How to lose muscle mass? (Serious)

Mark Collins said:

There are plenty of sports that have proved that wrong. ...Rugby League and Union players... they lift heavy low reps all the time. ...competitive Crossfitters... lift heavy with multiple repetition ranges and run different distances and they all carry significant muscle mass. Check out Dimitry Klokov for an impressive olympic lifter. There is some good you tube videos of him working out.

Hi Mark. I think we might be talking about two different things. No-one is saying that muscular athletes avoid low-rep work altogether. It's clear that they do use low-rep training. The question is whether their overall lean mass comes mainly from their low-rep or high-rep work.

About your post:

- Rugby players do just as much high-rep work as low-rep work. For rugby, protection against injury is as important as brute strength and power. One example is the England national team who pioneered supersets for the upper-body to cut down on fractures and dislocations. Also, the basic on-field conditioning drills of both union and league train the high-rep energy system.

- If competitive Crossfitters use a range of repetition numbers, I'm not sure what this proves.

- Dimitry Klokov posts his training programs online. He does a lot of high-rep work.

- It's difficult to compare the physiological needs of running with most other sports. Being a good runner is a focused path: energy system capacity, recruiting aerobic and alactic muscle fibers to support this, efficiency running motion pathways, and fitting this into a light-as-possible body. For most sports, this is 1 factor of maybe 5-10. Athletes of other sports have more complex and well-rounded physiological needs, and is reflected with more variety in their conditioning program.

- Regardless of other sports, limiting strength training to low rep work is well-established in distance running. Without going into a full history bore... a lot of trial and error with energy systems in US, NZ and Japan during the 40's and 50's led to the famous running "revolution" the world saw in the 60's. The sport learned that runners who trained the lactic acid system with weights (high reps) developed more mass than speed for their efforts, slowing them down more than speeding them up. While those who only lifted the ATP system (very low rep), and used running hills, intervals etc. for all other conditioning saw far superior results.

You guys are wrong in both points about olifting

1. I highly doubt they are "small", that is if you consider 105kg at sub 10% body fat small.

2. They don't train only below 3 reps. You are taking out of consideration exercises like squats, where olifters go as far as for sets of ten.

And as for the OP - If you think you should be as light as possible and "lose muscle mass" for distance running, then you might consider checking out how Mo Farah trained for London 2012. 'nuff said. 

No - it's not "nuff said". What do you mean about the way Mo Farah trained for London 2012? Are you talking about the "final kick" that Farah and Rupp trained for because they knew Bekele didn't have a fast final 200m? Or something else?

Farah's competition weight is 58kg - about 10% lighter than OP.

Anyway, you can't define the way a sport is done by pointing out one single athlete.

i have to admit i´m not the most knowledgeable advice-giver when it comes to running but from my perspective there are always to ways to increase your long-distance-running-performance:

- lose weight

- get better at running

choice one is obviously the easier one.

compare this decision to anyone asking: "how can i become better at bench pressing?" the possible answers are similar:

- gain weight

- get better (stronger) at bench pressing

which one is easier? of course, again: choice one. but is it healthier? is it smarter? is it not just "the lazy way"? 

of course there will always be a certain trade-off between your running performance and your weight but somewhere along the way there is a break-even-point after which your performance worsens. if it wouldn´t be like this you would see anorexic persons win the olympic games. im pretty sure its not your weight stopping you from getting better.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/10453653/Alberto-Salazar-Mo-Farah-could-get-a-career-ending-injury-if-he-runs-the-London-Marathon-and-Glasgow.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2187860/Mo-Farah-weakest-athlete-Ive-seen-says-coach-Alberto-Salazar.html
 

Honestly, I really don't think you have any muscle to lose. Or body fat.
You are muscular and defined, but definitely on the light side of average. And I guess that might not be a problem for a medium distance runner, but if I were you, I definitely wouldn't try to lose any more weight, I think that would be unhealthy.

Rather focus on your running as you say - eat healthy and enough food, keep doing some strength work (for injury proofing and general health) and some mobility - but focus mostly on the running. I think your body will adapt to become what is best suited for your activity by itself if you do that. Don't force anything, it just takes some time.

Like I said previously I have seen bulkier runners get better times than what you posted as your personal best. Maybe at some point you need to lose some muscle but I don't think your running ability is at the point where you can only get better by losing muscle mass. You can still get better at running and if you reach your peak and haven't lost any muscle mass in the process maybe look into it then. This sounds more like a short cut because you want results faster than they are coming.

Based on your "muscularity" and how old you look  (??), I would say that you go about this a bit wrong.

You improve your performance, but not good enough for your own standards(

• This I think is ok, you should always try to be better as long as you dont let it go to your head(does it?). 

You then proceed by assuming you are too muscular, and that cutting down some of your muscle will help improve your running abilites.

• Too some extent this is true. Less mass = less energy needed for you to run at the same speed. However; looking at your photo you seem quite young, and honestly you should spend more time on focusing on the "how do I train to get constant improvement on my running performance?" part, and not "how do I get the quick and easy fix?". 

Instead of just telling you you are not muscular to the extent that it should hamper your running abilities, I am going to show you a picture of an old classmate of mine who happens to be competing in 1500m (and occasionally some 800m and 5000m). The photo of him is about 2-3years old. He is at a very high level nationally, and I would like for you to pay attention to his arms and chest in this photo.

(picture will be removed at some point to ensure privacy)

If your logic was to hold water, this guy would have his performance severly hampered by his upped body. His times on the 1500m and 5000m however, might put this a bit in perspective:

1500m - 3:47:30  (achieved at the event where the photo was taken I believe)

5000m - 14:20:29 (achieved 1-2 years later)

One thing I know about this guy, and those he train with, is that food restriction is really not how they do things. Food is energy needed to perform, and vital to make progress.

My recommendations:

• Eat adequate amounts of food. With the amounts of training you undergo, you are going to need this.
• If uncertain about the previous point; start reading up on nutrition as previously mentioned in this thread
• Focus on a gradual improvement of performance. Improvements that actually stick and sets you up for further development
• You seem relatively young: continue building a base and don't try to improve your time by sacrificing some of the most vital building block of your development. If by the time you reach state/national level, and have someone professional evaluate your body composition and how it affects your performance, you are told you need to cut something to get any further improvement: then that is the time and place to do so! Not now. Not in the next few years at least!
• When it comes to strength work I will just have to give you my own personal opinion based on personal experience: keep at it to reduce the risk of injury! If you want to become good at running; injury really isn't an option (it sucks, trust me!). Taking the long road is ironically the fastest way to success!

Anyway, the best of luck to you:) Cheers!