- What body frames are good for
the different distances of triathlon?
Like just do races trainiacs, okay?
Just do 'em.
(upbeat music)
What's up trainiacs, I am endin' the day
the way that I started it.
This is gonna' be a little bit of an inception vlog.
Well, not really.
Basically it starts with my end of the day,
ends with my start of the day
'cause I want to getcha' the meat of what
I'm here to talk about today right now.
Busy day today, busy, busy, busy day.
Shootin' lots of videos, makin' lots of videos.
But anyway, what we're here to answer today
because somebody brought it up I think last week
in the comments below.
By the way, I love comments below.
Challenge, what is the most random comment
that can be in the comment section?
Like comment, or nice nose Taren,
or I wish you did more handstands.
Anyway, that person said, "What are the body types
"that do best in triathlon, the different distances
"of triathlon."
So if you don't know, we'll see if we can put
some sort of graphic on the screen for this,
but there are three primary body types.
There's an ectomorph which is your thin person,
your tall person, your lanky person
that say no matter how much I eat, I can't gain weight.
Then there's your mesomorph.
That's like your athletic build person,
like your broad shoulders but doesn't carry
a ton of extra body fat.
Then there's the endomorph.
That's what Triathlon Taren used to be
when I was my 215 pound self.
That's your big person, that's a person that carries
a lot of fat around the belly, tends to be shorter.
But then that kind of got me thinking,
all right, what body frames are good for
the different distances of triathlon
because there's actually, in my opinion,
a fairly significant difference
when you start getting into the elite ranks,
the top one percent of one percent of one percent
and at that level genetics plays a huge part in it.
Your lung capacity, your cardiovascular system,
your ability to withstand pain,
your body structure all goes into making those like--
(growls)
It was a long day.
Making those amazing triathletes so amazing,
it's not just hard work.
There's a lot of luck and genetic factors involved.
The trends that I've noticed in triathlon
as it relates to body type are that
in general lighter, more ectomorphic people,
lankier, skinnier, lighter people tend to do better
in the shorter distance races, the sprint distance races,
and the Olympic distance races.
Think about people like Mario Mola, Gwen Jorgensen,
Alistair and Jonny Brownlee.
These people are very, very slight and wiry.
And we haven't seen it necessarily in the past
in Iron Man distance because in Iron Man distance
it wasn't as specialized as it is today.
It was basically like the fastest
any Iron Man athlete was going to win the Iron Man.
But, because it's becoming such a focused sport
that people are graduating up from the ITU distances
into Iron Man, what we're seeing is more elitism
going into it.
Does that make sense?
There are more elite athletes going into Iron Man
and we're seeing a bit of differentiation of body types
that do well and body types that don't.
What I've been seeing is that at the full Iron Man distance,
the people that do well tend to be heavier set,
they're bigger, they're more muscular.
I think the reason for this is
because there's so much pounding going into your body
for so long that your body needs to be strong enough
to withstand that pounding.
So if you look at people like Sebastian Kienle,
Ben Hoffman, Jan Frodeno, Mirinda Carfrae,
Daniela Ryf, these people while they're not overweight,
they are really muscular.
They're freakin' jacked.
They look solid, they don't look like toothpicks.
I have actually seen and I actually predicted this,
I wish remember which vlog this was in,
when Alistair Brownlee stepped up
to the half Iron Man distance, my question was,
"Is his body going to be able to withstand
that extra pounding?"
Well, he came out and he dropped it like it was hot
in two half Iron Man distance races
and now out for the rest of the season
with a massive hip surgery that is borderline
career ending for some people.
And, he's had a history of getting dinged up.
I think it may be because he's slighter built.
Now does that mean if you're a skinnier person
you should be doing sprint distance, olympic distance,
and say, "No, no, no I can't do half Iron's and full
"Iron's because I'm not going to be able to get through it."
Or if you're really muscular you say,
"well automatically I'm a full Iron Man athlete."
No, that's not the case.
This is basically at the elite of the elite of the elite.
For the rest of us mere mortals out there,
do whatever you want.
At the level most of us are at,
it's not gonna' make a huge difference to the point
that you can't race in one discipline
where you're built for another.
I, myself am basically not built to do endurance sports.
I am built to be a sprinter or a track cyclist.
Go, bam, really fast for about 20 or 30 seconds.
Like look at these tree trunks.
These things are huge, you should see these in person.
You'd be like, "Oh man, you got some gams on you, gams."
And I'd be like, "Yeah, I know I got good gams."
Like, I am built for power, not endurance.
But, here I am doing endurance sports
and doing pretty okay.
The think that you do need to be a little bit
conscience of that is really helpful working
with a guy like Coach Pat is what he has me doing
is basically overcoming my predisposition
to having nothing but raw power
because I like to train with raw power
when I wasn't working with Pat.
I was doing a ton of work on raw power
because I like doing it and it was easy for me.
And what he has basically trying to undo
and gear me more towards is long, sustained tempo work.
And what we're trying to do is convert
as much as the fast twitch, like the power muscle fibers
to slow twitch and get more of my body geared towards being
and endurance athlete and it seems to be working.
Like, my long sustained power numbers,
they're slowly creeping up and my instant power numbers
are stayin' the same.
Like just do races, trainiacs, okay?
Just do 'em.
On that note, start the inception of the day.
I bike rode this morning.
Yeah, I rode bikes.
The Great White Flu of 2017 is over.
Thank you.
Yeah, there we go.
Oh sweet merciful crap, trainiacs.
Did that feel good after four days of bed rest
with as one of you trainiacs referred to it
"The Great White Flu of 2017."
Good, well good to be out and active.
Even as short as that ride was.
We were 40K in hour 22.
It's about 10K short because days are getting shorter
so we're actually half hour later start
than we normally are.
We also all gotta' break out the Knog lights on the back,
headlights on the front.
What's it called where you've got the lenses that are clear
when it's perfectly dark out, and then darker
when it gets a little lighter?
What's that called?
I don't know what that's called.
These are one of my favorite things that Rudy Projects
sent me in the little care package.
Big fan of those.
Game changers when it's dark out.
But yeah, that felt very, very good.
Well like relatively speaking,
I definitely had heavy leg syndrome
and when they picked it up past about 40K per hour,
pew, gone off the back.
All right, healthy smoothie.
Let's go!