Avoiding Fitness Industry Hype - Page 3

& some more here links

[ December 12, 2002, 11:49 PM: Message edited by: disski ]

Mostly nonsense. Muscle mass is related to the amount of peak stress the muscle is exposed to, whether that peak stress is obtained lifting weights a few minutes at a time or carrying an 80-lb. pack up an 8,000 meter peak. The difference is in the type of muscle fiber produced. The weight lifter produces Type I muscle that contracts quickly but fatigues just as quickly. The mountain climber build Type II muscle that contracts more slowly but can go for hours without fatigue ( you are right about the increased mitochondria--which mostly accounts for the improved fatigue resistance).

I don't think anyone ever called Alex Lowe anything but strong, nor has anyone called Lance Armstrong's quadriceps "small".

My personal rule of thumb: 40-50 vertical feet/minute uphill, 400-500 downhill (depending on the snow conditions). I can do that for hours at a time without muscle fatigue. Yes, I go both ways.

Sadly, I'll have to take a rain check. I'm out for the season, thanks to a cycling accident on 12/11.

Muscle mass is related to time under tension or peak tension. I'm not sure what you mean by "peak stress". The peak tension developed carrying an 80 lb pack is miniscule compared to heavy squats, cleans, or a 50 mph ski turn. That being said, you still might see a little bit of hypertrophy from carrying an 80lb pack. The hypoxic environment created during a mtn climb w/pack might cause a bit of hypertrophy. But, that really depends on the person.

You mixed up the different muscle fiber types. The main fiber types are: Type I (slow twitch), Type IIa & IIb (fast twitch). Type II fibers develop high amounts of anaerobic power, but very little aerobic power. Type I fibers are highly vascularized and develop greater aerobic power. Weight lifters do NOT, as you say "produce" fast twitch fibers. However, they are able to increase the cross sectional area of those fibers. Endurance exercise will cause a shift from type IIb to type IIa and from type IIa to type I. I am unaware of any study that has shown type I fiber hypertrophy with endurance training. The shift from IIa to I is irreversible, and anaerobic power will be sacrificed as a result.

Training must depend on your skiing style. Skiing fast requires high amounts of anaerobic power. Type I fibers simply can not generate enough force for fast skiing. That is why i caution against excessive cardio for those who want to rip high speed turns. I don't mean to imply that aggressive skiers should rule out cardio all together. On the other hand, a mountain climber or less aggressive skier would probably be better served by focusing on aerobic power with only a little time in the weight room.

bdc88,

Rest-pause? So you are into HIT? Mike Mentzer must be proud (or would be proud if he were still alive).

While I agree with many of your comments, I would say that skiing (race level) does not require the type of strength that rest-pause training would provide. In skiing strength must be combined with agility to get what the industry refers to as "explosive strength". Olympic weightlifting does a much better job in that area.

Weights are absolutely essential to achieve performance in most sports, but if the weights are too heavy (as in rest-pause training), then the lift is too slow. Heavy lifts are great for building muscle size. Not so great for getting a muscle used to react to sudden and voilent external forces.

Terry Morse said: My personal rule of thumb: 40-50 vertical feet/minute uphill, 400-500 downhill (depending on the snow conditions). I can do that for hours at a time without muscle fatigue. Yes, I go both ways.

It does not take much strength to do that. It is purely aerobic stuff! But impressive nevertheless!

My mistake on mixing up the fiber types:

Type I: slow twitch, very fatigue resistant
Type IIa: fast twitch, fatigue resistant
Type IIx: very fast twitch, fatigues easily

I refer you to this article for details.

Conversion from one type to another is not impossible, nor is it irreversible. A few examples taken from the article above:

1. Intense weight training, followed by complete inactivity, causes Type IIa muscle to convert to Type IIx. This can benefit sprinters in particular.

