Tag Archives: body type

What Body Type Do You Have: Cyclist, Runner, Triathlete, Rower, or Swimmer?

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Each sport favors a particular body type.

Racing Weight explores the average body types of athletes in cross-country skiing, cycling, rowing, running, swimming, and triathlon and explains how each body type is suited to its sport.

So what body type do you have?

The Runner’s Body: Let’s face it, top runners and light and skinny. Elite male marathoners average 7% body fat (only cross-country skiers are leaner) and women weigh in at 12% body fat, the leanest of all endurance sports. Why? Runners who have less gravity to fight with each step are more efficient.

The Cyclist’s Body: There’s more than one body type in cycling because cyclists often specialize in climbing or time trialing. Cyclists tend to be twiggy up top with muscular legs. Cyclists range from 6-11% body fat for men and 12-16% body fat for women. The average elite climber is 5′ 7″ and 130 pounds. The typical time trialist body is 6 feet and 147 lbs.

The Swimmer’s Body: The best swimmers are very tall, often with unusually long torsos and arms. They have large feet and flexible ankles–great for kicking propulsion. Swimmers carry more body fat than other endurance athletes: 10-12% for men and 19-21% for women. Why? Fat is more buoyant than muscle. One study also found that swimmers’ bodies add fat because of repeated exposure to cold water.

The Triathlete’s Body: The three-sport discipline of triathlon allows for great leeway in the body types of the best triathletes. The nature of the sport means that there are more ways to win, which lessens the competitive selection pressure on body type. Triathletes are often tall, but not exclusively so. Male elites have body fat percentages from 6-10% and females range between 12-15%.

The Cross-Country Skier’s Body: Elite cross-country skiers tend to be average height or slightly tall. They are muscular but the leanest of any endurance sport. Average male: 5′ 10″, 165 lbs, and 5% body fat | Average female: 5′ 7″, 141 lbs, and 11% body fat

The Rower’s Body: In rowing, mass is an advantage so the sport is divided into lightweight and heavyweight classes. Both classes feature muscular bodies. Men have body fat ranges under 8% while women are in the 12-16% range.

Racing Weight 2nd Ed. RW2 96dpi 400x600p strokeLearn more about athlete body types and their influence on performance in the new edition of Racing Weight, released in December, 2012. Racing Weight is a proven weight-management program for endurance athletes.

Why Your Body Type Matters

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Each sport favors a particular body type.

body typeDuring the Olympics, we stumbled across a blog post on a photo book called The Athlete by sports photographers Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein. This book is a collection of photographs of Olympic athletes wearing very little–and perhaps a bit more oiled up than is strictly necessary. Nevertheless, to see a tiny figure skater next to a weightlifter is a fascinating reminder that the elites in our sports are elite in part because of how they are built.

The BBC picked up on the fun of this during the London Olympics with this “body type matcher” where readers could enter just two variables–weight and height–to be matched with an Olympian of the same stats. Obviously, this little web app is so simplistic that it’s really for entertainment.

Racing Weight explores the average body types of athletes in cross-country skiing, cycling, rowing, running, swimming, and triathlon. Why? To show how the demands of each sport enforce body composition types.

Racing Weight explains why each average body type makes sense for each sport, but here’s the basic message: the best athletes in any sport tend to be built in ways advantageous to that sport’s demands.

The best basketball players are tall because the point-scoring method involves a 10-foot high basket. The best football linebackers are massive because their job is to be immovable.

So what’s the best body type for endurance sports? Mostly, one that is light and lean.

In fact, weight and body-fat percentages are more strongly correlated with finish times than training variables. That’s right, the fastest elites also have the least body fat. Why?

  • Because they are more efficient (less gravity to overcome),
  • dissipate heat better (less insulation), and
  • can send more oxygen to muscle when there’s less oxygen demand from fatty tissue.

Racing Weight 2nd Ed. RW2 96dpi 400x600p strokeRacing Weight is a proven weight-management program for endurance athletes.