Adam Rippon on Quiet Starvation in Men’s Figure Skating

[Rob]

The reaction that a muscular skater is "fat" is an old school reaction - and the article states that Arutyunyan has received more modern training on this. Didn't Valery Liukin just have to resign over this kind of thing? I hope coaches and teachers are taking advantage of this kind of training.

3 slices of bread with fake butter and fake sugar is ridiculous and is the worst thing he could have done as his metabolism would just shut down. This is the kind of thing dance teachers used to tell me -- just nibble on celery and sip water so you don't feel starving. Pfft.

 

[Spun Silver]

After going through a phase of emphasizing upper-body weight-training, Weiss slimmed down drastically, ostenisibly to improve his consistency on quadruple jumps. From what I can remember, his results not significantly different after he slimmed down.

I remember hearing that Yagudin skimmed down for the 2002 Olympics and it did help. It looks to me like Meagan Duhamel has lost some weight. I'm sure there's a healthy way to do it as well as unhealthy ones. Mirai looks leaner and fitter than ever these days too and I hope she's done it in a healthy way. But I saw a video of her answering questions from schoolchildren. One little boy said he knew she had to watch her diet while training for the Olympics and what was she going to eat afterwards? She answered, "Is that a real question? Are you kidding? I'm going to eat the world!"

A fiercely disciplined training and nutritional regimen surely goes into performing at this kind of level who's not Christopher Bowman, and coaches should be able to discuss all of it with their students. The question for me is whether the regimen is healthy and the coach is committed to his athletes' health as well as their performance.

 

[lala]

Lightweight skater jumps easier..this is obvious.

 

[Spun Silver]

Lightweight skater jumps easier..this is obvious.

But it's more complicated than that. Look at Mirai, Mao, Midori --the three Olympic 3A skaters. Very different body builds. I don't even know what they have in common other than the usual number of heads, limbs, etc.

 

[lala]

But it's more complicated than that. Look at Mirai, Mao, Midori --the three Olympic 3A skaters. Very different body builds. I don't even know what they have in common other than the usual number of heads, limbs, etc.

Midori was a law girl with strong legs, probably lightweight, Mao was thin in his whole career, she had an incredible fast rotation capability, Mirai is in best shape, she lost weight. The lightweight is good for jumps and the skaters know it. The girls would have no problem with the anorexy if this is not true..

https://twitter.com/azayakanablue/status/963370804552454144

 

[Skittl1321]

But it's more complicated than that. Look at Mirai, Mao, Midori --the three Olympic 3A skaters. Very different body builds. I don't even know what they have in common other than the usual number of heads, limbs, etc.

Ancestry?

Not sure how that helps them, but it is an interesting coincidence.

 

[misskarne]

Lightweight skater jumps easier..this is obvious.

A muscular skater jumps easier - THIS should be obvious.

 

[mag]

Lightweight skater jumps easier..this is obvious.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Aceon6]

The physics say it’s a combination of speed, mass, the vault angle, and the power behind the vault. Lighter skaters can get away with less speed and less vault power, but that results in less air time and leads to URs. There’s a happy place where x pounds of muscle in the right muscle groups gives the best possible flight.

 

[mag]

@Aceon6 Yep, it is really all about physics. With speed, there is the entry speed as well as the rotational speed. Generally you might think they are related, but we have all seen very slow Skaters with quick rotation and fast Skaters with slow rotation. Rotation speed can also be affected by technique, deepness of edges can particularly affect edge jumps, by core strength, by air position, and by how aerodynamic the body is (weight or lack thereof doesn’t necessarily make a body more or less aerodynamic. Shape and tightness have more affect here.) Finally, the ability to do combinations IMHO is much more determined by Skating skills, landing position, and weight transfer than the absolute weight of the body.

 

[lala]

A muscular skater jumps easier - THIS should be obvious.

Lightweight and strong. There are exist.

 

[lala]

You have no idea what you are talking about.

