Why Are Women Triathletes Big Boned and Meaty ?

Swimming requires upper-body strength, something long distance runners know nothing about.

Snowsill is not meaty.

http://www.runnersweb.com/running/rw_news_frameset.html?http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20050919_Emma_Snowsill.html

Plain and simple, they are not real endurance athletes. They are play pimpin, wolf in sheeps clothing, grey goose in a sippy cup endurance athletes. Fat=dead weight=lost time. If anyone can refute that I'll listen to them.

Killa Mike wrote:

Fat=dead weight=lost time.

applies really only for the running part.

No, applies also for cycling- a big time.

Some fat is essential in swimming, but it's the shortest (time -wise and energy-expenditure-wise) of the 3 events.

So, no, fat is not good for triathlon. Obviously triathletes are bigger than distance runners, but they should not be fat.

Wondering.. wrote:

I've spectated some triathlons and observed that the vast majority of the women are big. Either they are big boned and very meaty or plain old fat. It is not like triathlon is power lifting, so why are the women so meaty?

If you're looking at Average Jane middle and back of the packers, it's probably because they're Average Janes and that's what many of them look like. You see the same thing in an "event" marathon.

If you're looking at elites, swimming obviously requires a lot more upper body development than running. Swimming and cycling (at least in the flat time-trial specialty typical of triathlons) favors high power to drag (taller and more muscular) much more than power to weight (short skinny runner dudes). Elite triathletes certainly aren't fat, but the "vast majority" of triathletes aren't elite.

Same reason why the top men are "meaty"....cycling and swimming requires something foreign to most distance runners....strength and power.

Alan

Wondering.. wrote:

I've spectated some triathlons and observed that the vast majority of the women are big.

Are you saying that's not true for your typical local running race? I hate to break it to you, but the vast majority of women runners don't look like skinny elite runners either.

Some fat is essential in swimming,....

Wow, where the h#ll did you get that load of misinformation?

Informer_237 wrote:

Some fat is essential in swimming,....

Wow, where the h#ll did you get that load of misinformation?

Informer_237 wrote:

Some fat is essential in swimming,....

Wow, where the h#ll did you get that load of misinformation?

I was a lifeguard for many years. Women always had an easier time swiming and treading the 10 pound brick (12 inches out of the water) for 10 minutes. Why, because they had boobs. What are boobs made up of........ F-A-T. Some of them barely even had to work at it. I, on the other hand, a distance runner with very low body fat, struggled at it.

Also, the human body puts on body fat, the more you are in water. It's a natural process that any mamal would do.

So they are not fat, but "bigger" Women will excell much better than the 85 pound distance running women, in a Triathalon.

OK, maybe not fat but pretty scary. Yikes!

That's because you're weak.

I, too, was a lifeguard(2 years) and a distance runner and when there was any physical challenge/exercise in the pool no girl stood a chance. Including treading with the brick.

big boned my arse wrote:

http://www.ulbfit.com

All she needs is a perm, glasses, and moon boots and you got Napoleon Dynamite with cute cones.

Why are male runners chicken-chested and scrawny?

I have always hated that kind of hairdo. I put it right up there with Dingbat's tight perm. But at least she has a plausible excuse--no time wasted on the blowdryer in the transition area.

Well not all the female triathles are "fat". Well the top ranked athletes are quite lean, you can see that snowsill isn´t fat. But the girl that has the perfect "body figure" for triathlon is Vanessa Fernandes, world nº1 and world cup victories record holder she is only 22 and virtually unbeatable. She's also a great distance runner, last year she was 3rd in Portugal's cross country national's (to refer that the top 5 women (without Vanessa) in that XC were european XC champions in December). And did in training 1h12m for the Lisbon HalfMarathon in late March. Well she´s really a different case....

I don't think that they are big and meaty....they just look that way because you are such a scrawy undersized guy.