Ryan Hall says he was tired of feeling like a Wimp, so he stopped running and started Lifting.

pretzel man wrote:

How can anyone even pass judgement on this man.

He might also be on Human Growth Hormone...He appears to have HGH gut. That's a side effect of HGH that bodybuilders often have, it's a protruding belly from enlarged internal organs.

devious licks wrote:

datrippeleffect wrote:

the funny part is Sara has said she preferred Ryan when he was skinny. Love the assumptions everyone makes

That’s the funny part?

Or is the part where Ryan himself is saying how much better his life is and how he is a better dad, better person, feels amazing, test levels right, etc.

I think it's a false dichotomy he is playing with. I don't think anyone would tell you that it will help your parenting to follow an olympic marathoners training plan. You could scale back to 50 MPW or stop running entirely and enjoy all the benefits he proclaims, including returning his testosterone levels to normal. It's a dubious claim that he is a better father because he's getting ridiculously jacked. I think he just likes to do things in extreme ways, and everything else is justification.

pretzel man wrote:

How can anyone even pass judgement on this man.

By far the nicest pro runner I’ve ever met.

no one is gonna comment on his uncoordinated wood chomping? that hurt to watch.

guy is a narcissist, never liked him since he claimed to be coached by god. thats some self absorbed delusion.

root hard for Sarah though. love to watch her race. impressed at how much she races (unlike other pros)!

edward teech wrote:

no one is gonna comment on his uncoordinated wood chomping? that hurt to watch.

guy is a narcissist, never liked him since he claimed to be coached by god. thats some self absorbed delusion.

root hard for Sarah though. love to watch her race. impressed at how much she races (unlike other pros)!

You're an idiot...

Useful to who?

bigmig19 wrote:

alphas lift wrote:

Is anybody surprised?

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/21/sport/ryan-hall-marathon-running-weightlifting-spt-intl-cmd/index.html

I thought the strangest part is where he says he used to be an elite runner, but could not run 30 min at the end of his career without being exhausted? Thats a medical problem dude, not a running problem. He is suggesting throughout that running is bad for you, or at least at elite level. If he was "barely able" to run 30 min, he had an eating disorder or something and needed medical help. You dont need to quit running and lift weights to be healthy. He often suggests this concept which is weird.

I do like the trim of his jib though, good positive you tube channel (even if not religious), kind of down the middle advice for any age runner. RunFree and VO2 max productions are the most easily digested IMO.

I believe Hall’s medical problems from overtraining are well documented. At least I have heard of them.

zxcvzxvc wrote:

Speed Force User wrote:

Good for Ryan Hall. Its better to look and feel like Captain America than Eliud Kipchoge. A person who can run a sub 5 mile and bench 200+pounds is more useful than one who cant

How is that more useful? This is a world of specialists. Running a sub-5 mile gets you nothing. Benching 200+ pounds gets you nothing. To make money, you need to run closer to 3:50 or bench 400kg.

How about if your elderly father has fallen down and is stuck on the bathroom floor? The soonest emergency response can be there is in an hour and a half (not unusual in a rural area). Better to be easily able to pick him up, or better to be a skinny marathoner? Strength is the means by which we interact with the physical world, without it we aren't much use to ourselves or anyone else.

Old and slow wrote:

zxcvzxvc wrote:

How is that more useful? This is a world of specialists. Running a sub-5 mile gets you nothing. Benching 200+ pounds gets you nothing. To make money, you need to run closer to 3:50 or bench 400kg.

How about if your elderly father has fallen down and is stuck on the bathroom floor? The soonest emergency response can be there is in an hour and a half (not unusual in a rural area). Better to be easily able to pick him up, or better to be a skinny marathoner? Strength is the means by which we interact with the physical world, without it we aren't much use to ourselves or anyone else.

Put Hall on the battlefield and a bullet takes him down like anyone else. That HGH guy ain’t bulletproof.

His weight lifting for his ego and for advertisement money, that’s it

What I've wondered through this transition of his is, what if he decided to go back into distance training for real, and cut the heavy lifting. How much could he get back to his original times and what would he be able to get his weight down to?

I thought this quote was really wonderful:

"I try to remind my girls: Hey, it's not about the performance, it's not about what place you are. Can you just fall in love with just the sensation of your body being in flight?" says Hall.

"Because if you can fall in love with that sensation, you're going to get everything out of running that you want to get out of running.

"That's where the good stuff is at. It's not hitting a PR [personal record], it's not finishing a certain place or going to the Olympics or any of this stuff. It's in the beauty of the sensation of your body in full flight."

Despite all Ryan Hall's eyeroll-worthy periods in his career -- God is his coach, etc. -- all the interviews I have seen with him, he has seen very well-grounded and humble. In that interview with Webb, Ritz, and Hall I could see that Ritz was a little competitive when they were talking about who was the "best" of the three and Hall, with his 59:43 and 2:06, just sort of sat back and let the other two guys take credit when they wanted to. It was interesting.

Everything Ryan does is Extreme - His Faith , His Running, His Bodybuilding - He is the Quintessential "Extremist". He is the embodiment of a 'Man Alive & Thriving' - More Power to Him!!! Life is meant to be lived; Get off your fat ass and do something with yourself you Lazy Internet Cunts!

ExtremistMan!!! wrote:

Get off your fat ass and do something with yourself you Lazy Internet Cunts!

Found the moderator

With lifting, a little goes a long way. I use X-3 bands 4x a week for 20-30 minutes. It's not like real lifting, but I am astonished at the results. Like Ryan, I feel better than when I was running. It is also nice to be the one who can pick stuff up, move stuff, etc.

