In the past I have done posts about whether women should run and the benefits of barefoot running. However, I’ve seen a few posts and articles recently discussing endurance running and sprinting. Are we genetically designed to be endurance runners? Are we better designed as sprinters? Do you need carbs if you are an endurance runner?
I’ve gathered together various running-related articles and posts below that should provide food for thought, whether you are a hardened long-distance endurance runner, or a sprinter who believes that endurance running is the worst thing you can do to your body.
- To start the debate, Mark Sisson recently featured a “testimonial” from Jonas Colting, a long-time professional triathlete who lives the primal lifestyle and seems to do well on it. If you are looking at this from the evolutionary perspective then this would suggest that we certainly have the ability to be endurance runners on a more paleolithic diet, even if we aren’t really designed for it.
- Continuing on the theme of whether we are genetically designed to run, a recent study suggests that natural endurance runners are more likely to have variations of the NRF2 gene than elite sprinters. So it’s possible that a few people really are designed to be endurance runners and should go for it whole-heartedly.
- If you are going to run, then you need to be aware of the injury risks. Eric Cressey has put together five resistance training myths that continue to be believed in the running community.
- Moving onto sprinting, a recent study by Debré et al has shown that sprinting significantly increases testosterone levels, so sprint training could be a real complimentary boost to your resistance work in the gym. It should be noted that the study was carried out on adolescent boys. I would be interested to see how large the effect was in women or men in their thirties.
- Science Daily recently covered a study that suggests women are more affected than men by air pollution when running marathons. So if you are a female endurance runner perhaps you should avoid the more polluted cities to get your best results.
- Writing about women doing marathons, Linda Quirk, having completed the seven continents marathon challenge (running seven marathons in seven continents) is now planning to try to be the first woman to complete the harshest desert ultramarathon races in the world in under a year. You can read more about the marathons she’ll have to run in the article on That’s Fit.
- Alternatively, Christopher McDougall believes that we are all born to run, and has even written a book to explain why. He’s a barefoot runner and seems to really live by the belief that we are a species evolved to run.
- Finally, moving onto the food aspects, Mark Sisson has featured a comment he received from someone who lives on a low-carb diet and is an endurance runner (by the nature of being a pig-hunter). He’s found huge benefits from being adapted to burn fat since he no longer has to carry food with him while out hunting. I couldn’t agree more with his comments. This is one of the big benefits I’ve found for both cycle touring and long-distance walks – being fat-adapted has made a big difference to my pack weight and efficiency while on the move. It’s also a debate I often have with a friend of mine who is a marathon runner. He frequently tries to tell me that while being adapted to not eat carbs in quantity may be fine for me as a cyclist (he clearly hasn’t tried cycling all day while still being adapted to need the carbs), he’s a runner and therefore it is a necessity. I’ll be sharing this link with him!
So, lots of food for thought there. In particular, there’s a surprising amount that seems to support the idea of endurance running, though we obviously need to consider the injury issues and make sure that those are being addressed at the same time through appropriate strengthening exercises for the supporting muscles.
Personally, I think there’s a big role for sprinting for muscular development so I’ll be continuing to pursue that and stick with cycling for my endurance exercise. What do you think?
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