The other day, as I was being thrashed by a heavy lap swimmer, I once again pondered the difference between a swimmers body and a runners body. I have seen quite a few husky guys, carrying quite a bit of extra weight, who are also very good swimmers. On the other hand, you won't see runners who are carrying extra weight (unless they have just begun running). I think that there maybe a chicken-egg thing here (heavier guys tend not to go in for distance running) but I think that there are other considerations. One of them is that swimming tends to arouse appetite while running tends to suppress appetite.
Having said all that, I just can't yearn for a runners body, even though I would love to drop 5 kgs. I just do not want a body with no arms or shoulders. Also, maybe it's me, but this guy looks like an anorexic model:
profile.ak.fbcdn.net/.../41576_284212555090_8345297_n.jpg
That's a 10K in under 30 minutes. That would have put you in the top 20 in the NCAAs last year. Impressive!
:bolt:
I always thought I'm a bad runner and even worse stayer. Without controlling HR I tend to start too fast and then faint after 1-2 miles :D
When I was a swimmer at school my main distance was 100m breaststroke and I was thinking that smth wrong is with our coaches head who was making us swim 5 - 7 km a day. Vacations at school meant doubled meterage. That was making me sick of swimming though still I liked swimming a lot. You can't imagine how jealous I was when I heard recently from one breaststroker (100m under 1:07) that they never swam more than 3000m a day. So that was quite a revelation that in my 35 I can run more than 10K without gasping. Still my results in distance swimming are far from being impressive 1.5K free in 27 min.
Another runner media.lawrence.com/.../Shawn_Crawford_RELAYS_vert.jpg
Shawn Crawford
IMO it still depends on person. Both in running and swimming there are guys like Alan Bernard or Shawn Crawford as well as extremely slim guys. In general running uses more calories than swimming that's why runners have less fat but that doesn't mean that all of them are dystrophic looking.
More runners cdn.simplyshredded.com/.../va.jpg
That's not the type of running we're referring to. They are all sprinters.
Former Member
You can't imagine how jealous I was when I heard recently from one breaststroker (100m under 1:07) that they never swam more than 3000m a day.
Alow me to bebug this. I don't know the swimmer, but I am 99% they weren't telling the truth. What they probably meant is they rarely swam more than 3000M and that they focused on quality, not quantity.