My wife is a Mayo nurse and sonographer. She likes just a little bit of running, a little bit of cross-training. A balance. She sure has seen enough patients on which to base her opinions.

Always interesting to see totally unconnected examples being thrown around. Like what value does it add to the discussion? Nothing.

“You wouldn’t be able to lift your dads body out of the bathroom if he keeled over from a heart attack?” if you’re not totally disabled, yes you would, but that’s not the point, there is no point to saying this, it has ZERO to do with running OR lifting.

Out of breath raking leaves? Women only like tall men? Jacked men? Like what are you talking about? Get fit in a way that feels good for you and gives you confidence, these random hypotheticals are total nonsense and come from over-anxious minds. You can’t control the future no matter how much you run or lift.

letsrunbrain wrote:

Always interesting to see totally unconnected examples being thrown around. Like what value does it add to the discussion? Nothing.

“You wouldn’t be able to lift your dads body out of the bathroom if he keeled over from a heart attack?” if you’re not totally disabled, yes you would, but that’s not the point, there is no point to saying this, it has ZERO to do with running OR lifting.

Out of breath raking leaves? Women only like tall men? Jacked men? Like what are you talking about? Get fit in a way that feels good for you and gives you confidence, these random hypotheticals are total nonsense and come from over-anxious minds. You can’t control the future no matter how much you run or lift.

Agreed on the hypotheticals being dumb. One could also say, imagine you're driving in an isolated area with your family when your car breaks down. You're 60 miles from the nearest inhabited area. Who would you rather be: a 130-lb dorky ultramarathon runner, or a really cool 6-times World Strongman Champion?

Putting Ryan Hall aside (who was a great runner that I read about in Sports Illustrated in high school),

I began bench pressing regularly when I was 27.

I'm now 37. Over the last 10 years I've gotten up to the point where I can attempt 225lbs.

For most of this time I didn't focus on a max lift.

Muscle mass on your upper body does make you feel more solid.

I started lifting because I thought that if I was going to be an actor, I'd look better with a build.

I didn't really feel like a wimp before I lifted, but I also didn't have some of the confidence that I've gained from lifting.

Lifting does make you more assertive and sure of yourself.

I'm not going to go full Ryan Hall and take supplements and the like... I think I'm pretty happy already. If I can do reps at 225lbs that' would be cool. If I can get up to 250 or 275 even better.

But for now I'm feeling ok.

ViperDom wrote:

Probably yes wrote:

I love this take... useful at what exactly?

Car accident and your door is stuck, would you prefer a sick-arm marathon runner to be first on scene or Ryan Hall?

House fire and a beam falls trapping your child, as a woman would you prefer your husband to be a stick arm marathon runner or Ryan Hall?

Landscaping, Firewood ect... (without being sore or out of commission the next day)

Moving furniture, recliner sofa down/up stairs (without being sore or out of commission the next day)

Friend needs help lifting the 350 out of his Chevelle. Who you gonna call?

On the other hand...

"Waquie was in his prime when I was a kid, and the best story I recall about the guy involved him and a few friends out hunting in the Jemez and get snowed in with a storm of ~15". They quickly realize they're in a bit of trouble - can't drive out for several days plus they're wet and cold. Al determines the direction he needs to go and runs twelve miles through the knee-high drifts to get help. "

GettingFasterDude wrote:

Let's take a poll.

Eliud Kiphchoge is:

A) Sad that he's not big and bulky.

B) Jealous when he sees big bulky guys going in and out of the local gym.

C) Secretly jealous of Ryan Hall and can't wait to get to doing canyon runs holding water jugs.

D) Confident in who he is, what he's accomplished, and secure in his own skin.

Well put. Ryan Hall seems like a decent guy, in that he means well and is not mean-spirited (as far as I can tell). He was a good runner and occasionally genuinely inspiring. Maybe he's a good coach? I don't know. But from following him since his H.S. days, I feel like he has a little bit of the curse of a lot of celebrities (obviously, he's not a real "celebrity", but within the little running community, he kinda is) of being good in one area (physical activities - largely luck of the genetic draw) and then thinking that aptitude extrapolates to every other area you can imagine. He's always pontificating on this and that; when he was a runner, he tried to come across as this kind of wise-man running philosopher. But he just isn't that smart, and doesn't seem to realize that a lot of the positive response he has always gotten is more a matter of people being awed by successful people than him actually saying anything profound.

But when a person makes a drastic shift like Hall has, from skinny marathoner to bulky back-country weightlifting champ who looks like a bunch of swollen boobs mashed together, you can't take him seriously. Obviously, the sagacious platitudes he said about running way back in the day don't mean anything to him now, so why should we take the current phase seriously? What if I got burned by Ryan telling me how his famous Muscle Milk pancakes with teff flour and Himalayan sea salt (free advice: anybody who thinks that Himalayan "Sea" salt has any noteworthy health advantages is probably not the brightest) gave him the boost he needed for his busy marathoning schedule, but then a few months later it turned out they didn't even provide enough energy for him to run an easy 4-miler? It kind of reminds me of that awful Glenn Beck, who was apparently a Democrat long ago, then for years confidently told people the correct conservative opinions to have, then switched to wanting to heal the damage and enmity he might have caused, then switched back again (I guess...I lost track) - in other words, he makes me ask why he is handing out this supposedly hard-won and undoubtedly correct advice, which will then be nullified when he switches to his next phase? If I'm going to follow the advice of people who are in no position to give advice, I'd at least like them to be consistent!