Why do "fitness" people HATE running so much?

Don't be ridiculous. No good runner I have ever seen is "skinny fat". Every single quality distance runner in history has had a toned upper body. None of them look frail in any way though they are skinny. Typical meat head lifters have frail pencil legs and bloated faces.

Lexmark wrote:

Why is this a debate? Long distance running is great trainging for people wanting to run long distances very fast. However ovrall fitness, no way. Look how many of the top runners in your area are fast, but have droopy or frail upper bodies, they're "skinny fat" up top.

Whoever said "nobody wants to look like a Kenyan" is spot on, The ONLY place where that is seen as a positive is the skewed world of the distance runner.

Arthur Jonest wrote:

A Nautilus circuit performed HIT-style is the hardest form of physical labor ever conceived. Jogging doesn't even compare.

We're runners. Not joggers.

Bite your tongue wrote:

We're runners. Not joggers.

People who run for sport are runners. People who run for exercise are joggers.

You're just a lazy f***.

Coffee Drinker wrote:

that running is (a) poor form of exercise.

Arthur Jones wrote:

Bite your tongue wrote:

We're runners. Not joggers.

People who run for sport are runners. People who run for exercise are joggers.

The vast majority of posters on this site either run competitively, train to run competitively or have run competitively

DoctorWatts wrote:

The vast majority of posters on this site either run competitively, train to run competitively or have run competitively

Competitive running is not the subject of this thread. We're debating the exercise merits of running.

This thread is a disaster.

Large portions are just stupid or irrelevant, and even the on topic ones are pretty blanket statements with both sides totally unwilling to explain the reasoning behind their statements, make factual claims, and support them.

When someone says running is a poor for of exercise and the next person responds with telling that person he is a lazy f***.

Bottom line here seems to be CoffeeDrinkers assertion that some high intensity strength training is the optimum and most efficient training method for general fitness, which I am taking to mean as fitness that's most applicable to the variety of activities and movements found in daily life.

And for the most part I am fine with this statement, I certainly don't have enough information to call BS and to be honest it doesn't seem unreasonable. Where your losing most people though is that your coming off hostile and arrogant. This is a running site, filled with primarily competitive runners. Obviously, for their purposes running is a damn good form of exercise, so when you throw out the statement "running is a poor form of exercise" without any modifiers its obvious your going to get a hostile reaction. Whether or not its intentional or not the may your phrasing most of your arguments really makes it sound like running is garbage and a horrible use of time. Given that this sight is comprised of runners training for competitive running, it just doesn't make sense to post like that without clarifying that you mean for the average person. I think if this was a general fitness website it would be fine to phrase things exactly as you are, but on a running website...not so much.

Running may be a poor form of exercise in comparison to other activities for the vast majority of people, but for the majority audience of this sight, it is almost certainly the BEST form of exercise.

The only thing I take issue with is your assertion that strength training is the best for of exercise for aesthetic purposes. Looks are very subjective, and your statement is asserting that whatever body type strength training promotes is the most aesthetically pleasing look. Obviously this isn't the case because many different looks are preferred by many different people. Some people like massive body builder types, some like the classic greek ratio look, still others like the athletic look, and still others like the lean distance runner look. Asserting that strength training is all things aesthetically to all people is pushing it a bit.

I don't hate running- I ran my ass off for 10 years and have respectable PRs to show for it. I wouldn't trade my competitive years for anything, but like many runners I eventually fell into the vicious cycle of repeated injury, inactivity, depression and weight gain, and with my PRs behind me, the line between running for sport and running for exercise became blurry. I eventually sustained permanent joint damage (arthritis) to the anterior compartment of my right knee and was FORCED to stop running. I went through two years of emotional/psychological hell as a result of being unable to run. I eventually discovered high-intensity strength training and I now look, feel and perform better than I ever did during my running years. Do I miss the roads, trails, tracks and golf courses? Sure. But the functional and aesthetic results of strength training are far more satisfying than the results produced by running.

If the primal origin of distance running really is the fact that humans were endurance predators, then "fitness" people hate running because they're descended from the blowhards who made excuses to stay in the cave while we were out there running down the antelope. And they hate us for that. Because they KNOW we're the real studs on whom the tribe's long-term survival depended. They're just rearranging the furniture back in the cave.

Sissy boys! Narcissii gazing at themselves in mirrors!

We're the real meat-eating studs.

Nice attempted use of the proper plural for Narcissus. Well done, sir. (though you have one i too many)

Sissy boys! Narcissii gazing at themselves in mirrors!

