Why are distance runners not viewed as athletic as sprinters and football players

oodo wrote:

smile wrote:

Except it is impossible to have never heard of him if you frequent this website.

He ran a sub 4 minute mile last year as a high school student.

Again, like i said before, not everyone follows highschool track. Do you guys have a reading comprehension problem? Before this thread, I couldn't have told you anything about him except that he must be the latest highschool star. Yes, i frequent this website. You guys need to get out of the basement and realize that not everyone knows the same things.

You don't have to follow high school track to know about it. If you look at the front page you will know about it.

And if you seriously have never heard of him then no, you don't frequent this website. Occasionally visit and glance at the message board maybe.

trackfanrenewed wrote:

Right. Only one of the best high school runners, if not the best, from 2014 to 2015. Gatorade Player of the Year and all that etc etc. Now running at Stanford and doing well.

Who?

Bored kid wrote:

If you run 3k 5k and up most likely have a skinnier build, so maybe thats why? But idk cause these fat af football players who cant hobbyjog half a mile without dying are considered greater athletes than runners who actually spend more time in their sport training,eating,recovering. So why are we not considered athletic by societies standards?

3k is distance running now?

[quote]Sdf×# wrote:

Because atheticism involves more than just endurance. Atleticism requires strength, agility, coordination, explosiveness, and stamina.'

Athlete: A person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength;

Mo could also beat most athletes in other sport at 400m a sprint distance

Mind you he was fecking useless on the bike in Superstars. Didn't see much evidence of Al Sals strength programme there

Depends on how you define athletic.

I define it as a combination of strength, speed, power, agility, and endurance.

Runners have one of those four characteristics.

Here's a set of tests you can use to help measure what I define as athletic:

Standing broad jump.

T Test

Deadlift 5 rep max

Pull-up max reps

1 mile run

Runners may do well at the last two but will suck horribly at the rest

Standing broad jump is the eye opener. 2x your height is considered very athletic. Under 1x your height is severely weak.

Alan

Because they are not.

Distance running requires only one physical trait: endurance

Football, soccer, basketball, hockey and a bunch of others require endurance, power, agility, balance, hand-eye coordination, and vastly more complex tactics and court/field awareness. Participants in these sports are more athletic than people who just run.

Calling sprinters more athletic than distance runners is silly.

The Olympic development program (ODP) in soccer isn't something you get recruited for. They hold tryouts, and each state has a team. A lot of times, not all the best players in the state even tryout for it because they play on a district academy club team or something of that sort. It's not like any D1 coaches were calling up grant fisher to play soccer. Don't comment about things you don't actually know anything about.

well..... wrote:

Distance running requires only one physical trait: endurance

Football, soccer, basketball, hockey and a bunch of others require endurance, power, agility, balance, hand-eye coordination, and vastly more complex tactics and court/field awareness. Participants in these sports are more athletic than people who just run.

This is generally true.

well..... wrote:

Calling sprinters more athletic than distance runners is silly

I disagree.

In all sports/contests, speed is crucial. So, when people look at our sport and see one group (sprinters) consistently running much faster than another (distance runners), it's easy to see why they would consider sprinters more athletic than runners. It's generally true too. 75% of the guys on my high school and college team couldn't shoot a basketball or hit a baseball without serious coaching. Distance runners are distance runners because they didn't make it in other sports. So what.. that's not a bad thing.

Too bad I can't flex my VO2 max...

Bored kid wrote:

If you run 3k 5k and up most likely have a skinnier build, so maybe thats why? But idk cause these fat af football players who cant hobbyjog half a mile without dying are considered greater athletes than runners who actually spend more time in their sport training,eating,recovering. So why are we not considered athletic by societies standards?

Too bad I can't flex my VO2 max...

Basketball is a good indicator of overall athleticism. If you were going to play a pick up game of ball I doubt you'd pick distance runners over any sprinters.

As an 18 year old college frosh, ran a mile time trial near the end of XC season. Was happy with my 4:21.9, which knocked close to 9 seconds off my high school PR.

Coach then took us to the weight room for the 1st time to start in on weekly lifting for arm/upper body strength.

Hank the Tank, my dorm neighbor and star running back, asked what I was doing in the weight room. I told him I was an athlete, on the track team. He ALMOST DIES ON THE SPOT, laughing his head off.

Bored kid wrote: Why are distance runners not viewed as athletic as sprinters and football players

Most important answer: Who gives a damn

Ancillary answer: Because it's usually true.

Soon to be grad wrote:

Sdf×# wrote:

Because atheticism involves more than just endurance. Atleticism requires strength, agility, coordination, explosiveness, and stamina.

Could Mo perform better than Russell Westbrook at any sport besides distance running?

Soccer

200 And 400

Cycling

Triathlon

Soccer..................No

200 And 400.........No

Cycling..................No

Triathlon................No

I think Kenny Powers said it best, "I play real sports, I'm not trying to see who is the best at exercising."

I'm guessing anyone who is astounded by this line of thought is still in high school/early college. At the end of the day who cares? Running catches a hard time because it is a very basic series of movements. Basic can also be interpreted as "easy". Athletically, running is one of the easiest sports under the sun, get used to it.

The reason is simple. We have to deconstruct this question and ask "What makes someone a good athlete?"

Most definitions of athleticism emphasize explosiveness, coordination, and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to adapt to difficult tasks. Athleticism is meant to contrast with things that are built by training (although that isn't true). Endurance is rarely considered an athletic trait because it can largely be trained.

With that in mind, let's look at distance runners once again. Distance runners are rarely explosive, are often uncoordinated, and have horrible adaptability (because they only train one task primarily). Gymnastics would have the opposite characterization. The demands of distance running do not favor someone who has the athletic traits of a gymnast. In fact, it incentivizes poor athleticism and rewards dogged work that kills coordination, adaptation, and explosiveness for the most part.

This problem has been around forever. In the small towns football,baseball, basketball rules all. In high school this was always the case except in my high school we had a class called PE2. PE2 was for anyone that happened to be on any team sport in the school. This class was wonderful. Two of my favorite days were the 1 mile time trial ( for some kind of pe or presidents test ) and the 2 mile. The two mile each year always started with the baseball players and football players dropping there loads the first 2-3 laps. My senior year which was my 2nd year in the class i jogged a 10 min flat while talking to the other athletes. I wish it would have been earlier but I think at that moment they or at least I hoped realized how athletically sad they were. Just because you win 5 football games does not make you any good. Small town glory days are over.

Bored kid wrote:

an elite or good 100-200 sprinters cant run a mile under 6:30

This is absolutely NOT true. Trey Hardee has a 10.20 100m and he can absolutely crush a mile in under 6:30. Megatron is also a 10.20 100m guy, same story. Dougie Howlett New Zealand All-Black 10.20 100m and he also can murder a mile in under 6:30.

10.20 prior to 2014 was considered the 'B' Standard by the IAAF. Thus making them "elite" sprinters.

I am assuming you were joking.

Runfastrunfar