# Strength Training over 50



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The one of the best ways of fighting the effects of aging is fitness - strength training being an important component.

Studies have shown that moderate body mass is strongly correlated to longevity as well as other benefits (improved bone health, lean muscle mass etc. )

Recent study I found:
Strength training helps older adults live longer | Penn State University

Share your personal experiences or articles related to strength training and lifting. Has it helped with your riding?



> The Fountain Of Youth flows with iron.


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## speedyd (Mar 10, 2004)

Every year when the time changes I switch gears and start lifting.Usualy try to get 4 days week lifting and swim one day and use weekends to ride or do cardio on trainer or ellipitical.64 and still feel pretty good.Usualy this time of year can do 55 pushups in a minite and 15 wide grip pull ups.


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## BruceBrown (Jan 16, 2004)

cyclelicious said:


> Share your personal experiences or articles related to strength training and lifting. Has it helped with your riding?


Yes. 2 to 3 times a week I lift (Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays) - usually 30-45 minutes each session (Friday is all core work). Squats/Deadlifts/Push Press/Bench Press/Box Blasts/Curls/Knee Extensions/Lunges/Planks/Power Clean/Rows/Crunches/Dumbell Arm Snatch/Glute Bridge/Stretches - all divided up throughout the 3 sessions per week.


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

I do Crossfit 3 times a week. Most of my riding is on trails with a fat bike. Besides improving my leg strength, the improved upper body strength has really improved my bike control.


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## panchosdad (Sep 21, 2008)

I'm not as dedicated as some, but getting to the gym once or twice a week really helps. I've had a number of injuries, and lifting has helped with recovery. Bike James .com has lots of good advice that's mountain bike specific. Single leg deadlifts, kettlebell swings and goblet squats are 3 exercises that seem very effective for me.


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## cbrossman (Mar 23, 2004)

Absolutely. I lift regularly, and even though I'm no body builder, I do find that having extra strength makes me more durable when I hit the dirt, which happens on occasion.
And to be honest, I need a little muscle on my rather thin body.

I tore up my shoulder while lifting a week back and now require rotator cuff repair. The doc was surprised at how much strength and mobility I still had considering the severity of the damage. I attribute that to regular lifting. I also expect, perhaps unreasonably, that it will help speed up my recovery.


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## speedyd (Mar 10, 2004)

After 2 rotator cuff surguries i have quit doing stuff that hurt,Military presses,incline bench,stuff that is above sholder height


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## dirtywragg (Oct 30, 2016)

I got a new job at a local meat packing plant. Lot's of heavy lifting there already.


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## Crankyone (Dec 8, 2014)

LOL, no gym after lifting sides of beef all day! Slacker


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

The men in my family generally are in the ground before they hit 70.

The exception was my uncle. He played football semi-professionally until his late 20s (but was actually a dentist). He gave up smoking at 40, restarted swimming in his 50s, gym in his 60s, had a scandalous affair with a much younger woman when he retired, and walked miles most days, not as exercise, but rather than use his car. I gave him a bicycle when he was about 85 but he gave that up after a couple of years because he reckoned he was too dangerous for other road users.

He swore by a daily dose of cod liver oil for his joints. He wasn't averse to a dram or two, and danced until 4am when we had his 90th celebration ceilidh.

He was nimble and sharp as a tack until his final few weeks, and we buried him at 97.

I can still remember the scorn his brothers poured on him about giving up the smoking, and his regular exercise.

I reckon he had it all worked out.


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## panchosdad (Sep 21, 2008)

Crankyone said:


> LOL, no gym after lifting sides of beef all day! Slacker


I build houses and can relate, tough to motivate after a day of framing. I feel so much better if I do though.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

speedyd said:


> 15 wide grip pull ups.


That makes you a badass at any age.


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## Aminnow (Jun 22, 2010)

For the longest time I thought strength training in the gym was a waste of time. You know, just get the miles in....that's where it counts. Ahh but my wife is angym rat, and she finally got me into the gym a few years back, and she set me up with a trainer. One off-season of gym time and I saw results,..... better times, better climbs, and looking better to my wife. A double win. Since then I have continued in the gym....all year, but more structured in the off season, which is about 4 months here in Idaho. No trainer any more, but I will use bodybuilding.com , which has some great instruction videos. Check them out.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

goodstuff!

I registered for the crossfit open. First workout starts tomorrow. 17.1 workout consists of:

dumbbell snatches 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 reps 
burpee box jump-overs 15 reps after each snatch set


There is a 20 minute cap... planning to do the snatches at the prescribed weight and hope I get through it!

Strength training has helped my overall fitness , recover from injury and it's helped make me a stronger rider


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

Riding is only one of my passions. I also paddle and backpack. Weights definitely help with those.

I primarily do body weight exercises since my goals are muscle endurance. I do my bodyweight routine first, then supplement with free weights. Today I did core -- 450 situps and back exercises in sets of different variations, then followed up with dumbbells. Tomorrow is pull up day, then pushups and chest. So each muscle group is worked 2x /week. I am 62, so I am not going to make the ladies swoon with my shirt off no matter how much iron I push. I do have a goal of the 1000 pushup challenge (1k pushups in one calendar day, any combo of reps and sets). Working up to it, currently my body says 'no mas!' at around 700.

the weather has been pretty wet for the last 2 months, not much riding. So the treadmill is getting a lot of use.


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## andytiedye (Jul 26, 2014)

Splitting firewood with a maul.

Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

andytiedye said:


> Splitting firewood with a maul.
> 
> Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk


That's a tough chore!

