Great! Thanks my man! 
aside: after my meet, I will spend 6 months focusing my training on a marathon. Why? I think its one of those basic āmilestoneā athletic achievements, and I like to push my own envelope. I will continue to strength train during this, but obviously, it will not be the same as now. Mainly, I will be trying to maintain as much lean tissue as possible, and some level of neuromuscular efficiency so as to make my return to strength training easier. I will also probably knock off the AAS while I do this. The only possible exception being a low test/deca thing for joint support and recovery, but I have a feeling that there are better methods for this than AAS.
After I finish the marathon, I will return my focus to strength training. Maybe Iāll get rrrrrrriiiiiipppped in the process?
Running a marathon is NOT the best way to get ripped my friendā¦ so drop that idea now!
However, unless you are expecting to achieve a good time, there is no reason you need to drop too much muscle - if you are simply happy to complete the 26, then you can do so at a leisurely, less catabolic rate of exertion 
I will drop that idea then. Getting ripped isnāt really the goal. The goal is to have completed the marathon, and run the whole thing. Iām not concerned about my time.
Iām glad you dropped the idea: but on the chance that it recurs, closely examine some photos of the legs of good marathon runners. Preferably close up shots.
I vaguely recall something from an exercise physiology class that gave specifics on the muscle damage caused in running a marathon as well as a slide of some sort actually showing the damage. I canāt recall the specifics but I do clearly recall a feeling of horror.
Besides this, it is psychologically contrary to the entire mindset of weightlifting and strength athletics, as personal opinion. A strength athlete runs down his prey within a couple of hundred yards at most ā more likely 25 yards or less ā and kills it right there.
Not doing as the marathoner does and running for hours on end (more likely away from something, judging from the physiques of marathoners.)
Additionally, you will find sprinting much more effective for fat loss and much better for your musculature, should running be in the program.
Now, can there be an exception? Yes, the great John Grimek reported that during the Depression, when he spent all day every day waiting in lines trying to get a job, he would get up at some ungodly hour and run a given course just to burn off some energy, of which he had a great deal. Years later he went back and drove the course and was amazed to find it was 25 miles or some similar figure.
However, he was also squatting over 500 lb past 70 years of age, so I think his ability to run marathon distances daily for fun while also having the build and strength of a silver-medal-level Olympic lifter and bodybuilding champion is indicative of his being Superman, rather than marathon running being advisable for mortal strength athletes or bodybuilders.
Bill, you are 100% right about it being a COMPLETELY different mindset. Thatās EXACTLY why Iām doing it. Staying in the comfort zone is death. The point of my involvement in PL, bodybuilding, etc. is to push my physical limits. This is a new way for me to do that.
Interesting theory I read recently: that man at his fastest is slower than his slowest prey. The chances are likely that early man ran ran down his prey to exhaustion. Having ZERO hunting experience, I donāt know if this makes sense or not. My feeling is that our use of tools/weapons was the deciding factor.
BBB: Running 26.2 miles is no more arbitrary than benching 500lbs, or having a 52" chest, or any other T-Nation oriented goal. I simply want to push my physical and mental limits.
Until then, I have a meet coming up, and Iāll be focusing on that. One thing at a time.
Well, in that case, go for it!
The harm to strength and physique will almost undoubtedly not be permanent.
(Unless of course it wrecks your knees, which I sincerely hope does not happen. Myself, I wouldnāt remotely consider running substantial distances on pavement. It seems to me that pavement, distance running, and being 200 lb or more is a chancy combination, or in my case and that of many others, a certainly bad combination.)
You are correct, OTS1, that long distance running was essential for early human survival. This can still be seen in the exploits of certain hunter gatherer societies still in existence in parts of Africa.
When hominids switched from a largely plant based diet to a protein based one, the first species to be hunted were reptiles and small mamamls. Reptiles were particularly easy since, in cold weather and during early hours of the day, they moved very slowly.
However these were quickly hunted to extinction and man switched their quarry to larger mammals. These were hunted over vast distances to exhaustion. As you rightly say - over short distances, the fastest man is still slower than its slowest pray - over short distances.
But humans have one thing that other animals donāt have - our capacity for aerobic endurance. This is the evolutionary niche exploited by homo sapiens. Early humans would hunt an animal sometimes for days until it collapsed of exhaustion. I would argue that you will be hard pressed to find another animal that can run an marathon as expertly or as efficiently as a human.
This loooong hunt where the men go off to track a pray can still be seen in some hunterer gatherer tribes. The skills of tracking, large intelligence, abstract thought, third person perspective etc. evolved partly due to the nature of this long hunt.
For this, large musculature on a hominid was counterproductive. Muscles require far too much oxygen, especially for endurance, to be useful for long hunts. This is why we are the weakest species, relatvively speaking, amongst the great apes. We are built, like greyhounds, to be sleek, streamlined and ālightā. Our brains are the most energy intensive part of the body because for this kind of hunt, the brain is the most important organ.