For example look at the young Plushenko. Did you watch the FS then? He was incredible thin and he could jump. Right?
https://twitter.com/sakko2005/status/961441965077184513 I can show you thousand of pictures. He was on diet when he competed. Plus before the competition he eat only yogurt and banane for 2-3 days. Before Vancouver he needed to lose 10 kg ( cca 22pound) when he started the preparations.
And look at his body he has strong legs but his upper body and his arms aren't too muscular. Right? I bet Mishin and Plush didn't foorget about those part of his body. Probably Mishin knew what he is doing.
This is from 2013-2014. He prepared to the competition .
https://twitter.com/sakko2005/status/963178407277166593
https://twitter.com/sakko2005/status/963608740749389825 this is not his mormal body

Mutaz Essa Barshim the reigning world champion, high jump
1,89 m and 65 kg!! he is on diet continously https://alchetron.com/Mutaz-Essa-Barshim
But most of the high jumpers are lightweight because they can lift their weight more easily. The jump is jump. The skaters can jump higher on ice, too if they are lightweight. But of course, need muscles Zagitova is lightweight but she is strong thus the relative strength is great.

 

[misskarne]

He was on diet when he competed. Plus before the competition he eat only yogurt and banane for 2-3 days. Before Vancouver he needed to lose 10 kg ( cca 22pound) when he started the preparations.

Lala, that's BAD. That is TERRIBLE. Any human being but particularly an elite athlete needs more fuel than that to survive. Only eating yoghurt and bananas for 2-3 days before a competition is NOT something admirable. It is a symptom of a horrible problem in skating.

 

[lala]

Lala, that's BAD. That is TERRIBLE. Any human being but particularly an elite athlete needs more fuel than that to survive. Only eating yoghurt and bananas for 2-3 days before a competition is NOT something admirable. It is a symptom of a horrible problem in skating.

I disagree. He did it before the competition not always. But he was on diet continously except the rest period.. I'm sure rthe other skaters do it also if they are not very lucky and they have good genetically proprieties. When the wrestlers, boxers kick-boxers wants to be a lower weight group and they want to be there continously because they have more chance in it they are on diet and they are balancing the diet and the strength retention. I mentioned the high jump, thus it's not only the skaters' problem.
But why do you wonder? Why the men jump quads? That is bad for spine, knee, etc. Why the girls make Biellman spins, why the rythmic gymnasts make extrem streching, and they are always controlling their weght, too. But I read an article, a rythmic gymnast coach told sometimes + 0,2-0,3 kg is dangerous because the peg received much more loading... Why the mountaineers want to climb Everest? etc.
I don't want anybody to say I support the anorexy or something like this I just want to say almost every competitive sport is dangerous and not healthy. The athletes make sacrifices.

 

[berthesghost]

Because ALL THE YELLING about non related issues detracts and overtakes the "event".

sorry Mark Spitz, but you’re still an oly superstar who achievements people regularly talk about and no discussions of Israel or terrorism has changed that or taken away from your spotlight. Most people are used to multitasking and don’t have a problem with non-myopic narratives

If that is what you truly believe, why have you been reading this thread and posting your pontifications here?

Because the exquisite irony of someone hijacking a thread about a specific topic to complain repeatedly about distractions and the clutter of white noise and how celebrities should just stick to the one topic at hand is one of life’s little joys

After going through a phase of emphasizing upper-body weight-training, Weiss slimmed down drastically, ostenisibly to improve his consistency on quadruple jumps. From what I can remember, his results not significantly different after he slimmed down.

one could argue they were worse. But with Mike or Adam or whomever, I defer to them. They are after all people who have made it to the olympics and the very top of their sport. Why should an armchair athlete like myself tell them they’re doing it all wrong?

 

[antmanb]

I remember hearing that Yagudin skimmed down for the 2002 Olympics and it did help.