I did some trail maintenance (snipping branches and moving deadfall etc) on weekend and I shoveled the driveway by hand twice this winter. I can't say I enjoyed either task  but at least sections of the trail were rideable and the driveway didn't turn to ice... it's all good.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

For interest only.

This is the physical fitness standards for wildland firefighters from the Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service, et al.

Light : Duties mainly involve office-type work with occasional field activity characterized by light physical exertion requiring basic good health.
1 mile hike, flat terrain in 16 minutes.

Moderate: Duties involve field work requiring complete control of all physical faculties and may include considerable walking over irregular ground, standing for long periods of time, lifting 25 to 50 pounds, climbing, bending, stooping, squatting, twisting, and reaching. Occasional demands may be required for moderately strenuous activities in emergencies over long periods of time. Individuals usually set their own work pace.
2 mile hike, 25 lb pack, in 30 minutes.

Aduous: Duties involve field work requiring physical performance calling for above-average endurance and superior conditioning. These duties may include an occasional demand for extraordinarily strenuous activities in emergencies under adverse environmental conditions and over extended periods of time (general front line firefighter).
3 mile hike, 45 lb pack in 45 minutes. 

Additional for Category 1 crews, i.e. Hotshots, Helitack:
In addition to arduous above: 
1.5 mile run in 10:35 or less
25 pushups in 60 seconds or less
40 situps in 60 seconds or less
Chinups based on body weight
>170 lbs = 4 chinups
136-169 = 5 
110-134 = 6
<110 = 7
Testing is consecutive with 5 minute rest inbetween.

Smokejumpers:
In addition to Category 1 above:
7 pullups regardless of weight
Packout test: 110 lb pack, level terrain 3 miles in 90 minutes

No adjustments for age or gender for any of the standards. Must pass test annually.

I was not a SJ. I was hotshots and helitack, but I did pass the SJ test. The packout test was the hardest for me. As I grew older the knees became my limiting factor. I passed every year until I retired at age 50, but it was a lot harder in my 40s than my 20s.


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## Can2pir (Nov 27, 2016)

I spent so many purposeful years in the gym as an athlete through H.S., College, and a while after that for years I hated being in there. I thoroughly believe in the work and it's benefits but I compensated for years with riding, hiking, xc skiing, etc. Getting older (and years of sedentary work) wreaks havoc on the body. Now in my FIRST YEAR OF RETIREMENT, I forced myself back to the gym. I walk/hike 50 minutes to the gym, force myself through 20-25 minutes of (mostly machine) work and then hike home. 
The benefits (5 months now) have been noticeable. 

There are some that love it. I don't. I get through it by never resting, I go from a 'set of push' to a 'set of pull' sometimes repeating exercises but always alternating upper and lower body pairs so that by 25 minutes, I'm done. The hike home is outstanding - sometimes at -20C! 

Can't wait for the riding season, the weights will probably reduce down to 1x/week or less but it is refreshing to have the energy and overall fitness back. 

Sixty this year and getting stronger!


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

2x/week for now and will cut back to once per week as the riding volume and intensity increases. 

Check out 'Fast After Fifty' by Friel.

Loss of muscle mass and decreased aerobic capacity at our age....


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

Did the Crossfit Open workout Friday evening. It was tough. I hadn't planned on it and had done a 1 hr spin class in the AM.


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## DIRTJUNKIE (Oct 18, 2000)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

jpa102 said:


> Did the Crossfit Open workout Friday evening. It was tough. I hadn't planned on it and had done a 1 hr spin class in the AM.


Way to go!

I'm in the Crossfit Open competition too! I was fighting a stupid cold but plowed through and finished strong under the 20 minute cap.


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## mtnbkrdr98 (May 27, 2004)

cyclelicious:
thanks for the great post - and stating a truism about strength training.
I do various kettlebell, dumbbell and strength training type circuits, including HIIT, stabilization, balance challenges thrown in. I go for 3 workouts per week, plus the riding. In winter, I try and so a different workout every day, plus I walk a lot. On off days I do some intensive stretching, although I need to push myself to do that more regularly. I don't know if it's helped my riding or not but it can't hurt and it's good for us! It's probably helped my riding by giving me a strong core, and upper end power and flexibility.

about 3.5 years ago I also started watching my diet and weight much more carefully, and dropped, from an overweight 180-185lbs (can't believe I was that heavy), and am maintaining pretty good at between 148-155lbs. I'm 5' 8" so that's about right I think.

Also, I WAS paying/going to gym before, then I started using James Wilson's stuff (mtbstrength trainingcoach.com), and am using his stuff and am also using the "Ryanraw" kettebell program.
I feel like I'm getting a more effective workout at home , in an hour or 1.5 hours time, then I was driving time to gym and spending 2-3 hours at gym doing "traditional" exercises... vs. the effective, functional workouts I'm now doing, and changing it up as to do a lot of different exercises.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I did the crossfit open 17.4 Rx this evening. it was a repeat of last years 16.4 (55 deadlifts, 55 wallball shots, 55 calorie row and 55 handstand pushups) Last year I did it scaled (total score 195) and this year I did it prescribed (total score 176). I gave it my all!

