True or false: Al Sal: "You want muscle on you. In the long term, being skinny is a negative."

Sal's female 10,000 runner's were the skinniest in the race last yr. Tara makes Shalane look obese.

what you want is muscle in the right places.

the skinny distance guy that lacks speed will want to back off on the miles and develop some explosive power.

that means eating a lot, 6x a day, add in protein drinks and fats, drop some of the carbs and do sprinter workouts including the gym work one 3 month period per year.

before the 3 month cycle come in fresh. ease into the work.

otherwise fragile types will get injured.

Wetmore is also in a completely different training focus that Alsal. Wetmore has college students with the ability to eat as much crap as they'd like at a cafeteria. he probably exaggerated that quote to make sure his athletes didn't go nuts eating. Salazar has the ability to work with his athletes 24 hours a day and build them into "all muscle" fitness freaks. Wetmore works with what he's got, both have had great success on their level of competition.

Putting those two together in the same argument is ridiculous. Webb was SHREDDED, rupp looks anorexic.

Realism wrote:

this is how runner muscle should look

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/2012/olympics/2012/writers/tim_layden/06/22/alan-webb-dathan-ritzenhein-2012-olympic-track-and-field-trials/alan-webb.jpghttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/---gQ-OaV2Wg/U4l7GQW2h1I/AAAAAAAAAMA/ikvKJq7vW8w/w935-h647/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B5302014%2B115029%2BPM.jpg

You're all missing a huge difference between these quotes. Sal's is about HS girls and Wetmore's is for HS/College guys. The optimal body structure is gonna be different especially since girls generally can't healthily get to as low body fat as guys.

Walter White wrote:

Wetmore is also in a completely different training focus that Alsal. Wetmore has college students with the ability to eat as much crap as they'd like at a cafeteria. he probably exaggerated that quote to make sure his athletes didn't go nuts eating. Salazar has the ability to work with his athletes 24 hours a day and build them into "all muscle" fitness freaks. Wetmore works with what he's got, both have had great success on their level of competition.

This is so true. I coach high school boys and they will eat anything and everything in sight. My personal favorite was watching a freshman make a "sandwich" out of 2 slices of pizza filled with chocolate chip cookies. And they think that because they are running, they can get away with eating whatever they want.

It is also a matter of perspective, if you are an elite runner, probably everyone you know is lean. However, at a typical college or high school, obesity is too common. Even a distance runner carrying an extra 5 to 10 pounds from his ideal racing weight looks anorexic compared to the typical American teenager.

I tend to agree with the Wetmore notion that leanness tends to get a bit underrated.

Why do we care about Coe? What WR does he have? He doesn't even have a national record over 1500m.

Bleu wrote:

Sal's female 10,000 runner's were the skinniest in the race last yr. Tara makes Shalane look obese.

I remember thinking the same thing. There was one photo of Hasay from that race that made me just feel sadly. She was such a strong and healthy runner in high school. Erdmann's high school pics look completely different too.

muscle? wrote:

How come every athlete associated with Alberto looks like they just got out of a concentration camp?

Elite distance running selects athletes with a certain physique. Galen and Mo actually have more muscle mass than average; they just carry it in the form of long muscle bellies with low aspect ratios.

why does it make sense?everyone always throw out this "being heavier during training is better for you!" line, but i've never seen one lick of research to support the claims that it somehow prevents injuries or leads to enhanced performance down the line at goal races. let's say your training for a HM in two months...why would you want to be carrying around an extra 5-10lbs at that point? wouldn't a session like 6 miles at HM goal pace be EASIER and LESS LIKELY to lead to injury if you are at your race weight instead of lugging an extra 5-10lbs around & putting more stress on your body? i guarantee you guys like Meb, who are meticulous with diet/training/taking care of their bodies never let themselves get more than 2-3 lbs over race weight throughout the year...takes discipline diet-wise, but I would argue it allows you to train BETTER and FASTER, no matter what phase of a training cycle you are in.

Positive Contribution wrote:

Doo wrote:

Losing weight is like tapering in a training cycle. Tapering is necessary to hit peak performance, but obviously "tapering" all the time is just being undertrained. Similarly, more muscle helps prevent injury and facilitates better training. Being skinny lets one run faster, but there's no benefit to being excessively skinny during training.

Cyclists typically cycle their weight with their training cycles, typically weighing ~10 lbs more in the offseason compared to peak races.

Makes sense.

Re: Wetmore. Why the condom over the head?

what is there 2 support this?! wrote:

let's say your training for a HM in two months...why would you want to be carrying around an extra 5-10lbs at that point? wouldn't a session like 6 miles at HM goal pace be EASIER and LESS LIKELY to lead to injury if you are at your race weight instead of lugging an extra 5-10lbs around & putting more stress on your body?

Yes, you can run faster in training if you are lighter, but the "goal" isn't to run faster in training. It's to run faster in races. At 5 lbs above race weight, a person can run a little bit slower to get the same workout, then drop the weight before the race and get the extra speed.

Based on that picture, Webb may have a bright future if he ever wanted to go pro.......in body building. Of course, he would have to drop the EPO and go for the roids.

I would point out that there's a reason a lot of extremely skinny runners are on thyroid replacement hormones. Consider that the same hormones are used by bodybuilders to quickly cut fat and preserve muscle. Or if you're not inclined to be cynical, consider that prolonged training in a calorie deficit is known to cut thyroid levels.

Men become feminine, women lose their PRIMARY function as intended by nature (most female elite runners are not fertile, their cycle is suppressed).

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

Well, more likely than not, the answer is to GAIN weight. SKINNY FAT is never attractive. What you want (in a women) is a nice mix between muscle and fat in the right places.

How do you get fat in the right places? Focus on a diet high in animal fat/protein.

Case in point? This:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__B9vczVkWpo/S_JnyP2GWdI/AAAAAAAAJYw/i_WBVSSJ6HM/s1600/trina-king-magazine-pictures-atlnightspots-1.jpg

That ^ does nothing for me.

What Al Sal said to Webb when he started coaching him was that he needed to lay off the weights for awhile and get thinner. So, for Sal, Webb had too much muscle, whereas Rupp needed to build more at the time.

been there done that wrote:

Webb way too bulky? That's pretty funny.

Hilarious

Why the condom over the head. I don't get it. We should still have hair.

The context of the quote was that Goucher and a few other CO guys had a tendency to put on weight pretty easily. (Gouch, Sev, Batliner). If they lifted and ate college diets they would probably be a little big by elite standards. Wetmore was emphasizing being lean. After all, Gouch had to beat Lagat to win Nationals.

Now, it is a little ironical that Salazar is talking about muscle when Hasay seems to be excessively skinny. With her current build, she will probably not outkick anyone. Cain or Alexa would probably beat her at any distance to 5k. And with a couple years, they would beat her at 10k. Those two particular young runners are extremely strong.