2. Vigorous exercise converts Type IIx muscle into Type IIa, eventually eliminating all Type IIx from the muscle.

3. Some studies have shown that exercise can convert Type I muscle to Type IIa muscle, but no studies have been done that show the reverse effect. If the conversion of Type IIa to Type I can occur, it occurs very slowly. Since ultra marathon runners have almost all Type I muscle, it seems likely that their muscle composition is changed gradually over years of training. The fact that elite endurance athletes emerge only after years of training supports this slow Type IIa-to-Type I conversion.

4. Weight training builds Type IIa muscle twice as rapidly as Type I muscle, so weight training can be used to alter the muscle fiber percentages.

So the picture is not as simple as one would think. Type I muscle can be developed with exercise, as can Type IIa. Strength is a function of muscle cross section, not the muscle type. The only advantage of Type IIa over Type I is contraction speed.

TomB,

I totally agree on the Olympic lifts. I spend the bulk of my training doing cleans and snatches from the hang. Push jerks are great too, but it's hard to train heavy unless you have two reliable spotters. As for rest pause..... I'm not sure how I feel about rest-pausing Olympic lifts, due to safety concerns. For the Olympic lifts I stick to repeated 3-5 rep sets with plenty of rest in between. I do like to rest-pause squats, but I don't quite do it Metzer style. My set looks more like 8,5,2 with a slow eccentric and explosive concentric phase.

One more thing (sorry if i'm rambling). Balance training is important for skiing, but I think many people overemphasize it. The whistler gym is filled with people playing with balance boards, balance balls, and countless other balance devices. The problem is that people are almost completely replacing strength training with balance training. IMHO, you must be able to efficiently increase the load to balance train optimally. Most balance toys suck for this. The best balance exercise I’ve come across is snatch grip squats. They require a ton of balance and it’s easy to use a progressively higher load.

I am always looking for better training methods to improve my skiing. If has come across great exercises or routines.... share them!

Somebody brought up leg extensions.... time for me to share my OPINION on them. They suck and they are not good for anybody who wants to make significant strength gains. It’s an awkward movement (like lunges) and it’s hard to efficiently load the leg with out some sort of slip in form. Plus it stress the kneecap like a mofo at higher weights.

Apart from these rather minor problems (all of which are correctable), leg extensions are BAD for one simple reason -- they apply far too much shearing force on the ACL. Any ACL repair "specialist" that prescribes leg extensions does not know his/her anatomic function under stress.

As to whether endurance athletes can be strong, I suggest you take that one up with Lance Armstrong, and you will likely be surprised to learn that at 5'10" and 160-165 lbs he holds the world record for most wattage produced on a stationary bicycle dynometer. Wattage there is a measure of power, and power is produced by strength.

Jargon-free in 2003!

[ December 27, 2002, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: gonzostrike ]

Lance can put out more watts than just about anybody, continuously. I think his best is about 500 Watts. Marty Nothstein, the track sprinter, can put out five times that amount, but only for a few seconds.

A pro cyclist has the highest power to weight ratio in the animal kingdom, for all animals larger than a shrew.

Lance's power output at V02 is about 600 watts. That's amazing, but it's peak power that correlates with strength. 100 kilo olympic lifters can generate around 5000 watts during the second pull of a clean and jerk. Lance is an amazing physical specimen, but he is not strong compared to elite strength trained athletes.

snap power is irrelevant to all-day performance

that's why Nothstein's a sprinter and not a stage racer

what about snap power correlates to skiing?

The word "strong" has different meanings in different contexts. When a mountaineer is called a "strong climber", it means that person is able to climb quickly without fatigue. The "elite strength trained athletes" are strong in peak muscle output but are not strong in endurance.

If I have a 4,000' descent with maybe 1000 jump turns, endurance is a lot more important than peak muscle force.

apparently you've never skied fast.

The olympic lifters were brought into the picture cause you argued that endurance athletes are strong. They are not. You are sorely mistaken if you think that repeated 5 hour bicycle rides will make you strong.