I think you are mis-remembering. Before the start of the 2002 season Yagudin became obsessed with losing weight in order to improve his jumps. He lost something like 10lbs in the off season and at his first outing of the season at the goodwill games he fell all over the place and lost the consistency in his jumps.

Goodwill Games SP
Goodwill Games LP

You can see how much thinner he looks in those links above, compared to wen he put the 10lbs back on for the rest of the season and at the Olympics.

Joubert also said he went through a phased where he bulked up lifting weights and found it negatively affected his jumps and he had to lean back out again.

 

[DreamSkates]

Just look at the top 2 Russian ladies. Very slim. They have very lean muscle, very little mass to interfere with jumping - going up, rotating, and coming back down, however the physics work.
I remember Raf telling Ashley she needed to lose 3 pounds at one point, to jump better.

 

[lala]

Just look at the top 2 Russian ladies. Very slim. They have very lean muscle, very little mass to interfere with jumping - going up, rotating, and coming back down, however the physics work.
I remember Raf telling Ashley she needed to lose 3 pounds at one point, to jump better.

This.

 

[snoopy]

Several posters have pointed out, over the years, that being smaller helps with consistency. More opportunity for correction/you don't have to be as perfect on technique.

 

[mag]

I would just like to point out that all the anecdotes given in this thread do not mean anything. They are simply stories. I could post a similar number of videos of very skinny Skaters who couldn’t land their jumps. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that a skater could be out of top physical shape and still land the difficult triples consistently, but to suggest that telling a skater to lose 3 lbs or 10 lbs and it will help their jumping is good advice is crazy. It is just way more complicated than that. There is so much more science now including body composition testing to help Skaters get and stay in peak form.

 

[Rob]

My guess is that a muscular skater launches easier, but a tubular skater rotates easier. A tubular skater can have very long hard muscles, not curved bulky muscles, so that skater could launch and rotate.

 

[Rogue]

I recall Nancy Kerrigan once saying that the magic number for her jumps was 117. If she went below or above that, her jumps became inconsistent.

 

[Sylvia]

I recall Nancy Kerrigan once saying that the magic number for her jumps was 117. If she went below or above that, her jumps became inconsistent.

Speaking of Nancy, I am very interested to see how Kerrigan's "Why Don't You Lose 5 Pounds?" documentary will turn out: https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...e-5-pounds-nancy-kerrigan-documentary.103210/

 

[mag]

I recall Nancy Kerrigan once saying that the magic number for her jumps was 117. If she went below or above that, her jumps became inconsistent.

This comment is dangerous. 117lbs of what? How much muscle? How much fat? How dense were her bones? She was an elite skater who’s weight probably didn’t vary much so she had it worked out. The problem is, no other skater is exactly Kerrigan so if, as people tend to like to do, another skater comes along who is about the same height, then all of a sudden 117lbs is the “magic” number. (There was a thread a while back where someone actually posted the supposed “magic” weight for a pairs girl.)

Think about it this way. Suppose someone tells you to make a cake. They give you a list of ingredients with no measurements and tell you as long as the total of all the ingredients fills exactly 3/4 of the pan, the cake will be perfect (oh, and you have the choice of 50 different pans, all different sizes and shapes.) Would you believe them? No, you could end up with a cake with a cup of salt and a teaspoon of sugar or any of a million other combinations. That is what is wrong with weight. Weight doesn’t give you any information about what is going on inside. It is all the bits and pieces that make up the weight measurement that are important. Different combinations can make for different weights or the same weight. Knowing the weight doesn’t help you know if you have the right combination anymore than filling a random cake pan 3/4 full tells you the cake will be good.

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

Medvedeva and Zagitova are on a diet too. There was a video posted in the Russian thread where you seet he girls going on a balance and not wanting the camera to look at the weight. Then Medvedeva says something like ''Why do you think we are slim like this? Because we diet, it's not natural!'' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PysG0fIwyZo but it seems the user has taken it out.

