Too rich or too thin

Did someone say girly-man?

Zencycle asks why in the world would I want to do 100 pushups in 5 minutes. He notes it "won't help my running or cycling" and may be a misuse of training time, and might add some "muscle mass." I'm paraphrasing here, because I'm too lazy to go back and read his comment again.

The "to gym train or not to gym train" question has come up a lot this year. Just to be clear, we'll primarily talk about bike racers here. More accurately, people who race bikes. We'll leave the handful of pro and former pro bike racers who occasionally drop in here out of this, because, well I don't think they come here for training advice. And, since I'm distracted by my yogurt with frozen berries and Midnight Moo chocolate sauce, I'll be brief, disjointed, and not exactly to the point here.

Even the experts disagree on this subject. Exhibit A. Compare and contrast the first two letters and expert responses on the linked page, Metabolism rate in training, answered by Scott Saifer, and Resistance training and fat burning, response by Pam Hinton. From my perspective, Saifer seems to be from the school of thought that thinks everyone who ever swings a leg over a racing bike is going to the Tour. This is part of the Lance effect. Never mind that only 190 riders in the freaking world race it, and that only about a dozen of those serious contest the ridiculous mountain stages.

   

It also appears to me like Ms. Hinton is politely saying her co-contributor doesn't know what he is talking about. But for my feelings on this, besides me just wanting to be a better athlete, her summary is quite strong:

In summary, resistance training facilitates fat loss because it increases energy expenditure - both directly and indirectly. In addition, resistance training protects against loss of skeletal muscle mass when energy intake is limited. Recent studies have shown that resistance training has additional metabolic benefits, such as decreased blood lipids and improved insulin sensitivity.

Especially the "both directly and indirectly" part. This concludes the science words portion of the post. Now we'll get to the normal masters racing solobreak bs that you come here for. Why wouldn't I strength train? Gyms have a downside, but there's a certain appeal to going to a brightly lit, warm, high-ceilinged building full of people and blaring music where I can wear shorts in the dead of winter. We may not have an indoor velodrome around here, but we have plenty of gyms. It's almost like being outside in the summertime. Then there is the whole bike racing-running endurance sports benefits thing. Lately all sorts of studies get done and published and they all want to tell us how to make our training more "effective" and "efficient," as if people who spend their entire summer riding bicycles around circles in an abandoned industrial park need to worry about efficiency. Training should be fun. (I won't get into "training" technically being teaching your body to do stuff that it's not already capable of doing versus the more common usage which is applied to doing the same stuff you always do and expecting to get better at it). I have fun doing this stuff. You wondering why I like this is like your sedentary relatives wondering why you like to ride your bike up giant hills.

Exhibit B - Bike racers comes in all shapes and sizes.


See, it's not just skinny fucks riding up huge mountains.


It helps to have a strong core too. (not to mention enough "muscle mass" to hold your arm in the socket when you fly over the bars and Superman into the pavement)

So yeah, back to the beginning. We're not going to the tour here. So don't play the know-nothing who thinks all bike racers have to be just like Lance Armstrong. Take a look around the New England masters scene. Look and see who wins. Skinny guys? Not usually. Then we have my personal reasons. For one, lack of training time isn't why I'm not pounding out hours on the trainer every day. Fear of running out of fortitude, or as the Automaton called it, "training enthusiasm" before the cold, rainy days of March and April when I'm really going to need it is more like it. And of all the kinds of mass we have to worry about, muscle mass is the least concern. And I'm one of those people who doesn't develop much anyway, no matter how much time I spend in the gym. Pushups aren't going to turn me into a 'roid-douche. If I bump into LVG in a dark alley, at least I'm a decent runner.

So there you have it. I warned you that it was disjointed. I'm sure there are mistakes and points missing. Maybe we'll hit them in the comments tomorrow. Thanks for reading.