You can see this in the physiology of most tribal people around the world - they are thin, wirey and lack a degree of maximal strength as later became important for settled societies.
Also, i believe it is a myth that running on pavement for a long period of time destroys your knees - our knees are built for this very purpose - to run on hard surfaces, in our bare feet for MILES.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Not doing as the marathoner does and running for hours on end (more likely away from something, judging from the physiques of marathoners.)[/quote]
ROFL!
I can quite safely say that it is unlikely that āweā sprinted after prey OR chased it to exhaustion (seriously?).
We outsmarted it, flanking and trapping, using cunning and tools we had crafted.
There is no logical reason one would do it, it simply comes down to wanting/needing to do such things to test ourselves - to give us feelings of accomplishment in this utterly false consumerist ācivilisedā society.
I digress.
Good luck!
[quote] Brook wrote:
I can quite safely say that it is unlikely that āweā sprinted after prey OR chased it to exhaustion (seriously?).
[/quote]
Anthropologists would disagree. Chasing to exhaustion is the earliest known form of hunting, still practiced by hunterer gatherer tribes.
Also, this university sports science book iām currently reading details mans inexhaustible aerobic capacity in comparison to other animals, outlining, in scientific terms, the argument i laid out above:
In one chapter it talks about physiological systems of different animals and humans come pretty much bottom on all of them EXCEPT aerobic endurance at which the human animal is one of the best on this planet. Not even migrating wilderbeast can match it. Not surprising considering the vast distances man colonised in such a short space of time as he left Africa.
Also hate to quote wikipedia:
"Among primates endurance running is only seen in humans, and persistence hunting is thought to have been one of the earliest forms of human hunting, having evolved 2 million years ago.
The persistence hunt may well have been the first form of hunting practiced by hominids. It is likely that this method of hunting evolved before humans invented projectile weapons, such as darts, spears, or slings. Since they could not kill their prey from a distance and were not fast enough to catch the animal, the only reliable way to kill it would have been to run it down over a long distance.
In this regard one has to bear in mind that, as hominids adapted to bipedalism they would have lost some speed, becoming less able to catch prey with short, fast charges. They would, however, have gained endurance and become better adapted to persistence hunting[1]. The evolution of the distinctively human sweating apparatus and relative hairlessness would have given hunters an additional advantage by keeping their bodies cool in the midday heat."
On it being a āmythā that habitually running long distances on pavement can wreck the knees: There are countless runners who can give their testimonies.
On running down prey over vast distances and extended periods of time: Yes, this is a method that has been used. Obviously it is more suited for some localities than in others. Out in a vast savannah or plain, where even if the animal is for the time being a mile ahead it can still be pursued ā and according to one claim, animals tend to run in large circles and so it is possible for the human to anticipate this and take a shorter route to the point the animal will curve to, but that is a side point ā this strategy can be successful.
In many other environments it cannot.
Also note my point never was that all or even most men are of the type suited to sprinting, taking down, and killing their prey ā or human enemy ā in a short distance. Only that some are of this nature.
The idea that no human can outsprint an animal worth eating in a short distance is I think incorrect. Particularly when considering that juvenile animals exist, and when considering that if a pack of humans surround an animal (not necessarily extremely closely) it need not be a tail chase, but rather an interception.
If it were true that distance running was always better, then it would be hard to explain why while East Africans have very high Type I fiber content in the legs, it is the opposite for West Africans. Why would the latter be better adapted to sprinting if over it has not been over time at least in some cases of more value than distance running?
Hi Bill,
I based my statement on various articles and studies that iāve read on running and knee problems. There was a 2008 Stanford University study that came to the conclusion that running slowly over long-distance on concrete actually PREVENTED knee injuries.
The study looked at regular joggers over a 20 year period. It found that:
āThe dire injury predictions other scientists made for runners have fallen flat. Fries and colleagues published a study in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that showed running was not linked with higher rates of osteoarthritis in older runners. Runners also did not require more total knee replacements, Fries said.ā
I also read, last year, a peer-reviewed scientific study conducted by the Radiology Department of the Danube Hospital which came to similar conclusion:
āNon-physiological maximal loads secondary to the marathon race do not cause any permanent damage in the internal structures of the knee joint in individuals without significant pre-existing damage. A disposition for premature arthrosis was not registered in the population investigated.ā
Not only is it a method that ācanā be used, it was in fact the preferred method of subsistence of early-hunter gatherer societies going back 2 million years of the life of the bi-pedal hominids. There are vast collections of anthropological studies to back this up.
[quote]
Also note my point never was that all or even most men are of the type suited to sprinting, taking down, and killing their prey ā or human enemy ā in a short distance. Only that some are of this nature.
