107. Why Mountain Ultra Runners Carry More Muscle (and What That Means for Your Training)

Road marathons create lean, wiry bodies. Mountain ultras? Think sturdy, muscular, and resilient. In this episode, I unpack why trail and mountain ultra runners often carry more muscle than road marathoners—and how you can use those principles (variety, load, time under tension) to build a stronger, more capable body. 

I’m also sharing the first look at my own plan to train for a 50-mile mountain ultra, including how strength blocks, recovery, and fueling shift across the season.

Key Takeaways

• Terrain is training. Steep ups recruit glutes/hamstrings; downs load quads; uneven surfaces light up hips, core, and ankles. That variety builds muscle.
  
  
• More time under load = more muscle preserved. Long, lower-intensity efforts with bursts on climbs bias fat use and protect lean tissue.
  
  
• Add load, not just miles. Hydration packs, poles, or a weighted vest turn endurance into strength-endurance.
  
  
• Strength work is non-negotiable. Trail athletes lift to prevent injury, power climbs/descents, and keep muscle through big mileage.
  
  
• Cycle your season. Early: more lifting. Mid: balanced lift/run. Late: more run, maintain strength. Recovery and fueling matter more with age and life load.
  
  

You don’t need a mountain race to benefit. Walk hills, choose uneven paths, wear a light vest, carry a kid or backpack—endurance + resistance is the winning combo.

Try This Week

• Pick a walking route with two hills and take them on purpose.
• Do one walk with a light pack or weight vest (start small).
• Add two strength sessions (lower body + core focus) to your calendar.

Links From This Episode

• Follow my ultra training journey on Instagram (highlight bubble has all the updates).
• Want help blending strength, smart cardio, and nutrition? Check out my coaching links in the show notes.

Thank you for supporting my small business. Here are some brands I trust and use myself with a discount for you:

Cozy Earth - WICKESSHOME for 20% off through April 1st.

Equip Protein - 15% off with code WICKES

Masa Chips - 25% off code STRONG $50 or more

Oliveda Skincare & Makeup 

LMNT Electrolyte Supplement - Get a free Sample Pack when you purchase through this link.

Join the FasterWay and Get Coached by Tiffany

Let’s Connect! I share tons of fitness tips and more behind the scenes on my social accounts.

Website

Instagram

LinkedIn

Facebook

YouTube

Transcript

Welcome back to Strong Like Mother, the podcast where we break down fitness, fat loss, and the science of building a body that actually supports your life. I am your host, Tiffany Wicks. And today we're going to talk about something fascinating in the endurance world. Why mountain ultra marathoners often carry more muscle than road marathoners. I know you might think this is so random of a topic, but it's not. If you have not heard, I am starting training September 1st.

for an ultra marathon next year. Sounds a little wild, right? I'm gonna do a 50 mile ultra marathon through the mountains. So naturally I became obsessed with researching. So I've done a variety of races. I know people are like, have you ever even done a race? Yes, I have. I did a half marathon. These were all road races, okay? So I've done a half marathon. I've done a sprint triathlon. I have done a handful of 5Ks. I've done a 10K.

So here's what I know about me is I don't like the lean and wiry look and I definitely don't like running anywhere very fast. I like running long distances. However, I don't like to do it quickly. Okay. So if you've ever compared the body of someone who runs flat, you know, fast road marathoners,

versus somebody who grinds out 50 or 100 miles or even 200 miles through mountains. So you're going to notice a difference. All right. I've noticed a difference. The road marathoners, they are, they're usually really lean, really wiry. And then the mountain ultra athletes, they look sturdy, strong, and they're definitely more muscular. So I had to look into why, and I thought I'd help unpack that with you guys today. So first off, it's the demands of the terrain. Okay.

I love hiking. have posted a ton about hiking since we moved to Utah. I live and breathe for the next time I get to get up in the mountains. I told Adam when we first moved here, I really want to get into trail running. He was like, okay, sounds cool. Anyway, one thing led to another with an interview for the magazine that I did. I ended up interviewing an ultra marathoner. He's actually a coach now. I was like, done. I'm hiring this guy and I'm going to do it. Adam was like,

Tiffany Wickes (02:16.686)

Out of all the harebrained stuff I have come home with, this one's got to take the cake. But you know what? I'm committed. I don't even know if I can finish this, you guys. I don't even know if I can physically do it, but I'm going to train and I'm going to try. So first off, it's the demands of the train. Road running is super competitive. It's the same stride, same muscle groups over and over and over again for 26.2 miles.

But trail and mountain running, you are climbing, you're descending, you're balancing, and you're adapting with every single step you take. There are steep uphill, so those are going to recruit your glutes and hamstrings and calves so much more than flat running. When you go downhill, it requires your quads to be super strong to absorb the shock and then control the descent so you're not just like tumbling down the hill and creating this rock slide behind you.

Plus there's tons of uneven terrain that just demands a stabilizer muscles like hips, core, ankles. They're all firing that keep you upright and not like rolling an ankle on the hill. So the constant variety is basically strength training that's built into an endurance sport. All right, so number two is the time under tension. So flat marathons take like three to five hours depending on the runner. I would take like 12.

Mountain ultras often last 8, 12, even 24 hours. So that's way more time under musculature load. And your body adapts by just building more muscle to sustain that demand. number three, carrying a load. So most ultra runners carry hydration packs, gear, food, wipes, sometimes poles. So all of that is added resistance over really long distances. So it's similar to rucking.

