Why are the Japanese high school runners so fast?

Wang wrote:

We are saying that the numbers put forth make no sense. Where do these "elite" hs runners go after hs? The retirement home?

The half marathon

how does one little tribe in eastern africa create more wprld class runners than all of Europe and North America combined? How does one mid sized high school in upstate NY have the best xc team in the country half the time? How does Jamaica have a world record 4 x 1?

these things are hard to explain - obviously a combination of genetics, culture and coaching. There's no easy answer.

Culture is huge. Japanese kids want to be fast. American kids want to be football stars. American girls just do the sport to be skinny.

My friend coaches at a high school that is often one of the top 3 California schools at state, all divisions. He says the girl's team, who wins, pretend to go for morning runs but just go sit in their cars, only running at afternoon practice. The 1st and 2nd girl on the team actually do their morning runs. The 1st and 2nd girl both go top 3 at state. The rest are back from 15th onward.

The other girls are afraid to run too much because they think they will get stress fractures from running 20 minutes easy, 3 mornings a week. That is America.

Meanwhile the Japanese don't question it and do what their coach says.

Also, as mentioned, Japanese high schoolers are recruited. A high school with 5 14:08 guys didn't pick from the pool of the 500 closest boys.

Cause the the Japanese kids have disciprine

agip wrote:

1) these things are hard to explain - 2) obviously a combination of genetics, culture and coaching. 30 There's no easy answer.

1) contradicts 2) which is then contradicted by 3)

Congrats! Must be some kind of internal inconsistency award that we can scrounge up for you.

cengage wrote:

Cause the the Japanese kids have disciprine

This ^^^

Awards R Us wrote:

agip wrote:

1) these things are hard to explain - 2) obviously a combination of genetics, culture and coaching. 30 There's no easy answer.

1) contradicts 2) which is then contradicted by 3)

Congrats! Must be some kind of internal inconsistency award that we can scrounge up for you.

Oh right- genetics culture and coaching are simple and easy to understand.

NOP Skeptic wrote:

cengage wrote:

Cause the the Japanese kids have disciprine

This ^^^

Agreed. The youth of Japan have a clear advantage over American youth in that they were not raised by the most pathetic worthless, narssastic generation of all time (American Boomers)...this fact alone has ruined the youth of America and doomed the counrty to failure.

Has anyone participating in this thread ever been to Japan?

"the most narssastic generation of all time"

Damn narssasticles

Primarily due to their leg-speed velocity.

Many of the answers were given, discipline, diet, respect towards the coach, team and school.

But the thing that I noticed when living in Japan was that when a kid decides to do something they "are" that whatever. Baseball, running kendo, they dedicate a major amount of their time to that activity, year round.

Japanese runners do a rot of mireage but they arso rive in communities that put a rot of emphasis on doing werr in everything from academics to athretics. It's rearry very simpre when you think about it.

egun wrote:

these are not like US high schools.

these are not kids from the neighborhood.

this is NOT fayetteville manlius

these runners are recruited and culled from the country to boarding schools, and can be up to 20 years old.

PLUS, the last year of 'high school' is just studying for juken - college boaord exams.

SO these are 20 year olds who read and train twice a day, not even close to what a US kid does.

apples and oranges here.

exactly. These japanese were the best of the best and are now allowed to train like professional athletes, with a tiny bit of added school responsibility. Take all the footlocker athletes and top 50 and put them in 20 different programs with a few other state champs thrown in them and we'd see the same results.

Could it be that Japanese:

1) Tend to be smaller, leaner people; comparatively. Allows more kids to run distance races on average faster. (note: I'm not saying more talented)

2) Culture of discipline

3) Better diet. Not sure about this but I'm guessing

4) No football. Less basketball, Lacross, soccer.

5) Successful runners are more looked up to than elsewhere.

I think you're on the mark. If anyone watches the Little League World Series you know that Japanese teams are pretty much a fixture in the championship game. The announcers will often talk about those teams practicing every day for something like three hours.year round.

I have never really "lived in Japan" but have visited there a few times. My longest was only about five (5) weeks. In my opinion there are a few reasons they excel in running. 1) the coaches are know what they are doing and train even the large teams as individuals. 2) the kids listen. Here in the US everyone that has ever run has the answer to racing faster. They either "heard" from some other runner or read what so and so did. Almost any program will work- provided you follow it. Doing Lydarid on Monday, Van Aaken on Tuesday, Bowerman on Wednesday, Squires on Thursday, Magness on Friday, Vigil on Saturday and finally race on Sunday. 3) a few decades ago USA didn't lose runners to soccer, lacrosse, rugby, etc. Most schools had football, basketball, baseball, track & xc.

Why do the Japanese excel at whatever they set their minds to? Why do Japanese (and Asian students in general) kick our asses in math and science? It is their discipline, which is emphasized by their parents from the time they are small. They are very focused. Here's a clip from my own favorite movie that very eloquently explains things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMT1r9IpIf0

There may be some kind of difference in Japanese schools which creates a different environment for many students who want to study well. I have read some information on the https://www.stephilareine.com/2021/03/5-tips-for-writing-a-fashion-research-paper.html site page where a lot of writing paper information is available and students can easily get the complete information related to any kind of assignment work.