Josh Beckett: Cover Model

A couple of weeks ago, Red Sox ace Josh Beckett challenged anyone who dared call him fat to join him during one of his workouts. Now we’ve got a look at what the smack-talking gossip columnists would be in for if they accepted the invitation, courtesy of Men’s Fitness magazine.

Though the promise of the “best sex [we’ll] ever have” was the first thing that caught our eye, we eventually noticed that Beckett isn’t looking pudgy. At all. In fact, he looks pretty ripped.

It’s probably because his workout is so challenging. Beckett tells the magazine that throwing a pitch requires three seconds of effort followed by 12 seconds of rest. So his cardio routine replicates that, and the rest of his workout is all conditioning.

“People have always said about me: ‘Oh, his pitching looks effortless,’” he said. “It ain’t effortless. I put out max effort. I try to throw the damn thing as hard as I can. That’s my demeanor, and it’s like this: My job is to execute quality pitches consecutively until the game is over or somebody takes the ball out of my hand. That’s the philosophy I live by.”

Suddenly, we feel incredibly lazy.

Pick up the current issue of Men’s Fitness on newsstands in Boston now.