Reader Email:
Tony, I am training for a triathlon to get shredded for this summer. My question is, are triathlons badass? I know your opinions on cardio, but an Ironman Triathlon doesn’t have the word “Ironman” in it for nothing.
- Stew Swole
I will admit that alone, the word “Ironman” makes one envision an unbreakable Roman statue of a proud and hardened warrior. Ironman conjures up visions of a man in peak athletic form, avatars of heroism, of muscle and might, of endurance, and of Robert Downey Jr.
But alas, when the once proud word Ironman is nary but a prefix for the inevitable “Triathlon,” the adjuction of such diminishes all the heroism of the famed word “Ironman” to nothing more than delusions of grandeur.
Professional Triathlete Jordan Rapp here has the arms of a Goddess.
For you see, an iron man is by definition, “a strong man of exceptional physical endurance.” However, a triathlon is, by its most popular definition, an endurance competition of swimming, running, and cycling. Triathlons utilize not one, not two, but THREE separate forms of cardio, and therefore are three times as bad for you as regular cardio.
Anybody who reads this website knows, that cardio is the Devil. Increasing the distance of these cardiovascular exercises to Ironman proportions will garner you no further accolades from this establishment.
I could end my argument there: Triathlons are cardio. Don’t do them. End of story. But I want to dig a little deeper with my closing statement:
The Dangers of Triath-elitism
When you are at the beach, or the club, or a cocktail hour, or an office holiday party, or really any venue where it is appropriate for you to take your shirt off, and you are standing next to a triathlete, he/she will look lean and fit, but they are nothing special until they opens their mouth to brag about their triathleteness. The triathlete’s necessity for braggadocio puts themselves at risk of looking like a giant D-bag because they are at the office holiday party shirtless, bragging about how they ran a marathon in soggy spandex.
Meanwhile, Two Scoopers don’t have to brag about their latest race for validation. A Two Scooper just looks like the calm collected stud by the bar, letting his delts do the talking.
Triathletes are either scrawny, or not good triathletes, or both. Case closed.
-Tony “Two Scoops” Muscoli