I don't want to be a slave to numbers but I made huge progress from last year


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

That's great. I did the scaled version. I had to take it easy on the deadlifts as I tweaked my back Thursday doing cleans then did a 24 mile fat bike ride in snow that was like mashed potatoes that night. Scored a 183. Couldn't have done the handstand push-ups


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^That is awesome jpa102! Fortunately my back and arms are fine today


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

I have a Bowflex Revolution and exercise on it fairly regularly. I can leg press the entire rack sixty times, rest a few seconds and squeeze out ten more. I also do bench presses and all sorts of other lifts and presses on it. I'm sure it does help but I was getting crazy pain in my hips from becoming quad dominant from all the cycling I was doing. 
I started trying to mix up other kinds of exercise like side steps with resistance bands and some Yoga stretches. It was helping a little. 
This past Christmas, my twelve year old asked for a twelve week membership at a new local kickboxing gym. I got it for him. He LOVED it. I watched a class and signed up myself. 
The first week was a killer. Now, we've both completed the twelve weeks and have stepped up to the next level. My hips no longer hurt, my feet no longer hurt, my back no longer hurts. 
I really just needed to cross train and this seems to be it for me. 
I'm losing weight, I look better and I'm faster on my bike. My son even took on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Thursday evenings and Saturdays. He loves that as well. My wife is mad because she wants him to play basketball or baseball but his heart wasn't in those sports. He truly enjoys this. 
It's also awesome that we go to kickboxing together. We have fun together. 
Come to think of it, my son didn't do a lot of riding this winter while it was very cold. One week when it was warmer, he went out with me and rode like he had not been off the bike. He was right on my rear wheel the whole time. 
I'd say it's a good cross train.


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## bikeCOLORADO (Sep 4, 2003)

jpa102 said:


> I do Crossfit 3 times a week. Most of my riding is on trails with a fat bike. Besides improving my leg strength, the improved upper body strength has really improved my bike control.


Ditto that.


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## tincan (Mar 21, 2009)

@cyclelicious - great post! I didn't think I "needed" strength training for my upper body since I was a cyclist. I was so wrong. I do weight training now and feel so much better on and off the bike. My core strength has made riding more enjoyable. I think I'm in the best shape of my life (both strength wise and cardio). Healthy nutrition has also played a big part in the way I feel.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

I have a life outside of cycling. I paddle, hike, backpack, fishing, and other forms of outdoor pursuits. Maintaining a level of strength helps all of them.

I also get a rebate of my health insurance premiums if I maintain health and fitness markers.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

In summary: High-intensity interval training improved age-related decline in muscle mitochondria.
This study supports our training and what we try achieve. Keep exercising!! Eat well and up the intensity!



> *The Best Exercise for Aging Muscles*
> 
> The toll that aging takes on a body extends all the way down to the cellular level. But the damage accrued by cells in older muscles is especially severe, because they do not regenerate easily and they become weaker as their mitochondria, which produce energy, diminish in vigor and number.
> 
> ...











Sauce: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/...dCenter&action=click&src=recg&pgtype=oak&_r=0


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Yup, Cyclelicious. We can't fight aging, but sticking with a solid training plan that includes high intensity work, strength training, a good diet, adequate recovery time and sleep are all key factors. 

The slow and steady workouts won't do much towards maximizing fitness, but this is what we tend to do as we age for fear of harming ourselves in some way. 

I know I mentioned it before, but Friel's 'Fast Over Fifty' is an excellent read for anyone looking to maximize fitness at our age.


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## e-wa (May 4, 2008)

Crossfit 4xs a week, been at it for 3 years. Didn't do the open as I did it last year and that was enough. If I went to a regular gym I wouldn't get the workout I do at Crossfit. I am very careful with the weights amounts that I do, I did heavy weights when I was younger and do not feel the need to do them now. Scale is my friend.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

For anyone interested in the aging process and research in the field:

http://eriba.umcg.nl/

Estimates are in the next 20 years there will be more people over 60 in the world than under 19. I intend to do my part by outliving my pension and become a burden to the taxpayers.


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## bikeCOLORADO (Sep 4, 2003)

e-wa said:


> Crossfit 4xs a week, been at it for 3 years. Didn't do the open as I did it last year and that was enough. If I went to a regular gym I wouldn't get the workout I do at Crossfit. I am very careful with the weights amounts that I do, I did heavy weights when I was younger and do not feel the need to do them now. Scale is my friend.


Scale. Indeed. I started Crossfit a month ago, never really lifted at all before. Scale, scale, scale.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Way to go all you crossfitters  I did the crossfit open this year again ( my 3rd ) I have been steadily improving. This year was the first time I did 3/5 workouts Rx. My doubleunders sucked in the final event but I plowed through. The hard work paid off and I have decent overall results for my age division, region, affiliate etc.


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

Awesome! I haven't even thought about attempting a double under. Up until a few months ago I had never jumped rope. Just getting through 35 single unders was an effort.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Thank you ! I had to do 2-4 singles to every double under... I think in the end I did about 1000 skips! Something I will keep working at (in addition to pull ups, pistols, etc) I had never done these movements before crossfit but I have made small gains 

Here is an interesting article that looks at strenth training and endurance.... it all depends on the goals

How To Train For Strength & Endurance At The Same Time | Poliquin Article


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Doing farmer carries has benefits


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I was first introduced to kettlebells 3 years ago in crossfit. We incorporate kettlebells into our training program a few days per week. Yesterday we did farmer carries in our class and Monday we did swings in our interval training session. KBs are versatile

I found this article which describes the virtues of using kettlebells to enhance running but it easily applies to mtb as well.



> Let's clear this up right now, strength training and running go together, it's not one or the other. Most runners avoid strength training for fear of being bulky, or because they're afraid it will decrease their run time. Runners need to understand that strength training can improve their run time and increase their work capacity. If that's not convincing, then consider that runners are prone to injuries such as patellofemoral pain syndrome, plantar fasciitis, stress fractures, as well as hip, low back, and shoulder pain. Quite an extensive list. We can prevent these issues by introducing kettlebells into our training.
> 
> *Why Kettlebells?*
> 
> ...


