If you ever performed a full-length Rock Show or day-long rehearsal you probably know that drumming can make you tired.
But would you expect that drumming in a professional Rockband can be even harder than playing a first-league football (soccer) match? Yeah, you thought something that way but now you can be sure!
British scientists of the Universities of Chichester and Gloucestershire just found out that drummers need to have a condition like sportsmen.
They connected Blondie-Drummer Clem Burke – who had also played with Iggy Pop, Pete Townshend and Bob Dylan – with a number of medical instruments to measure the drummer’s physical exertion during a 90min live performance.
And then they did the same with the Portuguese football player Cristiano Ronaldo.
You know what? Both guys work on the same powerful level!
With the only exception that Ronaldo has to play about 40 – 50 matches per year but Clem Burke does at least 100 Live Shows in the same stretch.
The leader of the project, Marcus Smith, shows great respect to drummers: “Musicians need to have an extra-ordinary fitness when they’re on tour.”
On pitch/stage Ronaldo and Burke experience an average pulse of 140/150 bpm with peaks at 190. They burn between 400 and 600 calories per hour. And that’s the point of the study:
Smith and Burke just opened a “Drummer Labor” where over-weighted teenagers can drum their kilos away. Salute!
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