Becoming a jacked distance runner...is it possible?

It's hard to maintain a lot of muscle mass when you're over 60 mpw. I ran between 60-70 mpw in college x-country. Trained as a pure 800m runner during track with 30 or less mpw. Decreased mileage and sprint work would lead to 10 lb weight gain in muscle between seasons.

If you do heavy sets to gain mass your arms will feel like lead weights halfway through the race. This happened to me the spring of my senior year in high school. I still did football lifting though the winter because I thought about playing college football for a small school. Heavy football lifting coupled with stepping up to the 1600 from the 800 lead to some dead racing arms during the early season.

To carve your upper body up without carrying too much dead weight do these exercises for one set of high reps 20-30x. Do once to twice a week. Two to three minutes rest in between exercises.

Miltary press

Bench press

Upright row

Tricep extension

Bent over row

2 sets of chin ups to failure. Wide and close

1 set of pull ups to failure

1 set of dips to failure

Yeah it's possible but you won't be a very good distance runner anymore.

Are you looking to become large in size or just get muscular definition? Getting definition is possible bc you should already be lean from your miles and you won't have to put on that much muscle mass.

Iowa800 wrote:

To carve your upper body up without carrying too much dead weight do these exercises for one set of high reps 20-30x. Do once to twice a week. Two to three minutes rest in between exercises.

not OP but want to clarify "one set of high reps" - only do one set of high exercise with lots of reps? relatively speaking, how high should the weight be?

and when you say carve... do you mean this will produce definition rather than mass?

thanks

These are some stupid answers. Your in-gym training routine means nothing if you aren't in calorie surplus. Without a calorie surplus you will not gain mass, that's a fact of science. Running 70 miles a week plus another 5 hours a week lifting.. you are going to need 5000+ calories a day. Do that and you will gain. Eating that much day in and day out is really hard.

looking4musclezzz wrote:

Iowa800 wrote:

To carve your upper body up without carrying too much dead weight do these exercises for one set of high reps 20-30x. Do once to twice a week. Two to three minutes rest in between exercises.

not OP but want to clarify "one set of high reps" - only do one set of high exercise with lots of reps? relatively speaking, how high should the weight be?

and when you say carve... do you mean this will produce definition rather than mass?

thanks

I forgot to add this started out as 3 x 15 and over time it became one set.

The weight should be enough to be cause failure within 1-3 reps of your target number. For example, when I shoot for 25 reps I'm going struggling on the last two reps. It roughly comes out to 90 percent effort. I started out with 25 lb dumb bells for military press and worked up to 45 lbs.

You should gain some mass simply because of the type of lifting and the targeting of specific muscle groups. Of course results may vary depending on body type and execution.

I am in a nearly identical situation and i have also wanted to know this. Im a college freshman running for a D1 school, except im about 5'8" but i have a stocky build and looking to put on mass and get shredded whilst still running

Lopez Lemong knows it's possible.

It's sort of possible. You can work on both lifting and distance running but both will harm the other if you are trying to achieve a high degree of success in either.

I ran around 8:55 for 3k when I was 140lbs 5'9

Now I weigh 180lbs and can run about a 5:10 mile. I can also bench 225x10 now. When I was strictly running and 140lb, I couldn't even bench 135 once.

So yes, you can do both but you will not be nearly as fast when you start packing on muscle. I will say that I prefer looking muscular and running slower 100x over the reverse.

"I want to look stronger before I graduate with 50k in debt"

Quote of the day!

QUsst wrote:

Are you looking to become large in size or just get muscular definition? Getting definition is possible bc you should already be lean from your miles and you won't have to put on that much muscle mass.

+1. Getting a muscle definition should be easy for any distance runner. Look at this guy, for example.

Getting big is an entirely different matter.

I am naturally pretty lean, so I realize it will be hard to pack on muscle. However, a tad bit of mass certainly wouldn't hurt. A happy medium that won't throw off my performance is ideal. After reading all these posts however, I probably should be shooting for definition & strength more than anything else.

When I think of jacked distance runners who exemplify this, I think of Lopez Lomong (mentioned above) as well as Chris Solinsky.

NO

you can get strong and cut without adding bulk or weight. look at rock climbers.

Google 'The Hybrid Athlete'.

You can weigh 240lbs, squat 850lbs, and run a 4:15 mile on your Garmin..

What's the goal here? Performance? Overall fitness? Looking good? If the goal isn't performance, then why run 70miles/week? As has been mentioned, the volume of endurance work is going to make it harder to gain muscle so if the goal isn't to be fast, why go through the motions of training like a distance runner? My 2cents: train like a distance runner for the remainder of your time in college then, when you graduate, cut back to 30 miles per week and lift your heart out. Okay, another 2cents. If this is to impress girls, I'll let you in on a little secret. Women aren't like men. They care very little how muscular you are.

Malmo's former teammate, Paul Stemmer, at Penn St was jacked 40-years ago!

http://www.kasich.net/stem.jpg

3hr marathoner wrote:

Okay, another 2cents. If this is to impress girls, I'll let you in on a little secret. Women aren't like men. They care very little how muscular you are.

Because all the girls on college campuses are flocking to track athletes and not football players.

I'm a distance runner but at least I'm not delusional.

LOL!!!!!!! wrote:

3hr marathoner wrote:

Okay, another 2cents. If this is to impress girls, I'll let you in on a little secret. Women aren't like men. They care very little how muscular you are.

Because all the girls on college campuses are flocking to track athletes and not football players.

I'm a distance runner but at least I'm not delusional.

The skinny kicker and the fat linebackers do well with the ladies. Women like the football guys because football is popular. It has little to do with how the guys look.