“If you’re an Ironman and look in the mirror without a shirt and can see every muscle my advice is this: Get in the car so you don’t burn too many calories, take yourself to the nearest supermarket and stock up on chocolate and ice cream. If you can see a chiselled six pack when you’re not exercising then a cheesecake is a must as you are already seriously redlining it.”
That actually made me laugh a little.
The article was writtin by Sutton in response to an article Macca wrote a while back. They both advise that being heavier is better for ironmans, whereas being close to “fighting weight” is much more important for short course. It makes sense.
I’m interested in how this applies to the general AG population. Do you feel this is true? Do you race better if you follow this advice? Do you run an ironman better if you’re a little heavier than short course weight?
I’ve been thinking about adding a little weight in my buildup to an IM. It may only be a few pounds, and I’ll aim to get down to race weight a little closer to the race, but if it helps with recovery and maintaining strength for specific workouts, then that’s probably a route I’d like to take.
“If you’re an Ironman and look in the mirror without a shirt and can see every muscle my advice is this: Get in the car so you don’t burn too many calories, take yourself to the nearest supermarket and stock up on chocolate and ice cream. If you can see a chiselled six pack when you’re not exercising then a cheesecake is a must as you are already seriously redlining it.”
That actually made me laugh a little.
The article was writtin by Sutton in response to an article Macca wrote a while back. They both advise that being heavier is better for ironmans, whereas being close to “fighting weight” is much more important for short course. It makes sense.
I’m interested in how this applies to the general AG population. Do you feel this is true? Do you race better if you follow this advice? Do you run an ironman better if you’re a little heavier than short course weight?
I’ve been thinking about adding a little weight in my buildup to an IM. It may only be a few pounds, and I’ll aim to get down to race weight a little closer to the race, but if it helps with recovery and maintaining strength for specific workouts, then that’s probably a route I’d like to take.
No! I don’t agree. From an experiment of one I know that lower body fat is better for endurance athletes. Look at any successful triathlete long or short course.
When I first started doing marathons if I saw a chubby-ish person in front of me I would say why in the world am I behind them and it would motivate me to pick it up.
No! I don’t agree. From an experiment of one I know that lower body fat is better for endurance athletes. Look at any successful triathlete long or short course.
When I first started doing marathons if I saw a chubby-ish person in front of me I would say why in the world am I behind them and it would motivate me to pick it up.
I think the perspective is off. Almost every Age Grouper is going to be in the position of “get as lean as possible”. That will put them at where Sutton is thinking is best. His advice to be a little heavier for long course vs short course is for the pros trying to race at 6%BF and his recommendation is to go a little higher than that.
This isn’t an excuse for AGers to eat cheesecake. Us mere mortals still want to get lighter.
You cannot compare age group and pros, well most age groupers. Age groupers need to carry more fat since we typically have more stress in our lives. Get to low in BF you tend to get sick or tired throughout the day. I do think you need to find that bottom limit and get just above it. For me I know when I got to 158 I was tired in my normal life, went back up to 161-162 and everything was normal again.
But yeah most AGs are well beyond their idea race weight. You see tons of people that have $10k bikes but have too much of a gut to even fit the bike properly. Even if you told them I don’t think they would believe you how much faster they would be if they lost weight. Most do the workouts and think they can eat whatever they want. Or eat more sugar than a kid on Halloween.
And Sutton uses the argument of adding 6lb to a 181lb dude who at that weight was probably less than 6% BF, how similar to 99.9% of most triathletes (and first world people in general) is that BF point? Never have I read a more misguided article.
They should learn to put down the ice cream, stop stopping at starbucks to reward themselves for their workout and learn to eat less before worrying about this article.
This article, imo, applies to maybe 1 in 10 triathletes
And Sutton uses the argument of adding 6lb to a 181lb dude who at that weight was probably less than 6% BF, how similar to 99.9% of most triathletes (and first world people in general) is that BF point? Never have I read a more misguided article.
Jack
Right - he is talking about going from 6% to 9%. If that isn’t your situation, this article doesn’t apply. Which is practically everybody, with very small exception.
An article written for 1% of the triathlon population
100% agree! Very few AG athletes are remotely close to their optimum race weight
The average age group athlete is already too fat.
They should learn to put down the ice cream, stop stopping at starbucks to reward themselves for their workout and learn to eat less before worrying about this article.
This article, imo, applies to maybe 1 in 10 triathletes
So this is interesting… I did a quick calculation of weight to height ratios… as well as BMI for these guys (just to have a metric) and myself. I am 5’7" 147, puts me on the smaller end of “weight to height” ratio but just on the higher end of BMI (Viennot has a higher BMI than I do, everyone else is slightly lower). If I were to use these guys as a guideline I should try to cut between 5 and 6lbs and race around 141.
That being said, if you do a search on the main page for the old Kona run to 10s and 15s they give the height and weight for all of them which might get you a little closer picture for guys closer to your size. Frankly, I cherry picked these guys as close to that poster’s size. For example, Crowie was listed on there as 5’11", 147 lbs!
That being said, if you do a search on the main page for the old Kona run to 10s and 15s they give the height and weight for all of them which might get you a little closer picture for guys closer to your size. Frankly, I cherry picked these guys as close to that poster’s size. For example, Crowie was listed on there as 5’11", 147 lbs!
I ran the numbers for all 15 guys in that list. I could get down to Kienle’s BMI cutting 5lbs. I’ll go poking around for past top-10s and see who else is my height-ish