Skiing is neither a pure strength sport, nor a pure endurance sport. It requires repeated high intensity bouts of exercise. The forces you must generate during a 2 minute ski run are not static. The strength needed for a turn is dependent on the skier's weight, speed, and turn radius. Some turns require a ton of strength. Strength training will help give you power in reserve, that you can tap into to make high speed turns.

LM, sorry if i'm overemphasizing strength training. I emphasize it so much because it's badly neglected by so many skiers. Lower body multi-joint lifts hurt, there is no getting around that. However, their benefits for skiing can be amazing. Cardio is important too..... more so preparing for a trip, and less for those preparing for a season. My favorite cardio is intervals on the step mill. 1 minute maxed, 2 minutes slow. Doing that for 20 minutes should bring you close to puking or passing out. If max speed on the step mill isn't enough, then put on a pack [img]smile.gif[/img]

Yeah LM - & then there is me - complete proprioceptive loss undiagnosed as such until I tried to ski.

(Oh they knew I had a 'problem' but low end normal range was always ASSUMED - I mean who doesn't have proprioception!)

haw haw haw. yeah, I guess not, at least not as fast as YOU anyway. there. you won. do you feel better?

what are the scientific bases for your claims? can you tell us without lapsing into polysyllabic jargon designed to confuse?

[img]graemlins/evilgrin.gif[/img]

Jargon-Free in 2003!

[quote]Originally posted by Lisamarie:

I must admit, I do find the current American obsession with Yoga a bit troubling. If people were using it as a supplement to their strength and cardio traing, it would not really be problematic. But in many case, its being used as a substitute for other fitness forms, often by the people who need it the least: hypermobile/hyperflexible females with low metabolic rates and excessively high body fat.

Lisamarie,

I began reading this forum a few years ago, dropped it for awhile, then recently picked it up again. I've particularly enjoyed your comments. You're a great source of knowledge and are quite knowledgable, but I'm mystified by your reoccurring disparagement of yoga. At times, it almost seems like an ongoing vendetta, but I suspect the real reason is that you dont know much about yoga.

Yoga is obviously not for everybody and those "hypermobile/hyperflexible females with low metabolic rates and excessively high body fat" you complain about, could probably stand to do something more strenuous, but then again, I have to wonder whether they they would be doing ANYTHING at all if they weren't doing yoga.

Although it can be, yoga is most decidedly, NOT limited to just stretching and static poses. Depending upon what you choose to do, it's also about strength, balance,endurance and yes - movement.

Yoga is both a discipline and a philosophy for the mind and the body. Some forms (Jnana, Bhakti) focus mostly on the mind. Others,(the generic "hatha" yogas,)the kind most of us are familiar with, focus more on the body. Of these, some are more "physical" than others.

Hatha Yoga disciplines run the gamut, from Anusara and Kripalu (not very physical), to Iyengar and Bikram (moderately physical) to Astanga(where you sweat your ass off). There is no one form of yoga and that's what so attractive about it - you can practice yoga as "hard or as "soft" as you like.

The "Yoga Journal" article you mentioned a few threads back, didn't claim to represent itself as a scientific study, nor did it say that those who practice yoga are all elite athletes. What it did do was present anecdotal evidence of the testing 4 yoga adepts, which showed that in strength and endurance they compared favorably to elite athletes (which they obviously were)in other disciplines. As I recall, three of those four also practiced classical (Mysore style)Astanga yoga,which is the kind I also practice. MOVEMENT is Astanga's chief characteristic. It most definitely is NOT static exercise.

I took up yoga 2 1/2 years ago. After running and lifting weights most of my life, I simply got tired of being sore all the time and originally, began looking for some simple excercises for warm ups and cool downs. I discovered yoga, fell in love with it (it's much kinder on my body)and now practice it exclusively, at least five times a week. For me, it's the perfect excercise, Moreover, I haven't noticed much loss of strength or endurance and can still easily run 4 miles and bench 270 - not too bad I think, for a 6'3" 210lb, 54 year old fart!