Sauce how-to-run-injury-free-using-kettlebells/


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## slowrider (May 15, 2004)

I've always lifted and now at 52 that habit has proven beneficial. My issue is that I've always lifted heavy and I have a difficult time shifting to more of a fitness/maintenance type of workout. Where I once lifted individual muscle groups heavy on a 3 on 1 off cycle I do far less intense workouts now, working the entire upper body with fewer exercises, but still all I can do for 10-15 reps instead of my former 6-10. I combine these intense upper body days with 2-3 days of mountain biking and walking several miles 6 days a week. 
I'm a classic endomorph at 5'6" 195 and enjoy good food and beer enough that as I age and my metabolism slows even with all my exercise I cannot lose weight. The keys to my getting leaner; a fitness rather than strength workout and a leaner diet with less beer. Strength is great and if you're going to carry extra weight it should be muscle rather than fat, but being heavy can stress your systems even if it's muscle in excess.


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## BruceBrown (Jan 16, 2004)

dave54 said:


> For anyone interested in the aging process and research in the field:
> 
> http://eriba.umcg.nl/
> 
> Estimates are in the next 20 years there will be more people over 60 in the world than under 19. I intend to do my part by outliving my pension and become a burden to the taxpayers.


The data doesn't support that - at least for the US Population. Up to 30% of the Baby Boomer population will not even reach the age of 65 (12-15 M have died thus far over the years due to accidents, health/illness, tragedy, military action, etc... . However, those 12-15 Million US Boomers lost to death in prior years have been replaced in numbers by immigrants in the same age categories). Yet, that hasn't really thrown the US Population Pyramid out of whack. If anything, it is shooting Harry Dent's theory all to heck (in a very good way that bodes well for our country's demographics and population pyramid).

Here is the source...

Population United States of America : 2016

Current largest demographic population in the US is the echo-boomers (Millennials) that surpassed the Baby Boomer generation in terms of numbers. The largest chunk of that demographic generation (currently ages 20-29) has not even yet begun having children. If the Millennial population ends up having the same number of children as the Boomers, then in 20 years the population pyramid will not support the thesis of more over age 60 than under age 19 - at least here in the US.

I seriously doubt our generation will live longer than what we are currently seeing or have seen in the death ages of our parents. Time will tell if indeed we meet the statistical number that 30% of Boomers will die before age 65. We just went through the loss of all four parents (81, 88, 91, 92). I doubt my wife and I will top that just because we are of the Boomer population and all the optimism of hope, prescription drugs, living forever blah, blah, blah hoopla that is being spread as myth. ;-)

Enjoy each day as you have it. Stay in the best physical shape possible so that the quality of the days you do have left are the best they can be. Not because you think that means you are going to live "longer"...


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## Dr Evil (Sep 20, 2015)

Have weight trained since high school. Competed in natural bodybuilding in my early 20's. Was a certified personal trainer. Turning 54 in June and probably in better shape than many younger than me. Did P90X for years and have been doing Body Beast for the last year or so. Ski every weekend with my boys in the winter (21 times so far this winter) and do single track with my youngest in the spring and summer. I am sure I couldn't keep up this pace if I hadn't trained all of these years.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

BruceBrown said:


> The data doesn't support that - at least for the US Population. ...


That is why I said the world.

Physical activity is only one of the four identified factors for longevity outside of genetics. The others being diet, social network, and sense of purpose.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Dr Evil said:


> Have weight trained since high school. Competed in natural bodybuilding in my early 20's. Was a certified personal trainer. Turning 54 in June and probably in better shape than many younger than me. Did P90X for years and have been doing Body Beast for the last year or so. Ski every weekend with my boys in the winter (21 times so far this winter) and do single track with my youngest in the spring and summer. I am sure I couldn't keep up this pace if I hadn't trained all of these years.


Agreed. I used to take time off from workouts after the racing season ended, but can no longer afford to do that. 6 days a week of primarily riding/training with some gym days in there.


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## jbass (Oct 29, 2014)

I was a pretty consistent gym rat (also used to box - training, not competing) up until I had a hernia repair about 5 years ago. Biking was great for my recovery and has been my main source of fitness since, largely singlespeed mountain biking, and also lots of hiking. With the exception of very light dumbbell and medicine ball stuff at home, I kinda let upper body strength training slide after the hernia (I also have another, sometime almost imperceptible hernia that the doc thinks is too inconsequential at this point to do surgery on). 
Anyhow, I'm back at the gym now at 56 and getting some upper body strength back. I'm super lean and my muscle definition and strength are coming back quick, but, putting on any mass has always been difficult for me--my metabolism is crazy fast.


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## BruceBrown (Jan 16, 2004)

dave54 said:


> That is why I said the world.
> 
> Physical activity is only one of the four identified factors for longevity outside of genetics. The others being diet, social network, and sense of purpose.


Except, the rest of the world will not factor into the taxpayer burden plans in your quote...



dave54 said:


> I intend to do my part by outliving my pension and become a burden to the taxpayers.


If you have a pension, you will not outlive it as they are designed to pay you for your entire life.:thumbsup:


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

BruceBrown said:


> Except, the rest of the world will not factor into the taxpayer burden plans in your quote...
> 
> If you have a pension, you will not outlive it as they are designed to pay you for your entire life.:thumbsup:


The future costs of an aging population is a ticking time bomb politicians on both sides are ignoring. Not only in the U.S. but elsewhere also. Kicking the can down the road is a worldwide political practice.

