Running a marathon is no small feat.
It requires an extraordinary amount of muscular endurance, aerobic fitness, time, effort and grit. This is why so many people looking for a way to challenge themselves both mentally and physically set their eyes on the 26.2 mile race. However, for those of you like myself who have spent an incredible amount of time in the gym trying to cultivate mass in the form of muscle tissue, the idea of spending multiple hours a week running can be scary and off-putting. It's no secret that long duration aerobic exercise is not the best way to build muscle - or even maintain muscle. In fact, in many situations it can often have the opposite effect. Muscle is not easy to build, and if you have spent any significant amount of time trying to build muscle, you can attest to that. So naturally, the last thing you would want to do is sacrifice any of that hard-earned muscle. However, I am here to tell you that you can run a marathon without losing muscle. I know because I did it. In 2019 I ran the Bataan Memorial Death March in just over 4 hours (a marathon through tough desert terrain meant to honor American and Philippine POWs during WWII - read more about it here) AND I squatted 465 pounds, deadlifted 505 pounds (PR), and bench pressed 315 a couple days before the race. Safe to say I didn't lose much muscle.. I am going to breakdown step by step how I did it, and how you can cross running a marathon off your bucket list without losing any muscle.
5 Comments
|