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

http://b2ten.com , a Canadian private sector company created to help elite athletes reach their maximum, has been focussing on nutrition a lot lately. There is a great video online about their new shift towards food and nutriments for recuperation, regeneration and performance, but it's in French and geo-blocked to Canada only. Virtue&Moir are among the selected athletes. (So far on 7 Winter athletes selected, 5 have won medals at these Games, one athlete to go in Snowboard Cross)

 

[Anita18]

I remember hearing that Yagudin skimmed down for the 2002 Olympics and it did help.

Being a Yagudin uber back in the day, I remember the story being that he lost a ton of weight over the summer in 2001, and then fecked up the first competition that season. IIRC he fell out of his quad and went into the boards face-first at the Goodwill Games that year. Then he stopped obsessing so much about being thin and was back in contention by 2002 Olys. "Losing as much weight as you can" is usually not a good strategy for anyone, let alone an elite athlete.

Didn't anyone see Julianne Séguin last night and land all her triples and her partner not struggling to lift her despite her not being a waif??? She was AWESOME.

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

Being a Yagudin uber back in the day, I remember the story being that he lost a ton of weight over the summer in 2001, and then fecked up the first competition that season. IIRC he fell out of his quad and went into the boards face-first at the Goodwill Games that year. Then he stopped obsessing so much about being thin and was back in contention by 2002 Olys. "Losing as much weight as you can" is usually not a good strategy for anyone, let alone an elite athlete.

Didn't anyone see Julianne Séguin last night and land all her triples and her partner not struggling to lift her despite her not being a waif??? She was AWESOME.

That is said, julianne Séguin is not back at her skating weight as she hasn't able to train fully until the end of the year as she still had concussion symptoms. When she is fully trained, she is a little lighter. She could do 3-3 combo in training back then in her junior days. She is more of a firecracker, she has explosive power. As Mag has said, there are many variables for a jump to happen. If you are not the skinnier, you have to be more explosive, like Manley, harding, Ito were.

 

[mag]

http://b2ten.com , a Canadian private sector company created to help elite athletes reach their maximum, has been focussing on nutrition a lot lately. There is a great video online about their new shift towards food and nutriments for recuperation, regeneration and performance, but it's in French and geo-blocked to Canada only. Virtue&Moir are among the selected athletes. (So far on 7 Winter athletes selected, 5 have won medals at these Games, one athlete to go in Snowboard Cross)

There is a training centre here in BC that is run by a charitable foundation (athletes still pay, but the prices for kids are less than for adults) that is doing some great work both with elite athletes, weekend warriors, as well as just getting young kids out moving. I believe a number of the skaters from 8Rinks train there as well as see the various medical professionals.

http://www.fortiussport.com/Facilities/Pages/The-Institute.aspx

I have just noticed that they do body composition testing. I imagine that would be very helpful for Figure Skaters.

 

[Lizziebeth]

I think you are mis-remembering. Before the start of the 2002 season Yagudin became obsessed with losing weight in order to improve his jumps. He lost something like 10lbs in the off season and at his first outing of the season at the goodwill games he fell all over the place and lost the consistency in his jumps.

Goodwill Games SP
Goodwill Games LP

You can see how much thinner he looks in those links above, compared to wen he put the 10lbs back on for the rest of the season and at the Olympics.

Joubert also said he went through a phased where he bulked up lifting weights and found it negatively affected his jumps and he had to lean back out again.

I remember seeing Yagudin looking noticeably thinner and him being a mess. He got back to his usual weight and things went back to normal.

It must be tough for guys in pair skating. Need muscle to do lifts and throws but not too much because it will negatively affect the solo jumps. There is way more to this than keeping your weight down. Nutrition and the right kind of muscle building workouts are key.

I sometimes feel sorry for the curvier girls with a more shapely physique. They get a lot of suggestions to lose weight when they are already tiny and carry that weight more in the hips. There is nothing you can do about that.