HELP! A decent college distance runner with insecurities about masculinity, body, and fatigue due to training.

I had no luck with girls till I dropped mileage and started cranking pushups. Gained 15 pounds and went up a shirt size from my shoulder gains. Way better action.

No way I'd go back to those scrawny days. Girls are WAY more important.

Totally understand what you are going through bro. I struggled with this same issue. I wanted more girls but was not getting any attention with a distance bod. I copied Ryan Hall's training. Did tons of volume, that helps get your slow type 1 muscle fibers bigger. I have gained 20lbs almost and look much more like a real man and am seeing the results with women. I still run some, but now I look much better than all the runners so I don't care that I am slower.

Getting enough sleep? Eating enough, and healthy/balanced diet? Running workouts and/or easy runs maybe a bit too hard? Taking down weeks on a regular, periodic, planned basis?

Sounds like you are running yourself into the ground, slowly but surely. I've been there, and it completely ruined my college running. Better figure out what it is and get it addressed. Maybe talk to your coach? Visit the doctor and get a checkup? Talk to a nutritionist?

Hope you get it turned around.

Re putting on more muscle ... I don't know, can you do super high reps and get extremely defined? Maybe you don't have to bulk up.

midwesterncollegerunner wrote:

I also have recently come to the realization that I'd like to be more muscular - I think it'd help me out a lot with confidence with my interactions with women.

Do you plan to wrestle women?

But seriously folks. You already said in your post that this way of thinking is ridiculous. I think that's how to get over the mental aspect of this thing. Keep reminding yourself how ridiculous it is...

Also keep in mind that just like women get their body-image issues all farked up by society, men do too.

Here's how to answer your own question...

Think about it like this:

If an otherwise healthy female friend of yours confessed to you that she was going to quit dancing ballet or competing in some sport that she loved in order to get a breast enlargement procedure to make her feel more feminine and have more confidence with men... how would you respond?

Then, you can take your own advice.

To be honest, you're in the age bracket where some bulk carries far more weight than it should with the ladies. As you hit your late 20s, women tend not to value your stature and build as much as the holistic man you've developed into as measured on your career, skill, experience, finances, social capital, etc. You see sporty spice bro with a 5 day split bro build pick up Sally Sorority after class and draw the obvious conclusion that she's into his physicality and complementary swagger.

The thing is, most of these people hit a wall at 25 or so where between nights out at the bar, the grind of the gym wearing down on them, and the stress of climbing the career ladder, they all start to stop prioritizing a holistically healthy life style and start looking like crud.

As for me, I was a JV caliber runner who ran in college for cardio while going all in on the weights. Yes, I was more confident with women. But the girls who responded the most to my looks were all party girls that were bad news. All the balanced, intelligent, and attractive women I was lucky enough to date considering I was a tool at times thought I looked good, but valued other qualities much more.

I'd suggest finishing XC, but getting more serious about resistance training. Start researching different programs and nutrition. Start going to the gym and throwing some weights around. I suggest building up some muscle to arrive at an athletic build, but don't over do it as the insecurity about your appearance won't end as it so often doesn't for guys who get into lifting.

I'm all in favor of moving on to new activities when the old ones aren't rewarding anymore; just not for the reason of changing your body type in order to attract female attention. Let's say it works out... You develop a body like Ryan Hall, gain more confidence, and get a few more girlfriends. Then 5-10 years down the line, you take a desk job, maybe get married, have a kid, and develop a dad bod. Then what happens? Your self-esteem plummets since it was based on your physical appearance and conditioning, while your wife -- being the shallow type of person who'd choose a guy based on the size of their shoulders -- is also unhappy and realizes she never really liked your personality in the first place. Disaster.

Also remember that a man's goal (even if it's only to maximize sexual activity) should be to find a single female partner (or at most a few if you lean that way), rather than many. And again, even if your intention is to practice serial monogamy, the decisions you make will matter far more to your happiness than any other you make in your life. Probably a good idea to choose wisely and not rely on superficial characteristics to make those choices.

At the same time, my gut feeling is you're not eating enough. With that type of training, you should be stuffing it down all hours of the day (especially carbs and protein), and make it a goal to bulk up and see how fast you can still go. I would not give a crap what your coach or teammates say about it.

You can probably to some extent pull off being both ripped and fast. There are many good 5K/10K runners who are shredded but not bulky. When you say that you are skinny, do you mean that you are underweight? The reduced energy and libido that you are experiencing could be consequence of Relative-Energy Deficiency Syndrome(RED-S) due to not taking in enough calories to satisfy your body's energy needs. Do you have other signs of RED-S such as frequent injury and illness and abnormal bloodwork? If so, correcting this promblem would be both beneficial to your training and physique. Similarly, another factor to consider is if you are getting enough sleep, being as a necessary anabolic stimlus.

