From: Russon, Richard
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005
9:02 AM
To: Bike_Training
Subject: Short Rides
This month I have
been in numerous discussions about the short, slow rides of October and the
mythical good, hard workout.
Hammering your body
will make you faster over the years. But, make no mistake, this is more
for your ego than your body. It is a physiological FACT that your body
adapts only so fast. At best this is 10% a week and that rate cannot be
done indefinitely. Also, some bodies like mine respond quickly to training
but a lot of others don't.
As we will discuss
in the upcoming Physiology seminar the limiters to human performance are cardiac
output, muscle capillarization, mitochondiral density, and muscle fiber type
composition. These occur when heart rate is elevated SLIGHTLY for long
periods of time. A good analogy is that I can fill a balloon from a fire
hydrant but it won't fill that much faster (keeping the hole the same size) than
filling it from the kitchen faucet.
If you want the real
stink on body adaptation how a typical person does exercise is rather
irrelevant. Riding only one to two times per week is only a small
percentage of our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). If you really want to
increase fatty acid utilization and lose weight the key is to be in constant
motion. Take the stairs, park away from the building, don't take the
moving walkway in the airport, etc. My wife complains that I'm even up in
the middle of the night walking around.
Back to the point of
all this... we go 25 miles at 14-16 mph to work on pedalling technique and
raise our aerobic ability to spin at 120-130 rpm. People get dropped in
the paceline, not because they are weak necessarily, but because they don't have
the explosive acceleration that comes with high cadence.
So forget about the
last, long RMCC rides for this month. And don't worry, I'm not a slow club
rider. I can put you into lactate overload and give you the dry heaves
with interval work or exhaust you with back-to-back century rides on the
weekend. But that will come later in the year around May and June.
Focus on building your endurance base or you won't be riding with us much past
January.
Rick
Russon
Midlife Cycling,
LLC
A Full Circle
Lifestyle
303.281.9424 Phone
303.265.9643 Fax