300

Having just seen "300", the comic-book style film about the Spartans' stand at the battle of Thermopylae, it seemed almost too much of a coincidence to come across a study about the benefits of being a "manly man".

The Spartans were the original inspiration for the famous Monty Python depiction of the armless, legless knight screaming "I've had worse... come back and fight!" It's a character trait we are all familiar with as runners. Athletes of both genders have taken a lot of stick from experts who've asserted that the "suck it up and suffer" routine puts us at a disadvantage when it we're injured.