At what cost?

If you are not getting paid to race or even if you are, why are you risking everything for your sport?

There are plenty of you readers out there that I am sure lead a balanced and healthy lifestyle, this is not about you. It's about those of us that are walking on the edge of a precipice and are about to fall. I am seriously alarmed by the number of people I have encountered over the last year alone to whom that analogy applies.

Yes, strength to weight ratio is important for racing. But you're not going to be any faster if you're starving. Worse than that, when you get too lean (less than 7% body fat for men, 12% for women) bad things start to happen. Your organs don't work right anymore. Your heart starts doing the funky chicken, not to mention your other organs and immune system. And yet every issue of every mag about running, cycling or tri that I have picked up in the last year seems to have an article on how to get leaner. I have yet to see one that cautions against getting too lean.

So I am here to tell you that you can die from being too skinny. If you are trying to optimize your strength to weight ratio, get you body fat tested to get an idea of how much weight you can safely lose. Don't assume that less is more.

Eat well, eat responsibly, enjoy life.

This post was inspired by a friend who fell from the precipice but clawed her way back into competition, at a healthy body weight.

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