We're the real meat-eating studs.[/quote]

I feel the same about working out.

[quote]The Magic wrote:

Every single quality distance runner in history has had a toned upper body. None of them look frail in any way though they are skinny. "

Seriously? You can look at Gerry Lingren or any of the Kenyans, heck even Bill Rodgers or Frank Shorter.. Not exactly what most people want to look like.

Nobody except LRers think this a "hot."

http://www.sporting-heroes.net/files_athletics/KIPROP_Asbel_20070827_GH_L.jpg

This may have been addressed, but who gets to define which desired outcome is most noble? Is exercising to perform better at a running race a more noble pursuit than exercising to look better in clothes? Or to look better naked? What about the guy who only exercises to increase his lifespan? Is that a stupid pursuit because it doesn't involve setting a PR? Holy shit, how about doing what you enjoy and respecting others for doing the same?

And yes, of course there are many opinions about which physique is most attractive. On a running forum you'll have a lot more people that like skinny, but nobody can deny that the elite distance runner look is not attractive to the masses. And no, that doesn't make the masses stupid. Programs like Crossfit are exploding because Americans see the Crossfit elite and say holy shit, I want to look like that. They don't watch the Boston Marathon and say the same thing.

To say the desire to look good to the masses is a bad thing is silly and naive. Sex and money rule the world. Being in a desirable position in either one is very advantageous in life. Sometimes people here need to look at the world beyond Letsrun.com.

You know, there're ways to gain functional strength without wasting time in a gym. I lift things all the time in the course of daily life and it seems to be more than enough to stay strong. Anecdotally: briefly experimented with weight lifting and easily benched 150 on my first try. Squatted 150 for reps with zero problems and didn't get sore the next day.

My point is that you can be strong and athletic without lifting heavy things in a gym. In fact I think weight lifting is counter-productive for athletics unless you have a carefully planned regimen.

Wheelocks Latin wrote:

Nice attempted use of the proper plural for Narcissus. Well done, sir. (though you have one i too many)

Dang! I stand corrected.

My neologizing always get me in trouble, yo.

Then again, I'm of the descriptive grammar party and you're of the prescriptive. There are less of you than of us, and most of us have no idea the word "fewer"--as in "fewer of you"--even exists.

Reason behind his arguments folks...nbd. Knew it had to be an emotional related activity.

BrillianceBomber wrote:

Tried to make a bit of extra cash as a trainer a while back and as a very fit distance runner with more muscle mass than average (no solinsky, but not a twig) I was turned down on sight by most of the really nice gyms. They straight up would say "Sorry, you're too small." Running isn't nearly as image oriented.

That's kind of funny. I was a personal trainer during my MS program and there were only 2 of us trainers. Me 140 dripping wet and a bald former navy seal who was very muscular & NSCA certified.

I had many more clients than he did. Of course most were women (10-15) as I only had 3 males. He only had about 3-5 males and 4-5 women.

We evolved to rely on our intelligence, NOT our running ability. The early humans who spent their lives chasing animals on the African savannah were also dead by 30 and are the last model that we should try to emulate. Since then we have vastly improved both the length and quality of our lives by using our minds to create time and labor-saving devices that allow us to be far more productive than our ancestors were during evolutionary times. The field of exercise remained in the dark ages all throughout human history up until about 50 years ago when a man by the name of Arthur Jones discovered the correct exercise methods and created tools (Nautilus and MedX machines) to facilitate ideal exercise. As a result, we now have vastly more productive training methods available than our primitive ancestors had.

I ran for many years competitively, Division 1 running and some thereafter. This puts me in a category of thousands of others who post here.

I have no problem with competitive running and runners in terms of fitness. They by and large are very fit by virtually any definition. I know I was.

I do think that more focus should be placed on strength training and forms of activity other than running when it comes to the post competitive phase of life. This is not an anti-running statement. Rather, I think there is law of diminishing returns when it comes to fitness with those who merely run, and as we age, running can be tough on the body (I say this at over age 50 and never every having had any form of running injury in my life - soreness, to be sure, but not injury).

The myopic focus on running is not helped by the weekend racing environment. Most of the good races are 10k's, and for a former intense middle distance guy like me to derive any form of satisfaction from them, I have ended up running too much too often. A pattern of consistent - with only some of it running - would have worked better for me. I am doing this now (over 50).

I wish someone opened my eyes to strength training and the like when I was 35. I am just getting into it now, and really find it beneficial and time efficient.