Last year I had a serious skiing accident - my center quadricep (vastus femoralis) was literally ripped off my right kneecap. This year, the knee is stronger than ever and I'm right back into skiing. Yoga made a big difference. During recovery, I never stopped doing yoga, but simply modified my asanas in order to work around the injury. Six weeks later, I started gentle movements on the affected part and at eight weeks, I began slipping into my regular practice. Twelve weeks after the injury, I could run two miles and leg press 500 lbs. Yoga enabled me to skip formal physical therapy.

What really amuses me is when I'm at our athletic center, waiting for my turn at the excercise room and watching all the people in those pilates, kickboxing and "core fitnees" classes doing "their" own special movements - so many of which are the same as, or similar to my yoga asanas that have been around for the last five thousand years.

So please don't dismiss Yoga so offhandedly. It may not be the perfect form of excercise for everybody, but it certainly deserves a better look than you have given it.

[ December 30, 2002, 09:39 PM: Message edited by: Charisma ]

It's easy to hyperextend and injure yourself in yoga, but then again, it often happens in other disciplines too. As in sports, there's frequently a competitive urge, which in yoga, frequently manifests itself when someone tries to go "deeper" into an asana than he should - particularly in a class setting where there's a natural tendency for people to want to outdo each other, which is strange, considering the non competive philosophy of yoga.

As I see it,the problem is that most yoga instructors don't properly teach their students the simple "basics," which include the use of abdominal and pelvic locks (bandhas), as well as "playing the edge" (i.e., the technique of taking a movement to the point of discomfort, but never to the point of injury),both of which are crucial for protecting the back and the other parts of the body.

I'm quite flexible for a person of my size and age, but it took time. After 2 1/2 years, I can do asanas I couldn't possibly do when I started. There are many more I still can't do and therein, lies the challenge, but it's with realization that they may take years and will not happen overnight and in some cases, maybe never.

BTW, I'm not much of a fan of Bikram Choudhury either. I used to run a lot in high heat (occasionaly over 100 degrees) and had no problems with it. Likewise, I find doing yoga in the sun is enjoyable, mainly because it seems to loosen the muscles in a nice, comfortable way. But I agree that for a lot of people, maybe even most, exercise in high heat is asking for trouble - particularly since the heat needed to loosen those muscles can just as easily be generated by doing ten or twelve Suryas (Sun Salutations). What I personally don't like about Bikram yoga is trying to do his 26 sets of asansa, while standing in a puddle of my own sweat without falling on my ass.

I appreciate your comments.

Here, here, Lisamarie! This business about tying religion to another "product" is obnoxious - sort of "love me, love my dog." Aren't they taking Bill Gates over the coals for this kind of "bundling"?

Everything in Hindi is related to God. It is the culture!

CalG

Charisma,
The point of weight training is to make significant strength gains. Being able to leg press 500 means nothing. The only thing that matters is where you came from and where you are going. You were a big & strong before you started yoga. You will not make significant strength gains with yoga. END OF STORY.

Yoga and flexibility allow one to use their strength more effectively, more efficiently. You know that.

Where are you going?

No arguements there. But given my age, I'm more concerned with maintaining my present strength and flexibility, not trying out for the football team. I share Lisamarie's opinion that yoga isn't necessarily the be all end all exercise system for everyone, or for every purpose. One's choice of exercise depends upon what he or she desires to accomplish with it. My main point is that yoga isn't just about stretching.

As for the religious angle, yoga isn't really a religion - it's more like a philosophy for living. I can readily understand how yammering about "chakras" and "pranic life forces" turns people off. I don't believe in that stuff, myself(although the lore I think, is rather interesting). On the other hand, some yogic concepts regarding ethics, diet, etc., make a lot of sense.

Meditation in particular, offers many benefits, but I think it's hugely misunderstood by most people. Forget about going into trances and souls departing from the body. It's simply about training your mind to focus on the immediate present. Spiritual maybe, but it's not really religious.

[ January 03, 2003, 01:24 AM: Message edited by: Charisma ]