However if you are afraid of that gaining any weight is going to hurt your running but still want to look more muscular, you can always try doing a body recomposition protocol. Strength train 3-4X per week in addition to the running that you are doing. Make sure you are eating in caloric maintenance. This in turn would allow to" tone up", making you appear more muscular at the same bodyweight. Even if you gain a little bit of weight due to muscle mass, it may not slow down your running if it increases your strength to weight ratio.

In terms of testosterone, make sure youre eating enough fat, many runners diets are too carb heavy. Also make sure your getting a lot of sun, running shirtless help a lot as well as spending time outside. If you can , sunning your testicles can improve T levels a lot, start with only a couple minutes and move up to max 20.

You're training too hard.

This is sensible advice.

Being "manly" comes from attitude to life, how you conduct yourself and what you achieve. Not from spending hours in the gym. A lot of women don't like that beefcake look anyway. There's a lot to be said for not being overweight.

Liklihood is you won't settle down til mid thirties when most of the really hot women are already taken and many guys are putting on weight (but not in a good way). You're unlikely to get a much younger hot chick so realistically you'll be looking to date an average woman and hoping your personalities are compatible. Women like that are often deterred by men who spend hours in the gym. They're looking for someone non threatening who will have kids with them and be a good dad.

If you have libido/ED problems now then it's likely this will continue and get worse as you get older and date the average chick and get married.

If by any chance you do date a hot chick whom you get on well with, do everything in your power to keep her, and by that I mean keep her happy by focussing on her, rather than what she looks like.

Most people look average to awful as they age. Some people escape this but they're generally naturally good looking/genetically gifted.

I know who I'd rather have kids with!

so you want to give up the thing you do better than the largest proportion of your peers for something you're likely to be average at, if not downright bad? i will never understand this self-hating runner routine that comes up constantly on these boards.

as others have said, women who only want jacked guys are not worth pursuing in the long run. the world is filled with guys skinnier than you who have done just fine for themselves. galen MF rupp has like 4 kids for chrissakes - i think there's hope for you.

hammering tough workouts and long runs coupled with frequent racing makes college running tough on you for sure. i certainly caved when i did it. but as you alluded to, the value of running with teammates you like every day cannot be overstated, and it will not last forever. maybe talk with your coach about dialing back mileage and/or intensity a bit and see if you feel better. also, i know this perspective is impossible to beam into a college kid's brain through the internet, but the human lifespan is generally quite long and you don't have to rush into everything now. college running will be over before you know it. that would be the perfect time to bulk up a bit if you still feel it's necessary for success with the ladies. but i would hope you do it because you actually want to/think it would make you feel better, and not just for external validation.

My recommendation is to stay the course during college. You will have plenty of time to put on mass after you graduate. As others have said too, what will matter more as you get older is your personality/career/hobbies, etc. Still nothing wrong in my opinion with wanting to get jacked.

This is called growing up, OP. Life will always, always be like this. Tradeoffs, decisions, tryouts, change, steadiness and change. it's on you now - you are an adult making decisions for yourself.

All you can do is make decisions and then be glad you made the right one...or learn from your mistakes.

Always best to let your mistakes be your own, so you might want to consider what you owe your teammates. Would be rough to have your mistake affect them.

So, weigh the pros and cons and make a decision. It is only one of hundreds of very important decisions you make over the rest of your life.

Let it begin.

Yin and Yang. Chubby girls like loving too. Perhaps change your expectations.

You just equated breast enlargement / cosmetic surgery to strength training. You are an idiot.

start taking vitamin D3 with K2, take ecdysterone supplement and/or eat a lot of quinoa for your calories, lift weights, take ZMA

At some point you are going to need to decide which you care more about: running or women/life. I was a national caliber runner (riding the edge of qualifying for the OTs), but running professionally never really materialized for me given I was injured a lot and would have never run faster than maybe 13:45 absolute best case scenario. I started lifting at age 26, put on 15lbs of muscle in only a couple months, and the jump in T must have really masculinized my face and other features because people said I even looked different, more mature, manly, etc, and I started pulling girls left and right. The change was honestly incredible to a point it doesn't sound believable. In literally like 4 months I went from doing okay-ish with women to having them almost literally line up to go to bed with me. Other areas of my life improved also.

It's kind of a not widely known secret, but testosterone is basically a wonder drug for men and makes them more successful in every area of life (to a degree). I don't recommend using anything exogenous, but running kills your T levels, and running increases your T levels. It's a no-brainer if you want to get ahead in life and with the ladies. Lift. Run a little (20miles per week or less), but you have to lift. Get a BMI of 22-25 (lean muscle on a runner's frame), and you'll do very well for yourself.

There are 4 people you need to talk to and they are not on this website. Your Coach, Athletic Trainer, team Psychologist, and your Strength Coach. Be honest with each. Please keep in mind that body image does not always imply happiness.

Who told you women like big guys? If your ribs are showing, that’s a problem. Otherwise, athletic is good looking. You think Centrowitz doesn’t look good?