My pension comment was meant as levity. It also plays into the future costs sentence above. One of mine is actuarially sound and fully funded, not so for many. I have set up my other investments to be about as recession proof as possible, barring a total global economic collapse.


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## bouncy_rig (Aug 22, 2007)

I have a home gym. Not looking for new muscles at my age (57). I am looking for a simple series of exercises with minimal resets on the equipment. 
Currently do Bench leg extensions and curls.


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## Rotaphobic (Feb 11, 2007)

I don't do much at 64, but I do it consistently. I deadlift a couple of times per week. Wide grip pullups between each set of deadlifts as my "rest" between sets and to stretch out my back. Heavy DB snatches (easier on the back than BB snatches after all of the deadlifting I do, but still hard). One arm DB rows (also easier on the back than BB after all of the deadlifts, but the offset load is also still hard). And I run 6 - 8 hill repeats on weekends. Run up like a mountain lion is chasing, walk back down, repeat.

Those are the things that I can still do with my worn out shoulders and somewhat limited shoulder mobility and I can do that week in and week out without fear of injury. 

That is the main thing, knowing exactly what I can do without hurting myself. Crossfit or MMA or rock climbing would put me into a permanent contractual agreement with my doctor, hospital, and rehab staff, so I stick to the basics.


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## BikesFloat (Jul 27, 2015)

A couple weeks ago, on my 60th, I achieved a long term goal of benching 2 x 100 pound dumbells (I was so stoked for it, I actually did 3 legit reps). I weigh ~180 and have been lifting 3-4 days per week for about 8 years. It's the most I've bench pressed ever. The dumbell press is the only move that I had set a max goal for, though. I'm mostly in it for general fitness lean muscle maintenance and I don't mess with spotters, etc.

Had a few injury setbacks along the way. Gotta REALLY pay attention to correct technique because those joints (all of 'em) will let you know when you don't. I've put the stops on going for more weight on the dumbell press (which I'm pretty sure I could do now) because the aches are starting to outweigh the satisfaction of the progress - especially in my back from getting the weight off the floor and up to my thighs on the bench. I' ve even changed gyms to one with 75 pound dumbells max to avoid the temptation. I'm sure I'll get more long term health benefits just moving the weight that I am comfortable with, without being concerned with max goals.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Some of us do crossfit and have experienced positive results.. .

How to talk to someone who does CrossFit, if you really must - CNN.com


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## Mountain Cycle Shawn (Jan 19, 2004)

BikesFloat said:


> A couple weeks ago, on my 60th, I achieved a long term goal of benching 2 x 100 pound dumbells (I was so stoked for it, I actually did 3 legit reps). I weigh ~180 and have been lifting 3-4 days per week for about 8 years. It's the most I've bench pressed ever. The dumbell press is the only move that I had set a max goal for, though. I'm mostly in it for general fitness lean muscle maintenance and I don't mess with spotters, etc.
> 
> Had a few injury setbacks along the way. Gotta REALLY pay attention to correct technique because those joints (all of 'em) will let you know when you don't. I've put the stops on going for more weight on the dumbell press (which I'm pretty sure I could do now) because the aches are starting to outweigh the satisfaction of the progress - especially in my back from getting the weight off the floor and up to my thighs on the bench. I' ve even changed gyms to one with 75 pound dumbells max to avoid the temptation. I'm sure I'll get more long term health benefits just moving the weight that I am comfortable with, without being concerned with max goals.


The hardest part is getting those damn things from the rack to the bench and back to the rack.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's never too late

View attachment 1135503


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> It's never too late
> 
> View attachment 1135503


I have EXACTLY this conversation with my wife probably weekly.


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

https://www.facebook.com/bestfitnes....1493987317./1738428573134679/?type=3&theater

I got a trophy for completing the first program. I'm actually into my fifth month of kickboxing. Still loving it. I feel fantastic and it's made me faster on my bike.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

NYrr496 said:


> https://www.facebook.com/bestfitnes....1493987317./1738428573134679/?type=3&theater
> 
> I got a trophy for completing the first program. I'm actually into my fifth month of kickboxing. Still loving it. I feel fantastic and it's made me faster on my bike.


That's so awesome Congrats! Kickboxing kicks ass! Keep up the great work.


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

Thanks, Cyclelicious. 

Best part of all... I fixed all the punching bags and they give me 50% off on my membership.


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## andytiedye (Jul 26, 2014)

Since this is MTBR, this is more likely:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting article about weight loss vs fat loss

8 Reasons You?re Not Losing Fat in a Calorie Deficit


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> Interesting article about weight loss vs fat loss
> 
> 8 Reasons You?re Not Losing Fat in a Calorie Deficit


Good stuff.


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## TraxFactory (Sep 10, 1999)

cyclelicious said:


> Interesting article about weight loss vs fat loss
> 
> 8 Reasons You?re Not Losing Fat in a Calorie Deficit


great read, thanks!


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## bouncy_rig (Aug 22, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> Interesting article about weight loss vs fat loss
> 
> 8 Reasons You?re Not Losing Fat in a Calorie Deficit


Other than the silly graphics good article, Very truthful because I ate a very healthy breakfast and lunch today and rode my bike I should see results.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

High-Intensity Workouts Could Slow Down Your Aging By Almost A Decade | IFLScience

In summary: This new study has concluded that exercise, of all things, allows our cells to age far slower than they otherwise would. Specifically, adults with high-intensity exercise levels, such as 30-40 minutes jogging [or riding hard] five days per week, appears to keep your cells nine years younger than your birthday cake would suggest.


