Why are female swimmers fat while their male counterparts are ripped?

moanswers wrote:

The power in swimming comes from the core and the kick.

Total Nonsense wrote:

No, it does not.

It depends on the stroke.[/quote]

[quote]A breast stroker wrote:

But not in the freestyle.

rasnip wrote:

On the subject of exceptions, look up Breeja Larson...definitely more lean than most of the female swimmers. Most do have that extra cushion, though. "Fat" is a silly word for it, because they ain't that.

well....... wrote:

Even in freestyle, where propulsion is primarily generated by the upper body, kicking is what differentiates the best swimmers.

No it does not. Here's a video of Katie Ledecky the currently best all round swimmer in the world smashing the WR for the 1500m freestyle. She's not even kicking at all for most of the race.

800 dude wrote:

Perhaps the difference between female and male swimmers just reflects what naturally happens to you when you train a ton and don't worry about what you eat.

Or, you know... One having different sexual organs than the other and all the differences related to those differences.

moanswers wrote:

The power in swimming comes from the core and the kick.

Total Nonsense wrote:

No, it does not.

A breast stroker wrote:

It depends on the stroke.

Right, but not in the freestyle.

[quote]brofest2016 wrote:

Leveon Bell is 2.9%

https://www.instagram.com/p/5sFkNkMtL4/?taken-by=steelerrb26&hl=en

But he is a freak of nature

---------------------------

Welp, sure looks like ole Leveon Bell is not quite the freak of nature he is claiming to be. Dummy should never have posted this, simply not possible to achieve without drugs.

I know this thread is old but it’s driving me nuts that no one is answering your question. Obviously female swimmers are in top shape just like the men. And swimming and spending time in water should shred body fat (that’s why Phelps eats a 12K calorie diet). But female bodies are designed to protect babies, so when they spend hours a day in water colder than the human body, female bodies push their fat out to the surface to keep their temperatures regulated, like how seals have fat on the outside of their bodies.

reader1 wrote:

But female bodies are designed to protect babies, so when they spend hours a day in water colder than the human body, female bodies push their fat out to the surface to keep their temperatures regulated, like how seals have fat on the outside of their bodies.

Do you have an article for this or some more in-depth physiological explanation? Feels pretty psuedo-sciency and weird to me. Also, your body redistributing fat (from visceral to subcutaneous or something) doesn't really change your appearance drastically. If someone's really lean, they're gonna look really lean.

reader1 wrote:

I know this thread is old but it’s driving me nuts that no one is answering your question. Obviously female swimmers are in top shape just like the men. And swimming and spending time in water should shred body fat (that’s why Phelps eats a 12K calorie diet). But female bodies are designed to protect babies, so when they spend hours a day in water colder than the human body, female bodies push their fat out to the surface to keep their temperatures regulated, like how seals have fat on the outside of their bodies.

12,000 calories? The most I've ever heard of was Dave Scott at 5000. Phelps would have no time to train as he would be either eating or bent over double.

Just about any guy is going to be lean from that much cardio and the best male swimmer of all time is ripped. There are female swimmers that also become lean but the women who are genetically capable of retaining a higher body fat percentage have the advantage. The lean female swimmers don't make it to the national meets.

reader1 wrote:

I know this thread is old but it’s driving me nuts that no one is answering your question. Obviously female swimmers are in top shape just like the men. And swimming and spending time in water should shred body fat (that’s why Phelps eats a 12K calorie diet). But female bodies are designed to protect babies, so when they spend hours a day in water colder than the human body, female bodies push their fat out to the surface to keep their temperatures regulated, like how seals have fat on the outside of their bodies.

Male seals are not shredded though. Explain this!

A quick examination of the issue brought up this thread as the first hit but one down the page undermined the first premise of the thread by showing in a study that BMI for male Olympic swimmers, which was very consistent for every event from sprints to distance, unlike in running, was HIGHER (23 BMI), because of muscle mass for men than for women (21 BMI).

There was not a significant cost for additional muscle mass. No reference to fat percentages here but clearly there was a gain in muscle if no overall BMI increase within each gender. One thought as to why female swimmers, with lower BMI, look like they have more fat is that their weight is, of course, distributed more to fat than muscle in comparison with men. Since women are incapable without supplements of gaining that much muscle mass, they may get marginal improvements in buoyancy from some fat, though those women who can naturally gain more muscle mass might be able to get an advantage from that while being leaner, whereas men can become more powerful in the water without slowing down and those gains swamp any buoyancy gains from fat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/well/body-type-weight-swimmers-runners-swimming-running.html

Sdsu Azutec wrote:

12,000 calories? The most I've ever heard of was Dave Scott at 5000.

If you go to 5 Guys and get a regular burger, a large fry, and a large soft drink, you're already over 3,000 calories. I am pretty sure plenty of people eat more than 5,000 calories.

It is gross, but you can get there without trying to hard. If Phelps was actually consuming 12,000, my guess is a lot of it was from calorie-dense drinks or gels in between meals. Like weight gain protein solutions.

When I was speed skating and training at the Olympic training center in CO Springs, we were tested every which way till Tuesday. One of the skaters (who ended up making three Olympic teams) was the leanest guy I ever met. I roomed with him and trained 4 times a day with him. He ate a pretty normal American diet.

He was so lean that you could see veins in every part of his body. Chest, stomach, arms, legs, etc. He tested out at 4.5% body fat and the center said that he was the lowest guy they had ever seen up until that point (around 1980). They said the same thing, anything below about 5% is risky. He seemed to be quite healthy.

What's crazy is he did not eat a great diet but not a bad one either. Since it was a training camp and they feed you cafeteria style at the OTC, we may have had more than a non-training person but still not crazy. I was 7% at the time and also pretty fit.

I tested once at just under 5%, and it looked like I had no fat. I trained hard and ran well.

I think anything below 7% is very lean for an athlete, at least for males.

Women are supposed to have extra fat for having children, and some women who become too lean have reported the inability to either get pregnant or possibly suffer a miscarriage. It is biological.

Some women who train to compete in body-building have discussed how hard it is to get the extra fat off that men don't normally have. It is the extra fat that makes women's skin typically look smoother than men's.

They are not fat, they are "phat". ;)

Because diet is more important in body composition than training. Also, men and women store fat differently due to hormones. Women predominantly store fat in the lower half of their body in the buttocks and legs aiding in buoyancy of the legs while men will predominantly store it in the midriff. Storing excess fat in the lower legs is much more advantageous to buoyancy than the upper body. Like everything, there will also be a natural selection bias towards women with this body composition while men will have a different selection bias due to differences in body composition. It's better not to compare to sports like running because water adds different dynamics that are not at play in distance running with buoyancy and hydrodynamics at play.

I'm a highschool part time female swimmer athlete, and we try very hard to stretch out our arm muscles after practice, foam rolling, massage, stretch, you name it, so that we would have more mobility and when it comes time to racing, the muscles wouldn't already be stiff. That's why when our arms are at rest they look "fat". And because we use our shuolders so much, they are very big, and that adds on to the image that female swimmers are rather big.