Why do "fitness" people HATE running so much?

The Magic wrote:

Then you are clearly a troll. You can't achieve anything of significance in life with only 3 minutes a day

I will have you know, my friend, that three minutes of quality work is exactly how I achieved my children.

I believe there is a bigger gulf between fitness people and competitive runners than we realize. After a point, runners take their fitness for granted and thus lose interest in even thinking about it.

Look at a guy like Ed Whitlock. From what I've read, he doesn't even do core work, much less upper body work. Yet he's a legend among runners.

Someone once showed me a video of a top MMA guy--the guy literally had a huge spare tire-type gut on him. A fitness person would have been appalled. But the guy was able to win that way. I suspect if you ask most MMA competitors whether they would rather look pretty in a mirror or win their match, they'd choose the latter. It's similar for a lot of runners.

I currently work at a hospital as a fitness specialist. We have over 2,000 members which belong to our club/gym.

Over a year and a half ago I competed in my last collegiate race at the SEC XC championships. I dropped out due to iliopsoas tendinitis. A few months later in april I had knee surgery, graduated, and stopped competing all together.

Since that time I have lifted weights. I went from weighing 133 pounds to 157 pounds. I occasionally run once maybe twice a week around 3 miles at a time. And I am out of shape as a mofo when it comes to running purposes.

The experience I have had with my personal training clients is this. Absolutely none of them want to look like an elite distance runner unless it is a she. I tell each and every one of my clients running is key. If you truly want to be healthy and fit you have to put in the cardio. But the truth is people are lazy, plain and simple. So I continue making money based on that fact. And weights it is, i can only offer my running input for them and that is it. They have to do the work during our off time.

I am still in the battle of deciding whether I want to get back into racing shape or continue benching 245 pounds and feeling like crap when i go on my occasional run. All the while looking more "mens fitness magazine" esque.

Oh ill add in this point, i ran a 18:01 5k road race this past march after running maybe 20 times during a year span. So the aerobic capacity is still there :)

(Distance) running doesn't look cool. People are always looking into the next gimmicky cardio exercise. 30 years ago it was "aerobics" class. 15 years ago it was "Tae Bo"/cardio kickbox. Then it was pilates. Then spinning. Now Zumba classes are all the rage with lines out the door. And P90x has become "manly" aerobics. I'm like dude, just go out and run 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow and do that for 20 minutes.

A lot of clients for fitness trainers are the nonathlete types or people who had a bad experience with running (chronic injury of some sort). So a lot of the "sell" centers around avoiding running for cardio.

exercise wrote:

But the truth is people are lazy, plain and simple. So I continue making money based on that fact.

No, the truth is that you're a lousy trainer and are turning people away from exercise by given them bad information.

if people have to spend money to get an extra incentive to exercise then more power to them, they found an outlet. but people dont pay to have a trainer stand beside them while they run on a treadmill

my hope wrote:

go girl go girl wrote:

I just love how the muscle heads in my gym do "sprints" on the treadmills in front of me at 8.5 mph and they're pushing all out, making a big show of it, taking breaks every minute or so. Meanwhile, I'm steadily, clicking off miles at 9.5 mph w/o rest or stopping and in a completely controlled form for several miles....makes me laugh every time.

You're just focusing on the side of it that you're good at though. I bet those same people watch you in the weight section of the gym and think you're pretty pathetic.

Mix them up folks! The fittest people out there are probably the people that ain't one dimensional with their workouts.

What he said. I've seen far too many "cardio bunnies" on the treadmill who make a big deal out of doing shoulder presses with 5 lbs weights. Mix it up!

Random thought....running does actually increase some local muscle size, specifically in the slow twitch muscles fibers and especially in the glutes and calves. Overall the tendency is a net overall loss of muscle, but locally there is some increase in key areas.