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> High-Intensity Workouts Could Slow Down Your Aging By Almost A Decade | IFLScience
> 
> In summary: This new study has concluded that exercise, of all things, allows our cells to age far slower than they otherwise would. Specifically, adults with high-intensity exercise levels, such as 30-40 minutes jogging [or riding hard] five days per week, appears to keep your cells nine years younger than your birthday cake would suggest.


Funny you happened to post this right now. This past weekend, my brother dropped my son off at my house and came in to say hi. My wife doesn't see him a lot so she was surprised that he looks so much older than I do. (Her words). 
I said what do you want? He doesn't ride his bike regularly or work out or anything. 
He's three years younger than I am. I never thought about it but he is showing his age more than I am.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ The fountain of youth ...


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## OwenM (Oct 17, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ The fountain of youth ...


Hey...where'd you get that quote from? I want to borrow that!



BikesFloat said:


> I don't mess with spotters, etc.
> 
> Had a few injury setbacks along the way. Gotta REALLY pay attention to correct technique because those joints (all of 'em) will let you know when you don't. I've put the stops on going for more weight on the dumbell press (which I'm pretty sure I could do now) because the aches are starting to outweigh the satisfaction of the progress - especially in my back from getting the weight off the floor and up to my thighs on the bench


Congrats on the 100# d'bell presses! Most people will never know how that feels, regardless of age. 
Might give that no messing with spotters part some thought, though. 
If you can't either walk to the bench or deadlift them from the floor and sit down with the dumbbells on your thighs to start, having someone(ideally two someones, one on each side) put them on you when you're in position sure beats leaning over and picking them up. That really is begging for injury, plus you might get another rep or two after not going through all that!
I've got up to 60lb dumbbells at home, and the only way I'd ever use 100+ again would be for rows or shrugs. Only time I do a d'bell bench press is incline, supersetted with flyes. 'Course that may be because all I've got are 60s...funny how that works


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

cyclelicious said:


> High-Intensity Workouts Could Slow Down Your Aging By Almost A Decade | IFLScience
> 
> In summary: This new study has concluded that exercise, of all things, allows our cells to age far slower than they otherwise would. Specifically, adults with high-intensity exercise levels, such as 30-40 minutes jogging [or riding hard] five days per week, appears to keep your cells nine years younger than your birthday cake would suggest.


Research out the Netherlands suggests cell mitochondria may be the agent that maintains telomeres. And high intensity exercise stimulates mitochondria production.


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## Fuzzle (Mar 31, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> High-Intensity Workouts Could Slow Down Your Aging By Almost A Decade | IFLScience
> 
> In summary: This new study has concluded that exercise, of all things, allows our cells to age far slower than they otherwise would. Specifically, adults with high-intensity exercise levels, such as 30-40 minutes jogging [or riding hard] five days per week, appears to keep your cells nine years younger than your birthday cake would suggest.


Hey cyclelicious, Do you ride and do crossfit or weights in the same day? I was thinking about that since I have a crazy work schedule.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fuzzle said:


> Hey cyclelicious, Do you ride and do crossfit or weights in the same day? I was thinking about that since I have a crazy work schedule.


Focusing on strength training and riding at the same time is very tough... plus having a job!  I don't typically ride on a strength training day but if I do... it's an easy ride... basically spinning out the legs and doing an easy trail ride. Currently my rides have been pretty tame, because I haven't had time to do long rides so I've been doing shorter intense rides.

Also think about what your goal is ... gain strength, or gain mtb endurance?

If you have a crazy schedule you might want to try a more periodized approach. For a period time focus heavily on gaining strength and maybe throw a day or two of light/easy riding or running. Or you can focus on riding (depending on how much time you have, long rides or short intense intervals.... can be done with running too ) , and maybe do a day or two of light lifting just for maintenance. That's going to be your best way to progress at both.

In addition: Work around your rest days so that you can maximize your recovery time. If you have a tight schedule and you are trying to cram in as much as possible, you still need to ensure rest and proper food intake.


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

We did circuit training in kickboxing last night. Usually, it's ten stations, four for different punches, four for different kicks bookended by two cardio stations. We started with forty second intervals and then switched to thirty seconds and he added two more cardios in between all the punching and kicking. 
I could barely stand at the end of the class. 

Then, this morning on my bike commute, the guy who usually tries to race me got smoked. Made it all worth it.


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## Fuzzle (Mar 31, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Focusing on strength training and riding at the same time is very tough... plus having a job!  I don't typically ride on a strength training day but if I do... it's an easy ride... basically spinning out the legs and doing an easy trail ride. Currently my rides have been pretty tame, because I haven't had time to do long rides so I've been doing shorter intense rides.
> 
> Also think about what your goal is ... gain strength, or gain mtb endurance?
> 
> ...


I was going to try to do both. So now maybe not. I know that at my age I have to focus on strength training. It's the whole change of life that throws a wrench into everything. It's a bummer. Thanks for the advice!


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

I climbed a hill this morning I haven't been able to ride up for three years. 
This was totally made possible by the circuit training we've been doing at the gym. 
I can't believe how happy I am. I honestly thought I wouldn't make that climb ever again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's never too late...

She's 98. He's 94. They Met at the Gym.


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## Picard (Apr 5, 2005)

cyclelicious said:


> It's never too late...
> 
> She's 98. He's 94. They Met at the Gym.


Ewww

Sent from my F3213 using Tapatalk


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> It's never too late...


