• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
How Cristiano Ronaldo reversed his biological age by 10 years as he turns 40 today

Home> News> Sport

Published 13:58 5 Feb 2025 GMT

How Cristiano Ronaldo reversed his biological age by 10 years as he turns 40 today

He's just hit his 40th birthday and is still playing

Joe Harker

Joe Harker

For football players, their body is their currency and they've only got so long to spend it before age catches up with them.

It turns out that running back and forth across a field for 90 minutes, while having to make sure you can still kick a ball in the right direction is pretty damn difficult. It's made all the more so when there's 11 people trying to stop you, and in some cases, hurt you quite badly.

At the top level of football - the age at which most professionals call it a day - is somewhere between 34 and 36, though their best years tend to have been and gone by then.

Advert

For some players the end involves stepping off the stage at the end of the season and maybe getting some sort of punditry gig or podcast. At other points it's Gary Neville sitting in the toilets at half time against West Brom during a mid-season game realising it's the end.

One player who has lasted longer than most is Cristiano Ronaldo, still doing his thing on the pitch as he turns 40 today (5 February).

Something about Ronaldo's game that's helped him maintain his longevity is how he's adapted to the pressures of time and age, often by defying them, but how has he managed this?

Back in 2018, Men's Health reported that the then 33-year-old Ronaldo had a biology comparable to that of a 23-year-old, which might help explain why he was still going strong for Real Madrid at the time.

Advert

When the man himself was 23, he was plying his trade for Manchester United in a season where he won the Premier League, Champions League and a whole host of individual accolades for his goalscoring, including the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the year.

Do you want to have a 23-year-old body at 33? Prepare to give your entire life to it. (Loris Roselli/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Do you want to have a 23-year-old body at 33? Prepare to give your entire life to it. (Loris Roselli/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The intense training regime

Ronaldo's insane fitness regime is clear to see as he whips his shirt off often enough in his goal celebrations to flex the results, while he's noted for taking 'care of his body as if it were a Ferrari'.

He exercises for up to four hours a day and makes five trips to the gym each week to work on his cardio and strength with the sort of workouts that would put Batman to shame.

Advert

His workouts also involve Pilates and swimming to make sure that his body is the finely tuned instrument it looks like.

Maybe he's born with it

Apparently, part of Ronaldo's anti-aging regime is due to his genetics, with a lot of top athletes simply having some natural advantages (see also: the swimmer Michael Phelps).

Even if you lived like Ronaldo, there's no guarantee you'd be quite the athlete he is - you have to play with the cards mum and dad dealt you when you were born.

The exercise, the diet, the ice baths. It all adds up. (Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The exercise, the diet, the ice baths. It all adds up. (Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The planned diet

While most of us aim to get three square meals a day, Ronaldo instead prefers to have six smaller meals with less time between munching.

Advert

Those long workouts need the right fuel, after all, and he needs to make sure he's eating the right things so his body has enough of the good stuff and avoids the worst things.

He's rather pointedly not a fan of sugary drinks, and like many athletes his meals are packed full of lean greens and proteins.

Ronaldo has said: "A good workout must be combined with a good diet.

"I eat a high protein diet, with lots of wholegrain carbs, fruit and vegetables, and avoid sugary foods."

His favourite food is Bacalhau à Brás, a Portuguese dish made of shreds of salted cod, onions, thinly sliced fried potatoes, and bound together with egg.

The sleeping habits

You'd think getting a good eight hours of sleep would be key to keeping your body as healthy as possible, and normally it is, but Ronaldo has five sessions per day where he's napping for 90 minutes.

Advert

All in all, he's still getting seven-and-a-half hours and whatever he's doing is working for him, though given his lengthy workouts and regular mealtimes fitting in the sleeping sessions sounds like he's got a strict timetable.

This technique is known as 'polyphasic sleep' and it's done alright for him, though you try fitting it round your nine to five and see how that works.

Six planned meals, five scheduled naps naps, four hours of exercise and an ice bath for the cryotherapy. (STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)
Six planned meals, five scheduled naps naps, four hours of exercise and an ice bath for the cryotherapy. (STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)

Ice baths

Starting the day at 5am with an ice bath sounds like Ronaldo's way of doing things, or he'll go for a dip at 3am if he's had a match the previous day.

Recovery is all part of the regime and Ronaldo training incredibly hard and making sure his diet and schedule is scientifically perfected to get the best body would be pointless if all it did was wear him out.

"He's always training, with the team or at home," Santiago Segurola told Bleacher Report of Ronaldo's focus on getting the most out of his body.

However, despite managing to reverse his biological age to an incredible degree, time catches up with everyone in the end.

Ronaldo just turned 40 today (5 February) and is currently plying his trade in Saudi Arabia with Al Nassr.

Featured Image Credit: Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images

Topics: Cristiano Ronaldo, Football, Sport, Health, Food And Drink

Joe Harker
Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

X

@MrJoeHarker

Advert

Advert

Advert

  • Cristiano Ronaldo, 40, stunned to discover new biological age after reversing process
  • Cristiano Ronaldo was left with an enormous bill after leaving Saudi Arabia hotel for permanent home
  • Cardiologist reveals 10 things you should do before age of 40 to prevent a heart attack by 70 years old
  • England fans set to drink 10 million extra pints in pubs today

Choose your content:

an hour ago
2 hours ago
  • an hour ago

    Archaeologist shares proof of 'lost city of Atlantis' after making groundbreaking discovery

    Michael Donnellan is sure he has found the lost city of Atlantis

    News
  • an hour ago

    People are only just realising that Mount Everest isn't the tallest mountain in the world

    Looks like all those climbers will have to find a new thing to boast about

    News
  • 2 hours ago

    Everything we know after father, 24, knifed to death for Rolex in front of partner in London

    Flowers and tributes now line the street in Knightsbridge where Blue Stevens was killed

    News
  • 2 hours ago

    NASA mission to deflect asteroid size of 'Pyramid of Giza' causes some very unexpected results

    Asteroid Dimorphos was destroyed in 2022 but the effects are still being studied today

    News