Is that the ‘Live slow, die young’ routine? 😀

Its the pleasure principle 🙂

6:30 get up, wash hair and possible poo

you only wash your hair?

He’s possibly washing his poo as well.

Since the people who know stuff are on the thread – I have a question:

I’m currently cycling, running and doing one base swim a week cos I have a tri in September. I don’t think I can fit an actual weight programme in there because it will make me too tired to do the Zwift races which are working very well for me.

So if I do some arm or code KB exercises like standing presses, will this stimulate a bit of HGH and help my cycling muscles adapt from the cycling workouts? I have tried it a bit and it seemed to help, but it could have just been my imagination. I know KBs don’t generally count as heavy, but my 24kg is heavier than I can do an overhead press currently 🙂

So if I do some arm or code KB exercises like standing presses, will this stimulate a bit of HGH and help my cycling muscles adapt from the cycling workouts?

Looks like you’ll get more from your Zwift races…..

An exercise intensity above lactate threshold and for a minimum of 10 minutes appears to elicit the greatest stimulus to the secretion of hGH.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12797841/

Interesting. I’ve certainly seen much better recovery and progress doing Zwift races than trying to do base training and restrict calories in the past. However I’ve not lost much weight yet!

Along these lines there was an article in I think road.cc about staying fast as you get old and they all recommended heavy weights to promote HGH to keep ageing at bay. But the people in the article were all top amateurs or elites so presumably have already been doing high intensity cardio for most of their careers.

Getting slightly off topic, but the couple of tris I’ve done, finishing 5th v50 each time so not exactly setting the world on fire, I swam a couple of times a week as a quick workout (500m crawl then some sprint lengths, ran a couple of times a week to know that my joints were up to it, cycled as normal i.e. reasonably hard recreational mtb with some road, and did weights as normal (full body couple of times a week) because that is my normal.

Relative to others I was quickest on the bike, not surprisingly I guess – enjoyed cruising past people with tri bars struggling on the steep bits… Slowest on the swim – to my surprise as I think I’m strong in the water but people who have a proper swimming background would obviously think not.

If I get into one this Sept, as I hope, main change will be to try to learn a bit of swimming technique. I do not think I’m operating at a level where it’s worth interrupting normal life or anything that’s fun, just squeezing a bit more out of current routines. And relevant to thread, that means keeping the weights going as at my advanced age I think having a bit of extra muscle mass is good for metabolism, morale and load-bearing strength, and I don’t want to lose it to have to get it back even if it’s not going to help with endurance stuff.

Along these lines there was an article in I think road.cc about staying fast as you get old and they all recommended heavy weights to promote HGH to keep ageing at bay.

Not read that article, but my understanding was weight training was for bone density and maintaining muscle mass which I don’t think is related to HGH (could be totally wrong about that bit though). I’ve not read anything about HGH in the hypertrophy process (although we still don’t know what actually triggers hypertrophy at the cellular level).

Sorry, it was Cycling Weekly. There’s every chance I misunderstood it though as I only skimmed.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/older-yet-faster-training-secrets-of-the-super-veterans

Isn’t hypertrophy simply getting bigger? Or does it also include stronger?

Isn’t hypertrophy simply getting bigger? Or does it also include stronger?

I was wondering that, I thought the idea behind low reps/high weight was strength WITHOUT hypertrophy, as bigger muscles = heavier muscles?

Isn’t hypertrophy simply getting bigger?

Yes

Or does it also include stronger?

Bigger muscles are stronger (all else being equal).

Strength comes from different mechanisms:

– Neural adaption (coordination) better control of the muscle eg sequence firing of neurons (see my post above where a single muscle has over 100 controllers)
– Neural adaption (coordination) better coordination between different muscles and antagonist muscles etc
– Neural adaption (better CNS training) activating the highest threshold motor units doesn’t just happen, it takes training and a recovered CNS
– changes to the muscle itself which increase it’s strength eg tendon stiffness

and a picture is worth a 1000 words,

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2mZchRH]Strength gains[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

The above explains the quick gains everyone sees when they first join a gym and start lifting weights. Ignoring the pump after lifting muscles, they haven’t experienced any hypertrophy but can double (or more) their first lifts – all of which comes from neurological adaptions – learning how to make the muscle work efficiently. Seems counter intuitive until you realise that each hand muscle has over 100 neurons to control and doing a bicep curl probably uses 20 different muscles…

Another mechanism is mechanical advantage, as muscles get bigger (like bulging) the fibres on the bulge have a better angle of pull on the joint esp when the joint is totally open, which is where the mechanical advantage is weakest. This is why the fastest way to add 5kg to your bicep curl is to reduce the range of motion by 10 degrees and the fastest way to add 10 kg to your bicep curl is to reduce it by 25 degrees! You see this all the time in the gym 🙂

Interesting and apologies for the side track. I do wonder what effect 1RM has on the different activities that make up cycling.

And, given that I am starting to swim more now, should I be doing some lifts to improve the activation of my crappy arm muscles rather than simply increasing their aerobic capacity in the pool with slow swimming? What I know about my own body from cycling doesn’t really apply the same to my arms, as I’ve always been cycling but have rarely swum much and as such my arms are basically starting from an untrained level.

I do wonder what effect 1RM has on the different activities that make up cycling.

1 RM is a measure of the max force a muscle can deliver. If you double your 1 RM then for a given load (say cycling at 200 Watts) you’re using less high threshold motor units for that load, which means you have more in reserve and can sustain more fatigue (CNS fatigue) before the motor units you are using start switching off.

So it has applicable benefits, hence track riders spend a lot of time lifting big weights.

However, if you want to be a climber or endurance athlete, the extra mass might be a problem, so the Chris Froomes of this world won’t be trying to up their back squat 1RM.

And, given that I am starting to swim more now,

Swimming is a very high skill level sport, so huge gains to be made from just improving your stroke.

Swimming is a very high skill level sport, so huge gains to be made from just improving your stroke.

Assuming you weren’t a club swimmer in a previous life, skill will be the limiting factor here. Take some classes if you can.

Yes, I’m aware of that – my effort is focused on my stroke. But I also need fitness – the question is, do I want to go the traditional route of base miles/lengths, or do I want to do some kind of weight exercise from the start – WHILST I think about my stroke?

I think my technique is already much better than my fitness because I have focused and drilled myself on it before, but since then I have swum about 3x a year so I start off well and get tired really quickly and my technique goes to pot.

Join a tri club if you can, they should have someone on hand to help with your technique. It will also keep you ‘honest’ and add a little discipline to your sessions. If not seek out a swim club if you’ve one local.

Train hard, race easy.
Good Luck

Nah I can’t do clubs.