Feeling weak

Question
"Hi recently i have been feeling weak i am 30 years old I am 5ft4inchs tall i weigh 100lbs I no i am very skinny I just cant seem to gain weight. I always thought that if you were skinny that you were also fit and strong. My sister in law
who is my height but weighs 190lbs I always thought she looked unfit and over weight But she out does me in every department.
She does not Exercise at all but then neither do i
A couple of days ago my husband and i went round to there place for a BBQ The conversation came up about my skinny arms when i replied there stronger than they look!! my husband said not as strong as my sister with a smile,
So Kim challenged me to an armwrestle!! she beat me sooo easy
her arms are strong but they are very fat and flabby why is she so much stronger than me? we also done a squeeze thing with our hands like a test of strength I had to ask her to stop I cant belive how weak i am.
She has also just got a new treadmill the day before I pointed to it a said I can beat you on the tread mill Kim
well so i thought WRONG!! I could not last half the distance she did I just run out of energy and felt dizzy and really weak in the legs. Why when she does not exercise and is over weight that she can beat me so easy??
IS it normal for fatter women to be stronger than someone skinny like me??"


Answer
NO! skinny has Nothing to do with fit and strong at all, It can be, but it depends on ones goals. As well over skinny / under nourished will lead to your feeling tired and being weak as well as health problem.

Fitness is the ability to do whatever activity you are required and have a little left in the tank. Take a sumo wrestling champion. BY definition he is VERY fit. He's a champion, where as Lance Armstrong when he ran a marathon lost did very poorly. By definition the Sumo wrestler is much more fit.

It is flat out sickening the portrayal of fitness in today's media and the amount of health problems and eating disorders it leads to in people. I have been a victim as have many others

To answer your question, Yes it is very common for a woman like her to be stronger then you maximal strength is NOT obtained at low BF % and low extreme low BF % can lead to more health problems then being over fat. She has excess fuel to use to build and retain muscle and use for activity other then sustaining life. You are very thin and your bodies #1 goal is stay ALIVE. it does not care of your strong as long as your breathing and you give it no excess fuel to build or retain lean mas which is very energy expensive.

Marathon runners in relative terms are very weak maximum strength wise. When you see models in pictures that are very thing they are usually very weak shockingly so and people like fitness models and such DO NOT stay that lean years round they do so for photo shoots and they are at their weakest and least healthy at that point, many times as well more then you'd like to think they are on various large amounts of pharmaceuticals.

Anyway, take home message NO thin has nothing to do with fit and definitely not strength or even optimal health. Fitness is relative to your goals what you want to achieve.

I would urge you to eat more food, you will be amazed at how you feel, perform and look.

Hope that helps,
Phil
www.staleytraining.com  

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