Lovely.


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## bouncy_rig (Aug 22, 2007)

Rode Keystone Mountain bike park last week other than some bruises on the inside of my thighs/knees I was able to keep up with the younger crowd. The best part is the following day both of my younger buddies were complaining about being sore and I am pretty solid. I have been lifting and squatting for about 3 months.


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## Mr Pig (Jun 25, 2008)

I think older people should stick to exorcizes specifically tailored to their needs. They are designed to fit in with the older lifestyle.

For instance, throwing the toilet lever, lifting the pension and, for advanced exponents, running in the shorts.


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## MSU Alum (Aug 8, 2009)

I mountain bike in the summer and telemark ski in the winter. That takes care of my lower body, but to round out those muscle groups light hiking is enough. I also whitewater kayak in the spring and summer so my core muscles and rotator cuffs are taken care of. That leaves my arms, and pushups and pull ups (at this point, maybe I should say pull up!) pretty much handle those groups. The one thing that really needs work is in the area of flexibility and range of motion! That is going to be my post retirement goal.


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## cbrossman (Mar 23, 2004)

MSU Alum said:


> (at this point, maybe I should say pull up!) pretty much handle those groups. The one thing that really needs work is in the area of flexibility and range of motion! That is going to be my post retirement goal.


Just a suggestion which you may already do, get a chair or something out in front of you and push with a leg. It allows you to do more pull ups with the assist, and is better than doing just one or two alone without.
Just be ready with that other leg if you lose contact with the bar.


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## MSU Alum (Aug 8, 2009)

cbrossman said:


> Just a suggestion which you may already do, get a chair or something out in front of you and push with a leg. It allows you to do more pull ups with the assist, and is better than doing just one or two alone without.
> Just be ready with that other leg if you lose contact with the bar.


Good idea. I was doing pulldowns at the gym a while back. I should just start going again....it's free now that I'm on Medicare!


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## AK47 (Mar 22, 2004)

Age 51 here. Started doing Fit36 classes (HIIT; similar to Orange Theory) and it's really helped me on the bike and I just feel better overall, too.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My new favorite subforum on reddit.. doglifting :lol:










__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/947260181913751557


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I trained hard in 2017 and I reached a few PR's. I have to think about some goals for 2018. (some of the pr's I accomplished... I really didn't plan on and I surprised myself!)

Some of the biggies for me: I am now able to do 3 consecutive pull ups with kipping (still working on a strict pull up), finally able to kick up into a handstand (I am halfway to doing a handstand pushup), and I accomplished the 15' rope climb. For strength I pr'd my back squat at 190lb, front squat at 130lbs, shoulder press at 85lbs, clean at 90lbs and snatch at 70lbs. My deadlift remains at 225 lb.

My running has helped with cardio and endurance workouts. 2017 has been a good year and wish all the (over 50) mtbr lifters many gainz in the new year.


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

That's badass. Happy New Year.


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## bouncy_rig (Aug 22, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> I trained hard in 2017 and I reached a few PR's. I have to think about some goals for 2018. (some of the pr's I accomplished... I really didn't plan on and I surprised myself!)
> 
> Some of the biggies for me: I am now able to do 3 consecutive pull ups with kipping (still working on a strict pull up), finally able to kick up into a handstand (I am halfway to doing a handstand pushup), and I accomplished the 15' rope climb. For strength I pr'd my back squat at 190lb, front squat at 130lbs, shoulder press at 85lbs, clean at 90lbs and snatch at 70lbs. My deadlift remains at 225 lb.
> 
> ...


Inspiring note.

I have dropped 30lbs from hiking and watching what I eat. Time to add weights and more strength training.


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## Mr Pig (Jun 25, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1175379
> 
> 
> View attachment 1175380


Wow! That is one heck of a before and after!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Working on our split jerks last evening. The split jerk is a very powerful and fast move. (Last movement for the complete clean and jerk. The lifter can use either a push jerk or split jerk as the technique for getting the weight overhead ). Muscles Used: Glutes, quads, hamstrings, calves, core, shoulders, back and triceps.


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## OldManBiker (Nov 5, 2016)

About 5 years ago I was doing HIIT mostly on a treadmill (20-25min x 3 days a week only as suggest for recovery) and had some significant weight loss and I found my HGH really peaking in many different facets of my body, etc. It's an intense 20-25min but you just can't beat the results. I had a ruptured disc in my back 3 years ago and not only stopped my HIIT training but also couldn't touch any weights. Unfortunately, I kept eating as though I was still doing HIIT and strength training and packed on 25-30 lbs. 

I just couldn't get motivated to get back into the gym after recovering from my ruptured disc and I had a buddy who was a mountain biker that kept needling me to go with him. I FINALLY succumbed to him nagging me and went. I was HOOKED. I've been riding now over 15 months and logged in 1505 miles in 2017 and untold hours on my mountain bike. 

I see some guys while out riding not that younger than me or even my age or older who seem to climb and ride some technical areas and climbs with ease. I've gotten a LOT better and accomplished hurdles or obstacles I once was afraid to, or kept getting defeated on. But still, these guys just jam on their bikes with the greatest of ease. So back in November I started doing some push-ups, planks, medicine ball exercises, dumb-bell bench presses, dumb-bell flys, hammer curls, etc in hopes of improving my mountain bike fitness. Much to my chagrin I recently started having shoulder pains (again like I did in 2013) and went today and got a cortizone shot in both shoulders. 

