Running questions

[shirase]

Im 15 and I do body weight excercises and weight lifting as im trying to strentghen myself to help with my MA and overall wellbeing. I am joining a crosscountry club where you basically run long distance every day after school. I was reading some things about fast and slow twitch muscles and sprinting and crosscountry were examples, respectively. I was wondering, is it true that long distance running is pretty much only slow twitch muscles?and my main concern was this : does developing strong slow twitch muscles weaken or deplete your fast twitcht muscles? Most endurance runners seem to have small muscles which im guessing are slow twitch, and not very much bulk like sprinters.

PS i also noticed that although kick/boxers do lots of running and they are still muscular. Is this because they train harder to prevent muscle loss?

[fanman.]

running (not sprinting) will mainly work the slow-twitch muscles. As long as you are doing enough strength training as well, your fast twitch muscles will still develop well. A good way to develop fast and slow twitch muscles is running, with short bursts of sprints combined with more slower running.

[GeorgeK]

Shirase,

You made some good observations. Long, slow running will make you lose muscle mass and will be detrimental to your other athletic endevours, if not to your overall fitness and health. Ditch the crosscountry, join a good MA school (realistic and functional), join the H.S. wrestling and/or gymnastic team(s) (I wish I had started MA at your age), do some running on your own, mostly sprints, and continue weighttraining. Good luck.

[GeorgeK]

shirase,

also check out crossfit.com and make sure to read through the archives, but most importantly, download the free issue of "What is fitness?" in lower left corner. If you get what they talk about, you'll become a superb athlete and will thank me later. Good luck.

[shirase]

"Shirase,

You made some good observations. Long, slow running will make you lose muscle mass and will be detrimental to your other athletic endevours, if not to your overall fitness and health. Ditch the crosscountry, join a good MA school (realistic and functional), join the H.S. wrestling and/or gymnastic team(s) (I wish I had started MA at your age), do some running on your own, mostly sprints, and continue weighttraining. Good luck."

wow is that true? i thought long distance runners were very healthy. Also, I am going to join grappling and kickboxing soon, so i got that covered. Sadly there is no wrestling or gymnastics at my school because its mostly track oriented(it won cities the last like 18 years in a row)
Can anyone else comment? because im not saying i dont believe you GeorgeK, its just Im not sure about the negative effects being so drastic

[GeorgeK]

shirase,

Long distance runners may be healthy compared to non-athletes and in the short run. In the long run, long, slow distance running becomes detrimental. Why? Because while getting better at one fitness attribute - endurance, you totaly lose other fitness attributes such as strength (including muscle mass - just look at physiques of marathoners and cyclists), flexibility, power, agility,quickness, accuracy, anaerobic capacity, etc. If you want to specialize in endurance, then marathons is what you want to pursue. However, for overall general fitness and longevity, you need all those attributes that I listed. Don't beleive me. Beleive someone who knows what they are talking about and support such statements with research and observation. You didn't look into Crossfit and that artlicle, did you? I strongly urge you to. It will change the way you work out. Their slogan is Forging Elite Fitness. That's exactly what they do. It's a crosstraining program that's best suited for cops, firemen, military guys, MMA guys, etc.
As far as what you're doing with MA, you're on the right track. Good luck.

[shirase]

I read that crossfit article, that was interesting and sobering , thanks for pointing me there. However, i think im gonna stick with the crosscountry since its over in only 2 weeks, and im thinking thats too short a timespan for my muscles to really get that much weaker. The cities are soon so ill be training at least 5 days each week(10 days about in total). My birthdays soon and Im getting one of those whole-gym-in-one machines so ill be able to exercise my muslces better than before , so im thinking that that will help cancel out the negative effects of these next 2 weeks. Also, when i run at night i mix it up with sprinting 100m sets, about 500 m of sprinting in total. Thanks for the info, I will be more cautious of overworking in the running department.

[shirase]

Oh, a couple more questions. What is boxing "road work"? I know its running, but what exactly do you do? windsprints? 1 km fast jog? long slow jogs? Im asking this because it seems to me that boxers get good cardio from that but dont suffer too greatly in other departments. Also, how often do you do it?(like how many days of the week?)

[GeorgeK]

shirase,

I am not so sure about those all-in-one machines. I think your family's money could be spent on something better like a squat rack, a pull-up bar, an olympic bar with weights, a set of kettlebells, a punch bag, a dip station, a rower(beleived by many to be the best cardio equipment out there). Stick to the crosscountry for now. It will give you a good fitness base, especially if you do sprints. This type of workout describes exactly boxers' roadwork. It's basically running with some work in between like shadow boxing, push-ups, burpees, sprints, sit-ups, etc. Check out Ross Enamait's site. He is a boxer and offers plenty of advice and some sample workouts. And keep reading posts at Crossfit.com

[Dead_Nerd]

Hey, i know this is a fairly old thread, but I have some good information. If you do choose to go with an all-in-one station, be sure to pick one that IS NOT fixed. You want one that works your stabilizer muscles as well as the targeted muscle group. I myself have one of these, and while I can bench about 200, I can barely do 100 on this machine, simply because it works much more than your chest. Hope this helps!