Missionary Man wrote:
I am LDS and did go on a Mormon mission. You do not gain a competitive advantage by going on a mission. Most missionaries get almost no exercise. That usually occurs one day a week and you have a busy schedule otherwise. Little running for 2 years does not help you unless you need to heal from overuse injuries.
What advantage it can provide is focus. Missionaries who are 21 have an advantage in focusing on priorities. When out on a mission you confront every walk of life from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. Your priorities and maturity level are therefore at a much higher level than most other 21 or 22 year old athletes. So many other athletes at that age that I remember were looking for the party life, and lacked the same focus.
So if you want a reason for BYU success, it would probably be good coaching, some altitute, mature athletes who have a greater awareness of what they want out of life and an appreciation for where they are at at that moment.
I agree with everything but the "no exercise" part. You DO get very low-grade exercise with all the walking and sometimes the bicycling. In my mission, we had a car because it was a Spanish-speaking mission and our area was so large. But the Church limited the number of miles we could use on that car so much that it was basically sitting most of the month. One or two days out to the edge of our mission field, and the miles were gone. I knew some missionaries who actually unhooked the odometers on their cars--which is illegal--and justified it because they felt they needed to teach some of the interested people who lived far away.
The very low-grade walking is enough to at least keep you in decent health, but I didn't know any missionaries who didn't put on a significant amount of weight. Member families fed us, and when they didn't we bought cheap, unhealthy food that didn't take much time to prepare.
I haven't been to church for a number of years now. My wife is Buddhist, so we occasionally go to the local Buddhist temple. However, the Mormon lifestyle is undoubtedly more healthy than the average in the U.S.A. No alcohol, no smoking, and not even any caffeine for the most devout Mormons. I think the Mormon "Word of Wisdom," which are considered inspired teachings of healthy living, do make a difference in running performance. Do they make Mormon runners the best in the world? Hardly. But on average I think people who live and eat like Mormons are a step up on those who don't.