Nicolas ColeCo-Founder Ship 30 for 30, Premium Ghostwriting Academy

Why Do Marathon Runners Train With Ankle Weights? #shorts

28 May 2026 · 0 min

Watch on YouTube

0:29

In this brief YouTube short, Nicolas Cole uses the ankle‑weights metaphor to illustrate a training philosophy: athletes should make practice harder than the actual event. He explains that marathon runners sometimes train with ankle weights so that when they race without them they feel faster and the effort seems easier. Cole critiques the opposite mindset—training easy and then adding difficulty during competition—arguing that the correct approach is to increase training difficulty (harder inputs) to make performance (outputs) feel easier during the real event.

Marathon runners that train with ankle weights. Why does a marathon runner run with ankle weights? They run with ankle weights to make it harder for themselves so that when they run the marathon, they take the weights off and all of a sudden they're faster and it's easier. And I find like it's almost as if everyone has it flipped where they're like, oh, I'm actually going to train without ankle weights. And then when I get to the game, I'm going to try and play with the ankle weights. Why would you do that? You should make the training harder. You should make the inputs harder so that the output is easier.