Alright, walking or hiking with some sort of weighted backpack, weighted vest or a baby, which is, you know, known to build bigger muscles in your legs and your upper body. So the next thing that they have going for them is their energy systems and muscle preservation. here we go. Flat marathoners are often running at a higher steady intensity. That means that the body has to rely heavily on glycogen and dip into muscle breakdown. if the fueling isn't absolutely perfect.

Tiffany Wickes (04:31.518)

Mount ultras, however, are usually paced lower with bursts of high intensity on the climbs. This engages your fat metabolism more and it spares your muscle tissue, which is really super encouraging for muscle preservation. Also, you're moving in zone two most of the time, which again is utilizing... Although they do consume a lot of carbohydrates, your body will not use muscle for fuel. It will start dipping into the fat.

because we're not going at such a high intensity. right, so number five, strength training crossover. So many mountain ultra athletes are intentionally strength training because they have to. Okay, you have to have really strong legs, hips and core, which will create less injuries and better endurance on the climbs and the descents. Road marathoners sometimes skip strength training because they want to be lighter and faster, but that leaves them with less overall muscle.

It makes sense when you look at the terrain differences. Next is hormonal differences in training. The style of training matters for hormones too. Heavy climbing, eccentric loading from the descents and long duration efforts stimulate growth factors and anabolic signaling that helps maintain muscle. When you're doing a long, steady, flat running without any variation, you can do the opposite.

So it leads to more muscle breakdown over time if recovery and nutrition aren't prioritized. Now, I will be prioritizing big time recovery, nutrition with my training because A, I'm older and B, I've had seven kids. So I know that that's going to be a huge hurdle for me, is having enough nutrition, hydration and time to recover.

because I just may not recover as quickly as the younger athletes. But look, I'm not trying to win the doggone thing. Okay. If you guys are listening to this and you're like this chick, she's completely off her rocker. Who runs a 50 mile ultra marathon at the time I will be 44 years old with seven kids. Me, I do it. All right. So like you just have the look of functional strength. All right. So here's the big takeaway. Mountain ultras don't just build endurance.

Tiffany Wickes (06:49.314)

they demand a functional strength, right? Those athletes develop muscular bodies, not because they're just lifting weights like crazy. I mean, they do every day, but because the sport just naturally recruits more muscle because they have load and longer duration. So practical takeaway here is even if you're not running a hundred miles through,

the Uintas or any of the mountain ranges where I live or where you live, Rockies, what have you. The principle applies to your fitness, Variety, load and resistance build muscle. Flat, repetitive cardio is gonna lean out, but it's not necessarily gonna make you stronger. If you add hills, resistance, strength training, you're not only gonna perform better in all of your lifts, you're gonna look a whole lot better too. So.

The next time you see me as a mountain ultra runner with my solid quads and strong glutes, remember that this sport is basically endurance plus resistance training combined. And if you want a body that's capable, functional, and resilient, then think about how you can bring some of those elements into your own training. So when you're going on walks, go ahead and load yourself up, put a kid on your back, get a,

a walking vest, put some weights around your ankles. If you see a hill, don't avoid it. Don't go around it. Go up it. And then thank you very much for tuning in to Strong Like a Mother. do have, by the way, let me back it up. I do have a highlight bubble in my stories on Instagram. If you guys want to follow along with the ultra training, I am pretty committed to capturing most of this journey. I mean, it's not until next year, so I'm not even sure what I'm doing first, but

The first block of training I know I saw my coach had, he had shown me the spreadsheet and he's pretty dang involved. You know, he's got a very systematic way of training clients. So I am departing from the faster ways programming. However, I'm actually kind of not. Here's the thing is his training looked a whole lot like our training, like what we do with the faster way. It was just arranged differently and the intervals were pushed closer together.

Tiffany Wickes (09:10.168)

to train endurance. So he calls himself a strength endurance trainer because that's what he's doing. He builds big muscles on his athletes and the first set of block of training, you're doing a whole lot more weightlifting than you are running. And then the second big block, so the blocks are in three months stretches. The second block of training ends up being about equal.

strength training to running. Then the third block of training ends up being less strength training, more running, and then you get your race. By the time you get to the third block and then you get to race time, you've lost some muscle. It's inevitable that you're going to, but you haven't lost a whole heck of a lot. Your body and my body should be very capable of doing the 50-miler. There are also rest stations that you stop at.

I'll keep updating on this as I go. still learning. I'm like watching documentaries. I'm listening to podcasts. Obviously I have hired a coach that's going to help me through that. So I just don't freaking go up there and kill myself. I'm not trying to do that, but I am trying to do something really, really hard. And I think there's a ton of value in training for something and running after something that you don't know you can do. Right.

So this is as much about mental toughness as it is physical ability because I'm pretty sure you can train your body to do most anything. But training your mind to do something hard, that's a whole different thing because your muscles could physically take you from point A to point B. But in your brain, if you've not trained your mind to do it, like you're never going to get off the finish line. You're never even going to sign up for the damn race. Like how many people are like, what in the world? Like, why would you do that? It's because they can't see themselves doing something that difficult.

So they think I'm insane for even trying it. Well, I disagree. So we'll get back to it. So thank you for tuning in to Strong Like a Mother. If this episode got you thinking, please share it with a friend who's tucking the cardio only mindset. Good grief, get out of that. And as always, remember that strong is the new skinny and the best version of you is still in progress. So please show up, stay strong. I'll talk to you guys next week. Bye.