A curiosity... muscle, running speed and weight?

LorinaLynn · January 2012

Sometimes I wonder about strange things. I still have another week of recovery from my stress fracture, and I have entirely too much time to think. Let's just get that out of the way.

Ok, so I've heard that the lighter you are, the faster you can run. That makes sense. Give me a 30# bag of cat litter to carry, and I'm not going to be able to run like I do when I'm not carrying it.

But does the same thing apply to gaining muscle mass, or does the extra strength from having the muscle "outweigh" (little pun!) the extra pounds you'll be moving?

I'm not going to be a professional athlete, so it doesn't really matter, and I honestly don't care what I weigh anymore. But in theory... If I totally kick *kitten* with weights like Staci the Power Lifting Superhero and go up 10#, would being so much stronger make me faster, or would I be faster if I dropped another 10# and didn't have as much mass to move?

Yanicka1 · January 2012

oh good question.

Well I know that sprinters afe the fastest human and they are very muscular but at a very short distance. I would think that the power of the muscles pretty much counter balance the fact that you are heavier.

Hopefully soneone that know will anser this LOL

dandydalek · January 2012

I was actually wondering this same thing during my run yesterday.

Jillk1023 · January 2012

good question, cant help but wonder about the answer

ArroganceInStep · January 2012

I'm not very knowledgeable on running, but I know a thing about outrigger canoe paddling. A similar question was asked since when you paddle your aim is to push air bubbles down into the water which creates lift under the boat. When the boat is up on the water it moves much faster than if it's plugging along through the water (this is especially true for 6 person canoes, which is where the test was done). Obviously, if you have a heavier person in the boat that's more weight you have to counteract.

It was found (mind you these are island boys I knew in Hawaii who live for paddling, so if you want to see a peer reviewed study you won't find one, they just logged a metric crap-ton of sprints and distance rows and looked at the data to see if something stuck out) that at elite levels, the difference in body weight was pretty negligible. The heavier folks tended to be stronger than the lighter folks, and that added strength allowed them to counteract the added weight, but not by so much that it was definitively better to be heavier.

I know that runners, in the absence of other forms of training, don't tend to build large bulky muscles, but instead gravitate towards a leaner look. I would think (and this is purely speculation) that someone who's built up lean body weight would be able to, through training, increase the efficiency of that added muscle towards running such that it wouldn't be a disadvantage over the smaller person with less LBM. I also suspect that the difference wouldn't be so great that you'd be far and away better than the person with less LBM (you'd just look more ripped).

My $0.02

msarro · January 2012

It can seem complicated, but it always comes down to physics. Any time you're moving more mass, it takes more energy, period. One Calorie (kCal) equals 4184 joules. One joule is equal to one newton over 1 meter... roughly the amount of energy to life up an apple. Think how many apples you weigh, and you'll get an idea of how adding muscle mass means you'll need to burn more calories to do the same movement.

Also, the muscle you build from strength training isn't the type you use when you're running. Running uses anerobic or "white" muscle, vs aerobic, fast twitch "red muscle." Basically if you build lots of red muscle and make your body mass go up, your white muscle will need to compensate for the additional load. Now usually this will happen at the same time with normal training, so you shouldn't have to worry about it too much.

As for sprinters, their goal is to build lots of red muscle in their legs, abdomens, and lower backs so they can literally explode with force when they run. They're terrible distance runners because they don't have very much white muscle (unless they've specifically trained for mid distance but you'll rarely see that in any professional capacity - they tend to be dedicated to sprints, mid distance, or long distance).

ebaymommy · January 2012

I was going to say it depends on what distance you are aiming to be faster at.

I can only add my own experiences - I'm not a fast runner by any means but here is what happened to me.

Turned 30, had a little quarter-life crisis. Decided I needed to prove to myself I could do something I never thought possible - hence the running of my 1st marathon. At the time I weighed about 135-140lbs. For training I did running. That was it. Ran my marathon in a time of 4 hours, 34 minutes.

Fast forward to 18 months later and some friends decided we should all run a marathon. Only problem? In the time between running my 1st & 2nd marathons I had suffered a bad bout of plantar fasciitis in my left foot which forced me to stop running completely for about 6 months. But I kept eating. My new weight? Around 145lbs. So I figured I'll train for marathon #2 and those pounds will just fall off. No? What the heck! Ran #2 at 145lbs, felt frickin' miserable and finished in a time of 4 hours and 52 minutes.

