the male 25k open water champs are pretty ripped.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Before moving to triathlon I swam D1 college. I ate whatever I could whenever I could with no holding back. We would be doing 65000+ yards a week with a large amount of it being working yards. During those days our coaches and trainers talked to us about maintaining race weight but it was not a huge worry for 90% of the people on the team. Since moving to tri I watch my weight much closer. I don't think that its just that I am training much less hours than I was as a swimmer, but I can 'feel' my weight much more when running than swimming. Also, swimming races are usually much shorter than running/cycling races.

World-record holder of 20K open-water swim. Not really, but just continuing this debate about fat swimmers.

since switching from multisport to cycling last year i've definitely become more concious of my diet. not necessarily the quality of the food (i've always tried to do lots of veggies, no refined sugars, little processed foods, etc.) but certainly the amount of calories i consume.

i'm also trying to shed the upper body muscle i have left over from my water polo days in college. as a cyclist i have bigger legs, smaller chest and arms, and weigh less than i did as a triathlete.

disclaimer: i'm a cat4 nobody, please don't assume i speak from any sort of professional perspective.

To beat the dead horse at Macca @ 175:

BMI for 5'11 @ 175 male = 24.4.

'Normal' weight (nonathletes) listed at 18.5-24.9
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/...&submit_e=Submit

Now I know he's got muscle, so it'll throw off the BMI , but take one look at that photo on page 1 as well as the other guys like Craig Alexander (who clocks in at around 150-155lbs himself) and tell me that with that degree of leanness, he's pushing a near-'overweight' BMI. No friggin' way.

Now @ 150lbs, BMI = 20.9, which looks much, much more like what you'd expect from how he looks and how much muscle he's carrying (which actually isn't that much.)

I weigh 174 lbs and I am unable to see every notch of my breast plate, so going by that fact alone, I will say he is under 174 lbs in that picture.

My BMI is the equal of Macca's alleged 175lbs at 5'11", and I look like a friggin' marshmellow in my race pics. And I used to lift weights religiously, so a lot of it is muscle and little is fat, and I still don't look anywhere near as skeletal as all 3 of those guys on the 1st page. Those guys are seriously lean. A BMI of 23+ for that look - no way.

I am 5'11 and weigh 175......He is full of crap if he says that's his weight.

When I walked past him at an event, I look like a chubby body builder beside him.

I would guess he is about 155-160 MAX.

I sat at a table beside Crowie the night before Muskoka 70.3 and watched him eat a small pizza and then some sort of pasta dish (fettucini alfredo?) with a ton of salt on everything. Don't remember what he drank or what Mirinda Carfrae ate but she put a ton of salt on everything as well

Also, swimmers are generally just bigger people than runners and cyclists. Swimmers are generally taller and have more upper body muscle mass. Your average D1 swimmer is probably around 6'2" and 190 or so.

Also, to address another poster's comment that "fat helps you float", well that is true but good technique and a balanced body position are much more important, and actually more fat makes a swimmer's body a bigger projectile and less streamlined.

To address another poster's comment about "plenty of fast fat Masters swimmers", we can say the same about Masters cyclists. The "Old Men Who Get Fat in the Winter Team" cycling T-shirt wouldn't exist otherwise, and I see quite a few fat, over 40 guys who can still ride pretty fast as long as there are no major climbs. Also, even in running, I remember seeing a photo of Henry Rono years ago when he was making a comeback and he ran somewhere around a 4:03 mile despite carrying a good extra 30-40 lbs. I couldn't believe someone with a clearly discernible paunch could be leading a national track meet in the mile. That said though, running is certainly the sport which penalizes extra weight the most. In swimming and cycling on relatively flat conditions, as another poster pointed out, weight just doesn't matter that much.

One final point: once they are at their optimum weight, top swimmers, tri-people, and cyclists HAVE to eat more than runners, because they put in about twice as many hours training as the pure runner.

One more point: since swimmers wear no jersey or singlet to cover their flab, and have most of their body showing, IN THEORY they should have more reason to keep extra pounds off, but apparently it doesn't always work that way...

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Sounds corny, but a lot of appearance involves how and where you carry your weight. Some people have the hip structure/proportion such that the weight disappears on them, while others look like bulbous cows.

I have thin arms and have always carried my weight in my lower body. If I lose weight the middle and upper body extra flesh disappear before the lower body.

That being said I would definitely not guess he is 175 as I am currently 170 at the same height and the looks are not similar.

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Swim - Bike - Run the rest is just clothing changes.

Acrtually, fat helps fill in those extra ridges and makes you much more hydrodynamic, like a seal or a porpoise.

Do you think those washboard abs and ripped muscles are helping or hindering your profile in the water?

And while I agree with you that body position+technique are far more important than fat, at competitive levels nearly all swimmers have good body position and technique. At the world class level for marathon swims, that's absolutely certain. At that point, having enough body fat to smooth out your ridges as well as give you a teensy flotation edge may be the difference between winning and losing in those long swims. This can also be seen at play even in local pools with nonelite swimmers - I'm sure you've seen the very obese yet surprisingly speedy fat male or female who looks like they could barely run as they are so faf and heavy, yet are surprisingly fast in the pool, even with sloppy form. I had a gal next to me last week who was 5' tall, 210 at least, big fat belly, crappy, sloppy pull for sure, but almost keeping up with me at 1:40/100 despite clearly doing workouts of <1000 yds, and not at high intensity. There is no other factor than fat that was helping her - take that fat away and she'd def be a 2:00+ swimmer given her form flaws, which were being compensated for with her generous buoyancy and round form (which was probably more hydrodynamic than mine - I have the washboard abs.)

There's a youtube video posted recently of one of the fastest HS swimmers who swam nearly fast enough in an event to win an NCAA Div1 race if he posted the same speed, and while he's not fat, he's far from ripped.

While I do agree that some folks can 'hide' their weight, it's nearly impossible to hide that weight when you're in a form fitting triathlon outfit. For sure, Macca is not going to be able to hide 25lbs of weight in that outfit compared to a similarly tall yet 25-30 lbs lighter competitor who looks nearly ideentical in height and build.

I am an example of this. I am 5'6" and weigh about 137 on race day. A few years ago I was over 180.

When I tell people this, they refuse to believe me. Sure my face is little thinner, and my upper body is a little more bony, but the truth is that my lower body is where all the weight was and still is and that is hard to see, so people tend to think that I lost 10 or 15 pounds at most.

At 137 and single digit body fat, my upper body is super defined, abs, ribs, triceps. My legs, while lean and a little thinner, still look basically the same (no ripped out muscle, or veins, or anything like my upper body). Sure the thigh circumferencehas changed some, but that is not very discernible to people.

In other words, I carry almost all of my weight below the waist, when I gain some and lose some, unless you are measuring my thighs/hip/etc, the difference is pretty hard to notice on me.

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Ironman Certified Coach

Currently accepting limited number of new athletes

I KNEW IT ! Its my washboard, totally freaking ripped 6-pack Abs that are slowing me down in the pool. I am that 2:00/100 guy. I've been swimming more yards, working on technique, living by total immersion and it was a god-damn waste of time. I only got 6 seconds better. I needed more cookies and beer instead. Gotta run to the Quickie mart before tomorrow's masters.

Seriously, you may be right.

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Brian
“Eat and Drink, spin the legs and you’re going to effin push (today).” A Howe

Pieter van den hoogenband is a fine example of a fattie whose hydrodynamics allowed him to be so much faster than other skinnier people.

Hang on...

Hoogenband was not fat at all. I don't where you're getting that from. He was 6'4" and 180 in his world-class swimming days.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."