The idea that no human can outsprint an animal worth eating in a short distance is I think incorrect. Particularly when considering that juvenile animals exist, and when considering that if a pack of humans surround an animal (not necessarily extremely closely) it need not be a tail chase, but rather an interception.
If it were true that distance running was always better, then it would be hard to explain why while East Africans have very high Type I fiber content in the legs, it is the opposite for West Africans. Why would the latter be better adapted to sprinting if over it has not been over time at least in some cases of more value than distance running?[/quote]
These are fair points. I would like to note, however, that the Upper Paleolithic age, some 40,000 years ago, is referred to by anthropologists as the āReindeer Ageā. Animals of this type were the primary food stuffs of our ancestors.
As anyone of us who has seen David Attenborough documentaries on TV will note, when antelope are born they learn to walk within hours, and can sprint at break neck speeds within days. This is vital for them to survive bein eaten by lions, cheetahs and other āsprint huntingā animals. So i donāt think chasing after baby deer has ever been practical for humans.
Your second point is similar to Brooks of using ācunningā and āguileā to ensnare animals. Well the archaeological record does not provide any evidence of the sort of cultural revolution needed for these sorts of societies until the development of settled communities soem 10,000 years ago.
Also, yes, there are many genetic variences in the human species, as you noted. You could also point out the short and stocky nature of central asian people, adapted to their environment, or the way peopleās of the arctic circle store fat etcā¦
There is also massive variance in our diets. For example, the Han chinese culture is often referred to as a āfamine cultureā - where peopleās diets consisted of insects, reptiles, small mamals such as mice etc, snakes amongst other delicacies.
Natural selection amongst humans, of course, is an ongoing thing. But that doesn not negate the fact that the bipedal hominid developed as homosapien as an endurance hunting specialist. I donāt see anything in anthropological, archaelogical, or medical studies to contradict this. Though i would be very much interested if you could point me to something that would challenge this assumption.
Thanks!
[quote]WyldFlower wrote:
On running down prey over vast distances and extended periods of time: Yes, this is a method that has been used. Obviously it is more suited for some localities than in others. Out in a vast savannah or plain, where even if the animal is for the time being a mile ahead it can still be pursued ā and according to one claim, animals tend to run in large circles and so it is possible for the human to anticipate this and take a shorter route to the point the animal will curve to, but that is a side point ā this strategy can be successful.
Not only is it a method that ācanā be used, it was in fact the preferred method of subsistence of early-hunter gatherer societies going back 2 million years of the life of the bi-pedal hominids. There are vast collections of anthropological studies to back this up.[/quote]
I thought it was clear that I was not disputing that it has been used as well as can be used.
However on your latter claim, can you really provide a single study ā let alone a āvast collectionā ā showing that 2 million years ago man ran down his prey over long distances?
Also note my point never was that all or even most men are of the type suited to sprinting, taking down, and killing their prey ā or human enemy ā in a short distance. Only that some are of this nature.
[quote]The idea that no human can outsprint an animal worth eating in a short distance is I think incorrect. Particularly when considering that juvenile animals exist, and when considering that if a pack of humans surround an animal (not necessarily extremely closely) it need not be a tail chase, but rather an interception.
If it were true that distance running was always better, then it would be hard to explain why while East Africans have very high Type I fiber content in the legs, it is the opposite for West Africans. Why would the latter be better adapted to sprinting if over it has not been over time at least in some cases of more value than distance running?
These are fair points. I would like to note, however, that the Upper Paleolithic age, some 40,000 years ago, is referred to by anthropologists as the āReindeer Ageā. Animals of this type were the primary food stuffs of our ancestors.
[/quote]
Anthropology is a soft science. āTruthā is based on not having been disproven, and a reputable person in the field having provided an opinion and some sort of supporting argument.
It is unreasonable to claim that it is known how, 40K years ago, men everywhere caught their food. Or to know what meats were not eaten.
Citing a single example of what might be too hard to catch doesnāt disprove the general possibility. I find it hard to credit, for example, that a good sprinter could not run down a young sheep. Just to name one that I think could be run down. There are many.
āFree your mind.ā
Iām sorry, but the fact (if it is a fact) that no big-name anthropologist has argued for the existence of cunning and guile in man prior to 10,000 years ago shows NOTHING, except for the fact that anthropology is a soft-science, authority-of-the-author field.
I would think then that you would not argue against being adapted for sprinting being evidence of that being more advantageous for the environment of those people than long-distance running.
Namely, running something down in a short distance, just as I said.
[quote]There is also massive variance in our diets. For example, the Han chinese culture is often referred to as a āfamine cultureā - where peopleās diets consisted of insects, reptiles, small mamals such as mice etc, snakes amongst other delicacies.
