How low is too low

S

sparrow

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This may be a post for the running thread but I get more meaty responses over here.
Da question: Will low body fat hinder sustained cardio performance?

I'm female. My body fat was measured at 14.9 the other day. I'm still not believing thats entirely accurate and I'd say "go look" but I took my recent pics down. Anyway, it got me thinking that I am training for a long distance running event and although I am heavier than I have been in a few years, I am WAYYY less body fat than those years. Is this combo a negative for a long distance event? I have maintained my strength with my weights, although I do much less of them now that I'm training, kept my clean diet and do cardio 5 days a week ( 3-4 days of that is running 5-8 miles on those days). I need to keep the cardio I have right now, for now and it will even increase in the next few weeks before I taper for the event. But for the weights, are they as necessary at this point? Will I be doomed if I almost completely ditch them for those 6-7 weeks? I don't want to go lower on my body fat. Its never been a goal to even get this low. I'm still increasing my cals as my training gets more intense. I just really want to do well for my race. I've been putting my heart and soul into the preparation.
 
Well if your body fat % is correct you are approaching the lowest end of female body fat. Women need not stay anywhere under 13, and even that can bring problems. Only female bodybuilders do that and its for a short period of time pre-contest. Of course being a runner the way you are its inevitable for your body fat to be low. If you start to incounter problems with your menstration,weaken or have constant chill then that is a sign you are in a dangerous zone. Also if your endurance starts to fade this can be another sign.

As far as the weights are concerned maybe this would be a good break period for you or maybe just cut back to a once a week full body work just to maintain. The harder you get with your intensity you increase muscle damage to your legs. You always want to avoid lifting the days before and after a long/highly intense run as it is not condusive to repair of muscle fibers to have all that load. It is also agreed to take a good few days to a week off all training all together a good 3 weeks before the big run.

So see how you feel and how it affects your performance. I can't imagine it would at this point right now.
 
well its hard to avoid lifting before and after the runs because I run every other day but I get your point. I'm ready to be lighter with the weight sessions anyway. I plan on taking 2 weeks for a full taper which means 5 weeks left to really train. It'll go fast. After this run, and maybe one at the end of October I'm taking another 2 weeks off completely of the gym. I look forward to that. I do doubt my body fat is as low as 14 but I know its not above 16 so I guess thats the range I don't want to fall below. So far I feel totally fine.
 
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