against their carnivorous counterparts and in
most cases outperformed them in athletic com-
petition (Nieman 1988). Due to their success,
many other vegetarian athletes joined the move-
ment. One such competition was the 1893 race
from Berlin to Vienna, a 599-km course in which
the first two competitors to finish were vegetar-
ian (Whorton 1982). Over the next 10–20 years
many other vegetarian athletes performed well
in endurance performances around Europe.
Because of the success of vegetarian athletes,
a few researchers in the early part of the 20th
century were interested in measuring their phys-
ical capabilities, and Fischer (1907) conducted
experiments on Yale student athletes. The sub-
jects were exposed to a wide variety of foods
including meat and meatless choices and per-
formed a variety of endurance tests. Those ath-
letes who gravitated toward the meatless diet
were classified as vegetarians and were com-
pared with athletes who ate meat. Each subject
was tested to determine the maximum length of
time that they could hold their arms out horizon-
tally and the number of maximum deep knee
bends and leg raises they could perform. Fischer
noted that the vegetarians scored better than
their meat-eating counterparts.
Wishart (1934) reported on a 48-year-old
Olympic cyclist who had been a vegetarian for
23 years. The subject was submitted to four dif-
ferent meatless meals with different levels of
protein during the 4-week experimental period.
The exercise protocol involved riding a cycle
ergometer for 8.5 h on four occasions after stabi-
lizing on a different level of dietary protein.
During the ride, measurements were made of
external work and total energy expenditure.
Higher speeds were recorded on the cycle
ergometer after consuming the diets with a
higher protein content, especially after 4 h of
riding. The improved performance was attrib-
uted to an increased supply of energy coming
from the meatless protein foods. While the
energy content of each of the four different meat-
less meals varied by about 840 kJ (200 kcal), the
amount of carbohydrate was not calculated and
the increase in protein content for each of the
four experimental diets came from dairy pro-
ducts which contain a significant amount of
carbohydrates.Modern-day vegetarian athletes
The recent literature contains few publications
dealing with vegetarianism and athletic perfor-
mance. However, Cotes et al.(1970) studied the
effect of a vegan diet on physiological responses
to submaximal exercise in 14 females who had
consumed a vegetarian diet for an average of
more than 11 years. They compared the vegetar-
ians with two different controls, one that
included 66 females of comparable social back-
ground and a second group of 20 office cleaners
who had a comparable level of activity to that of
the vegetarians. All subjects performed a sub-
maximal test on a cycle ergometer in which they
cycled for 3 min at 30 and 60 W. Ventilation and
cardiac frequency were obtained as well as width
of the muscles in the thigh. Their results showed
that the sedentary controls had a significantly
higher cardiac frequency while having a signifi-
cantly lower grade of activity (P>0.02). No statis-
tical differences exist between the groups for
thigh circumference or anterior skinfold thick-
ness. The authors concluded that the data do not
support the hypothesis that a low dietary intake
of animal protein impairs the physiological
response to submaximal exercise.
Few data exist on the relationship between
athleticism and vegetarian diets even today, in
spite of the popular belief that a vegetarian diet
may be beneficial to some athletes. However,
anecdotal reports abound. The Tarahumara, a
Ute-Aztecan tribe inhabiting the Sierra Madre
Occidental Mountains in the north central state
of Chihuahua, Mexico, have been reported to be
capable of extraordinary physical fitness and
endurance as long-distance runners (Balke &
Snow 1965), while consuming a vegetarian diet.
Their diet contains very little food from animal
sources and they have reportedly run distances
up to 320 km in ‘kickball’ races which often last
several days (Balka & Snow 1965). Cerqueira and
associates (1979) investigated the Tarahumaras’