Alan

doboth wrote:

if people have to spend money to get an extra incentive to exercise then more power to them, they found an outlet. but people dont pay to have a trainer stand beside them while they run on a treadmill

I am perfectly capable of working out alone in a commercial gym... but I vastly prefer to train in a private studio with a controlled environment and an instructor to monitor my form and cadence and keep my records. $30 a week is well worth it.

I was a competitive distance runner from the ages of 21-42, my weight was around 138 on a 5'9'' frame. Granted, this is not super skinny in the letsrun world, but to the average Joe on the street, I was "too" skinny. Fact of the matter, most women prefer men with more meat on their bones. Now at the age of 50, I no longer have the desire to run 50-70 miles a week anymore. It's more like 10 miles a week with 3-4 days lifting weights. Today, I prefer my look at 165 lbs with a physique that someone else mentioned as more "mens fitness" esq. I'm happy with it and the ladies too:)

Arthur Jones wrote:

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 getcha. And Anthony Weiner--fit, toned, and photographed in the buff--is the sum total of all that evolution.

It's amazing how much time that COULD be devoted to productivity is wasted by the new technologies.

When you get a chance, pick up a copy of Brett Easton Ellis's novel AMERICAN PSYCHO. It's about a really, REALLY fit guy who uses all those machines you mention, and makes a lot of money, and wears all the high-priced designer clothes that our new technologies have spread around the

"developed" quote unquote part of the globe. He also has a nasty habit of raping and murdering young women, cracking open their skulls, and eating their brains with Grey Poupon mustard.

It's a satire, my friend, and it has your number. The "developed" world has a lot to answer for. Google it.

distance runners hate distance runners as about every thread on this board proves. why should anyone else be different?

simple answer is bc running is hard. good explanation from a "fitness" person:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drk4emkXC3A&feature=feedf

The good thing about going from competative runner skinny, to lifty and "men's magazine fitness look" is that as a runner you are going up in weight, so it's much easier. So many guys are trying to lose down to their desired weight they really struggle.

I'm another one of the guys that was a collegiate runner that has put on some muscle and I am AMAZED at the difference in attention I receive from woman. I told someone having decent arms, chest, and abs is like a woman having big t!ts.

bump

I didn't read through this so this might be here. Some years ago I worked for a big sporting goods chain. A group of us were decent local runners (16:00 5k, etc). We used to say that all you need is running, push ups, pull ups, crunches- like that- plyos, etc.

You DON'T need a gym membership or a personal trainer, or fancy equipment.

Well, if you made your living off of all that stuff you would disagree with us.

So, someone who falls for it isn't likely to admit they were wrong. So that becomes a hatred for running.

Crimea River wrote:

If you are truly trying for overall fitness, your running should be the training for 800m, which is the ideal balance of speed, endurance and mental strength. Throw in some upper-body stuff (weights, climbing, swimming, whatever) and you are a balanced, healthy athlete on a fraction of the effort/training time required to plod a 3.5 hour marathon.

I realize this is an old post but bear with me for a minute...

The Human species was specifically formed for long-distance running and pretty much nothing else. Pound-for-pound, pretty much every animal on Earth is stronger and faster than Humans. The one thing we have over these other animals, though, is our ability to run extremely long distances and tire out our prey through the practice of persistence hunting. Therefore, the ideal human would appear very gaunt by our standards today. This leads me to believe that having large muscles is very unnatural and not best for overall fitness.

What I have decided is that everyone needs to switch to cross-country skiing. The professionals are a equally as fit as the top runners, are agile and athletic, and are straight up monsters when it comes to strength. Check out what the top female skier looks like:

http://lacretenoire.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/bjorgen.jpg

She could rip Flanagan in half, and probably run at least a 4:40 mile if she felt like doing so.

while I use weight work as a supplement, my goals revolve around being a fast 800m/1500m runner and having extreme functional body weight strength like the calisthenic kings, barstarrz, bartendaz or the bar-barians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG2jZK_QklI

this guy also says his diet consists of junk food!