That actually was an awful experience. I hurt pretty much every step from mile 16 to the end. And when I was done I thought to myself, "If you are going to do this, then dammit get off your *kitten* and do it well!"

So in the 6 months between marathons #2 and #3, I totally revamped my thinking. I ate better (cleaner) and incorporated quite a bit of weight training and cross-training in with my running. By the time marathon #3 rolled around I was down to 127lbs. I ran the whole marathon feeling like I was on top of the world and finished with a PR of 4 hours and 18 minutes.

Then in June 2011 I ran marathon #4. Again, I did a lot of weights and also more speedwork (HIIT type stuff). Got the weight down to 124lbs. Finished again with a PR of 4 hours and 4 minutes.

I don't know at what point building muscle will be detrimental to my distance running but I'm pretty lean (about 20% BF). I'm running marathon #5 this June, so I will let you know how it goes! Right now I'm sitting at 122lbs and focusing on eating pretty near my TDEE and getting lots of protein and still doing a lot of cross-training and more weights than ever trying to build what muscle I can. Marathon training doesn't start for a few weeks for me, so right now I'm not running tons. The scale is still slowly moving down despite what I'm eating and I'm losing some inches as well. I feel great when I run and I'm hoping for another PR this year.

LorinaLynn · January 2012

Very interesting... I guess it's like greyhounds running two minute races vs huskies doing the Iditarod.

upwiththesun · January 2012

Brendan Brazier, professional vegan Triathalete, has a book Thrive Fitness and he talks about this same thing.

Lean muscle mass, you definetly need it to go with the endurance.

ajevans2674 · January 2012

I was going to say it depends on what distance you are aiming to be faster at.

I can only add my own experiences - I'm not a fast runner by any means but here is what happened to me.

Turned 30, had a little quarter-life crisis. Decided I needed to prove to myself I could do something I never thought possible - hence the running of my 1st marathon. At the time I weighed about 135-140lbs. For training I did running. That was it. Ran my marathon in a time of 4 hours, 34 minutes.

Fast forward to 18 months later and some friends decided we should all run a marathon. Only problem? In the time between running my 1st & 2nd marathons I had suffered a bad bout of plantar fasciitis in my left foot which forced me to stop running completely for about 6 months. But I kept eating. My new weight? Around 145lbs. So I figured I'll train for marathon #2 and those pounds will just fall off. No? What the heck! Ran #2 at 145lbs, felt frickin' miserable and finished in a time of 4 hours and 52 minutes.

That actually was an awful experience. I hurt pretty much every step from mile 16 to the end. And when I was done I thought to myself, "If you are going to do this, then dammit get off your *kitten* and do it well!"

So in the 6 months between marathons #2 and #3, I totally revamped my thinking. I ate better (cleaner) and incorporated quite a bit of weight training and cross-training in with my running. By the time marathon #3 rolled around I was down to 127lbs. I ran the whole marathon feeling like I was on top of the world and finished with a PR of 4 hours and 18 minutes.

Then in June 2011 I ran marathon #4. Again, I did a lot of weights and also more speedwork (HIIT type stuff). Got the weight down to 124lbs. Finished again with a PR of 4 hours and 4 minutes.

I don't know at what point building muscle will be detrimental to my distance running but I'm pretty lean (about 20% BF). I'm running marathon #5 this June, so I will let you know how it goes! Right now I'm sitting at 122lbs and focusing on eating pretty near my TDEE and getting lots of protein and still doing a lot of cross-training and more weights than ever trying to build what muscle I can. Marathon training doesn't start for a few weeks for me, so right now I'm not running tons. The scale is still slowly moving down despite what I'm eating and I'm losing some inches as well. I feel great when I run and I'm hoping for another PR this year.

I'm also a marathon runner who has experienced highs and lows in weight, which have most definitely affect my PRs. I found that once I started doing regular weight lifting (3 days a week at BodyPump class), I lost inches and gained muscle. I think that as you gain muscle, you tend to lose fat (for people who have fat to lose), which means your speed will still increase. Not to mention muscle give you more power and endurance than you had previously. I think it would be very hard for most woman to reach the point where muscle mass inhibits running speed.

But I'm a huge advocate of strength training as a way to increase speed! I can say from many years of running experiences that it truly works, as well as implementing a variety of training runs into your workouts.

A curiosity... muscle, running speed and weight?

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