Last April my sister did the London marathon.
This April my wife and sister-in-law are doing it.
Putting us boys to shame they are 🙁
Last year we had positioned ourselves at the 3 mile mark in time to see the front runners come past and then waited till my sister had got there before moving on.
My brother in law got a great photo of the first group of about 15 or so.
All pretty much the exact same height, build, body shape, etc aren’t they?
Synchronised running from the three at the front too.
You can see Mo on the right with the yellow sleeve on.
They were followed about 30 seconds later by another group that showed a bit more diversification in appearance.
And over time, runners started coming through of all shapes and sizes.
Now you obviously don’t have to be built like that to run.
I’m not and I can run.
Just not as fast and not for as long.
But you can definitely tell when you look at top level sports people in different fields, that there are certain body types that lend themselves to top level performance of that sport.
They still have to work incredibly hard, of course.
But hard work and a suitable body type will beat hard work.
Rugby players aren’t built differently to long distance runners because of the rugby they play.
It’s their natural shape will have given them initial advantage when they first started playing and they’ll have trained to further increase that advantage.
Same with swimmers – you don’t get that body shape from swimming, you have that body shape already and accentuated it through your training.
———- 2004 Olympic gold medallists Michael Phelps (swimmer, 6’4″, 14 stone) and Hicham El Guerrouj (runner, 5’9″, 9 stone) have the same leg length ———
“You don’t choose your sport – your sport chooses you” as they say.
I could dedicate my entire life to improving my running and can guarantee I wouldn’t be challenging Mo and chums.
I could get much, much better than I am right now.
But I’m nearly a foot taller and over five stone heavier than Mo.
Ain’t gonna happen.
So I’m not going to feel too bad about that.
And it’s the same with Fitness Models.
Particularly the ones you see on Instagram.
Usually very specifically posed photos, with make up, lighting and filters further ‘improving’ the look.
But, sure they are in great shape anyway.
And, yeah, they train hard and eat well.
But they also have certain genetic advantages.
And, usually, youth, a lack of injuries and less other commitments on their side.
Doesn’t mean we can’t all improve our own bodies.
But, we’re not going to look like Instagram models.
Not like they look like in person.
Definitely not like they look with the make up, lighting, filters and photo-shopping.
They don’t even look like that.
Feel free to follow them, of course.
But know that they don’t even look like that and we never will.
If it inspires you to close the gap, that’s cool.
If it makes you feel a bit crap, are they worth following?
If they give good, useful, maintainable advice, great stuff.
If they’re just trying to send you to a referral (sorry, discount) link for some rubbish supplement they don’t even take themselves, I’d avoid personally.
Don’t follow someone’s message just because of the way they look.
Follow them because I got a provable track record of helping people like you to achieve results (cough, us, cough –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting).
Much love,
Jon ‘s Direct’ Hall and Matt ‘s Relief’ Nicholson
