of their arms enough to overcome the collective body weight that they’re trying to move?

“Having big muscles to some extent, depending on your ratio, that could even hinder you. You’re just carrying dead weight, unless you have the strength to carry that body weight.”

Ninja Warrior is famous for attracting the fittest athletes in the world. The audition process included four, five-minute exercises - a plank, dead-hang, skipping, and pull-up to push-ups.

Only seven people worldwide have managed to complete the course in 20 years.

The second round of heats continues tonight.

Australian Ninja Warrior airs Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays from 7.30pm on Nine.

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