Natural selection amongst humans, of course, is an ongoing thing. But that doesn not negate the fact that the bipedal hominid developed as homosapien as an endurance hunting specialist. I donāt see anything in anthropological, archaelogical, or medical studies to contradict this. Though i would be very much interested if you could point me to something that would challenge this assumption.
Thanks!
[/quote]
Well, you yourself seem to think that differing genetic traits leading to different phenotypes exist because of giving better adaptation to the environment.
So, given that humans exist whose genetic traits are not suited to endurance running but are suited to sprinting, I will leave it to you to provide a suggestion of what that is better suited to, if not to running something down in a short distance.
[quote]WyldFlower wrote:
Hi Bill,
I based my statement on various articles and studies that iāve read on running and knee problems. There was a 2008 Stanford University study that came to the conclusion that running slowly over long-distance on concrete actually PREVENTED knee injuries.
The study looked at regular joggers over a 20 year period. It found that:
āThe dire injury predictions other scientists made for runners have fallen flat. Fries and colleagues published a study in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that showed running was not linked with higher rates of osteoarthritis in older runners. Runners also did not require more total knee replacements, Fries said.ā
I also read, last year, a peer-reviewed scientific study conducted by the Radiology Department of the Danube Hospital which came to similar conclusion:
āNon-physiological maximal loads secondary to the marathon race do not cause any permanent damage in the internal structures of the knee joint in individuals without significant pre-existing damage. A disposition for premature arthrosis was not registered in the population investigated.ā
[/quote]
Iād rather leave it to you to find the reasons yourself why the second reference doesnāt show what you think it does, assuming you think it somehow disproves what I said regarding running on pavement. And only if you really canāt find why then I will go look at it. It is rather like getting references for a claim that the Earth is flatā¦ one really doesnāt want to slog through it.
Taking just a glance at the first, here are the reasons I immediately see why your conclusion does not follow:
-
OsteoARTHRITIS is not what was being talked about, but is a disease condition.
-
Rate of total knee replacement not being higher, to statistical significance anyway (which might allow a wide range: I didnāt check) does not show that damage to the knees does not occur.
-
The group of runners had a selection bias: these were individuals that, still being distance runners at 50 years of age, may well be more resistant to knee damage from running.
I would ask that you try to find reasons like this yourself. After having thoroughly done so and still not finding any, then Iāll spend time going into detail on your second reference for this, IMO, flat-Earth theory that chronic long distance running on pavement is harmless for the knees for people in general, or in general for letās say individuals over 200 lb (this being a drug-enhanced bbāing forum.)
Because there are countless individuals who ran on pavement, their knees started hurting, they quit, their knees slowly got better, they went back to it, their knees started hurting, etc.
I only went through two bouts of that. Knees were a real problem at age 30; after totally quitting running on pavement, were fine for the next 15 years. Stupidly started doing some HIIT on pavement at age 45, knees started hurting. Stopped doing that, knees got better. Sprint now on grass, barefoot, and there are no knee problems.
That is only a single example, which itself would prove nothing except what is true in my own case, but the thing is, there are MILLIONS of example like this in this country alone.
Yes, some people can get away with it. Nowhere did I deny that.
Oh sorry, i thought i made that clear when I clarified the difference between genetic variance between humans today and the development of bi-pedal hominids several million years ago as an endurance specialist.
I donāt know where Paleontology falls on the āhard scienceā/āsoft scienceā scale, but from paleontological studies iāve read, humans came to West Africa (Nigeria etc.) late in their evolutionary history. Origins are normally located in far South West Africa, then across the Serengeti up to East Africa. In fact, humans were in the Arabian peninsula, perhaps even as far as central asia, before the coastal migration up to West Africa.
Anyway, i think at this point we are both speculating, and even, dare i say, using selective arguments to back-up our prejudices.
I understand that for a forum of strength athletes, who balk at marathon runners and their āweedy legsā, that asserting that hominids were designed for endurance running is slightly anathema. But then i also beleive that evolution is a random āpurposelessā process - so i donāt think its right to say that we were āmeant to beā marathon runners anymore than it is to say we were āmeant to beā large muscular and explosive.
Still, despite generic variance between populations (eg Type I/Type II muscle fibre rations) i believe that natural selection places pressures on early hominids which made them more suited to long-distance endurance running.
Anyway, i have lots of articles and studies to draw on to support my beliefs that, the world over, in all populations, the design of the human animals (which has continued to change and evolve) was primarily for endurance running. Here is a sample:
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/212/5/713 (a āhard scienceā study by Anthropologists on short toes)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJS-4PHJMGM-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1003394723&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=588174ad4739a4b0a29428de6ab51c51 (also by Anthropologists using āhard scienceā)
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ph.38.030176.001421
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:gXb5RkGdtxEJ:www.fas.harvard.edu/~skeleton/pdfs/2007i.pdf+J+Hum+Evol+Endurance&hl=en&gl=uk (this is a good one)