Fenlason wrote:artwebb wrote:One of the big bodybuilding guys, I dis-remember his name, discovered that, once he reached the point where walking no longer gave him a good cardio workout, and switched to running, he lost mass in the legs.
this was a big problem for him, as he was competitive at the time.
His search for adequate cardio without loss of muscle mass led to one of the new favorites in exercise, the walking lunge, in his case done with weights.
Now, I'm not interested in that sort of development, but if you notice, distance runners are always slim and sprinters are muscular.
Part of the reason for this is that more muscular types have a natural tendency to speed and power, and leaner types gravitate to endurance events, but part of it is also because training for endurance tends to cause the body to lose muscle mass that's not needed (it costs energy to move all that mass, and if it's unneeded, the wonderfully adaptive human body will shed it in the interest of energy conservation)
Also, I'm easily bored, so long cardio sessions will lead to an eventual lapse on my part, and long distance endurance is needed primarily by people who enjoy endurance events.
At any rate, I don't want to spend all my non working waking hours exercising, as I said it gets boring.
I'll just up the resistance when I start feeling like I need more tension, and I'm sure it'll be fine.
No workout for me tonight (again)
Jeanne did one ten and one twenty minute ride
So you are worried that by going from 30min. to 40min.. you are going to loose muscle mass...
I think you are generalizing to much. Your example is one body builder, whose one goal is to have as much muscle mass and definition as possible. He would have probably chosen that over his own health. He definitely was not after functional fitness.. and not even strength.. he was after aesthetic.. and their perception of what looked good.
Perhaps he did not know what he was doing.. perhaps he did not have enough cardio fitness to tax those muscles enough with aerobic exercise.
When I competitively raced.. my legs were quite large and ripped... maybe not body building huge.. but 24" lean and rock hard. Not that I did not do some strength training off season, most of that was from biking.
Take a look as some of your speed skaters.. some of the Dutch skaters that do long distance... they will be huge. Lots of muscle.
Again it depends on your goals.. and your own body. If I only did what you did for cardio.. I would need to be on bp meds. I need more.. I want more.
Biking outside competitively with friends I find it far from boring. We push the hell out of each other... it is fun... and exciting. I make sure to stay in shape this way.. If I slack while they are training.. then I pay for it.. I can't keep up.. which is not as much fun.. and hurts.
My friend Matt beating me in our last ice race.. was one of the best things for me.. it has motivated me.. I told him he would be paying for that win.. all summer. Not that I have any grudge.. or need pay back.. it has just motivated me to get my sorry butt closer to the shape I used to be...
he is happy about it also [most of the time] because it will mean he will get into better shape also.
Generalizations can be bad. Selling fitness equipment.. "they" say.. that something like a rowing machine will give someone a better cardio workout than an exercise bike. On paper that should be the case. One is using more muscles rowing than when cycling. Yet I being a cyclist.. can get my pulse higher on the bike... and keep it there longer, than while rowing. I don't have the rowing muscles that will allow me tax my fairly fit cardio vascular system.
You may be right, and I may be over generalizing, but remember that when you were racing competitively you weren't riding on the small ring all the time, either, you were shifting to the gear that got you the highest speed you could efficiently handle, and pulling hills, etc.
that means that strength work was built into those long races, they weren't cardio only events (although cardio fitness was probably the highest priority)
When you ride a bike and use the gears every up-shift is akin to increasing resistance (tension) on a stationary bike, except you get more actual speed out of it, and you know when your gearing isn't the most practical or beneficial. You wouldn't try to pull a century in first gear even if you love spinning the pedals, it'd take too long.
If you look at runners, though, you'll see what I mean. The distance guys, who mostly jog at an easy pace, and I mean easy, like marathon runners, tend to be very lean, but also have not a lot of size or tone, whereas the guys who handle the sprints, 50-220 meters, say, are usually pretty stout. This is due partly at least to adaptation.
The reason your legs were huge (and by the way, I'd rather have a sprinters or bikers legs than a body builder's, too, more functional) was because you rode HARD. you still do. you've already said you never ride your indoor equipment at a fixed tension.
Anyway, the need for more tension was really more of a 'down the road' question than a 'I wanna do it now' thing. At this point I know I can get all the training effect I need just by trying to go faster (in one place?
)
I finally got back to it tonight with my monthly test day.
No big increases, but even modest ones are good.
Jeanne did her thirty, but I don't know what intervals she used (three ten min, two 15 min, or one thirty)
BTW, while I understand that a body builder's goals are different from ours, this guy was noted as an exceptional bodybuilder, had 'the best legs in bodybuilding' and earned several Mr. world, Universe, etc, titles, and invented his own strength/ cardio exercise that is now a standard training device not only for muscle heads, but trainers, functional guys, etc. across the board, so he likely was pretty smart vis a vis training techniques, you just can't expect a body like that to move all that fast, for all that long, without adaptation taking place, the same way people who start training get early gains because the muscle simply 'learn' how to do the activity more efficiently, not because it grew any
by Fenlason » Sat Apr 24, 2010 7:22 pm 
They had predicted rain...