My question is this for those who are doing strength training to ride better (not you freaks doing cross-fit! lol) is this: are their some key exercises (waist up) that really keys in on the body parts that will help you be stronger in the saddle, build your core for more stamina and endurance, and reduce fatigue)

FYI, I am 54yrs old so Im no spring chicken and realize there is no magic pill here. I just want some advice to that actually keys in on those areas above. Since this is winter and the rains and freezing weather seem to be relentless thus far.


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

Excellent!!^^^


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

Too much volume in too short a time. Start weightlifting slow and increase slower. Past 50 the body does not respond to resistance exercise the same way it did in your twenties. Takes longer to get improvement and you lose it faster on a break. (Fact of life. No matter how hard you train you will never reclaim your glory years). I primarily do bodyweight now, very little free weights. I need an extra day of recovery after a workout, so I only do a given routine 2x per week.

Don't neglect your rotator cuff. Add some shoulder specific exercises to your routine. You found out what happens when you push your shoulder too hard too fast. Low weight few reps. You really do not want hypertrophy in the rotators. Just endurance and flexibility.


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## paramount3 (Jul 13, 2014)

I hate working out in the gym. Three times a week I do pushups, situps/ab work, pull-ups, light curls, and a couple of very light shoulder exercises. About 10-15 minutes per session. I try to maintain flexibility (especially shoulder flexibility), have a little bit of upper body muscle tone, and keep the ability to lift my body weight repeatedly (pushups to lift off of the floor, pull-ups to lift overhead). The equipment needed for this is a couple of light dumbells and a pull-up bar. I don't ever want to think that I can't do my workout because I don't have a particular piece of specialized equipment. Cycle commuting 65-80 miles a week with about 9000 ft of climbing, much of it out of the saddle, gives me some interval training and some upper body work. Run or hike 1x/week, hills but typically low intensity. Age 53. Fitness goal: ride a BMX bike competently on my 65th birthday, have functioning shoulders and hands well into my 70s, and be able to walk/hike fairly easily well into my 70s.

I remember seeing a presentation in which the presenter (a physician) asked the audience what was more likely to limit your independence as you age, impaired shoulder mobility or impaired leg strength. The answer was shoulder mobility--because you need it to be able to wipe your own butt. Thus my emphasis on shoulder mobility.


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## OldManBiker (Nov 5, 2016)

Both of you give sage advice and I have heeded it all. You're right about going too much too fast. I am a former Marine and I only know one gear I'm afraid. lol. And that mentality was present when I began this workout. Even today after having these cortisone shots I want to go to a gym and do some HIIT sprinting on a treadmill (since I gave mine away months ago like a dummy) but, decided that I better give these shots their sufficient time to do their job. All morning I have been trying to tell myself that there is no way I could counter these shots by mere sprinting! But I believe any kind of strenuous exercise such as swinging my arms rapidly might not be a good idea. So I decided to keep my butt planted. 

I'm much like you Paramount in your thinking about long term and my health. Back in the late summer I had a guy come up behind me on my bike and I kindly moved to the right so he could pass. As he passed I noticed what appeared to be about an 80yr old man pass me like I was standing STILL on my bike! And proceeded to blast past me with the greatest of ease. I want to be like him! lol. At least then hopefully I'll be the hunk at the Senior Living residence I'm sentenced to!


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## JDHutch (Sep 29, 2017)

Wife and I just got back from Planet Fitness. It’s $20 a month and something we really enjoy doing together 2-3 times a week. Mid 40’s. Don’t know if I’m getting stronger but I feel better. I’ll let you know when I get the bike out in the spring if it’s made a difference.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Excellent documentary ... "How to Stay Young"

Science holds the key to how to stay fit and healthy



> Scientific breakthroughs are redefining how we think about aging and more than ever, there is hope that we can overcome our greatest enemy - the process of biological decline. How to Stay Young investigates the latest research around the world that could put the brakes on the aging process.


The sit to rise test:






Watch the doc.
How to Stay Young


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

That's good stuff, Cycleicious. I need a knee. I've been working on getting up unassisted in kickboxing just cause it looks cooler. I had no idea it actually gave a look into the future.


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## scycllerist (Jul 31, 2017)

OldManBiker said:


> I'm much like you Paramount in your thinking about long term and my health. Back in the late summer I had a guy come up behind me on my bike and I kindly moved to the right so he could pass. As he passed I noticed what appeared to be about an 80yr old man pass me like I was standing STILL on my bike! And proceeded to blast past me with the greatest of ease. I want to be like him! lol. At least then hopefully I'll be the hunk at the Senior Living residence I'm sentenced to!


i have a similar story, I'm mid 50s. Last spring I was riding my usual trails to pump up a hill to find a couple of 30 somethings on pricy bikes with full pricy kit. They were stopped and breathing heavily, I paused to ask f they were OK and they said they were. I breazed on by comfortably. I felt good about myself. An hour later I quicky was overtaken by a person who breezed by me and looked to be early mid 70s. I didn't feel bad after I got back to the car, he was still there and looked like an American Ninja Worrier. LOL


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A happy, healthy marriage: meet the couple who have been cycling together for 64 years

If you're looking for a novel way to spend Valentine's Day as a couple, or an exciting idea for first date then donning the Lycra, clipping in to the pedals and cycling into the sunset could be the best way to a long and loving partnership.

New research shows that going for a ride may be the best way to set the wheels in motion on a new relationship. A survey carried out by the dating app Bumble and AirBnb reveals that 77 percent of women would be impressed by a prospective partner suggesting a new experience as a date option - and cycling together featured among the favourites.

Riding for romance has certainly worked for Jack White, 86, and wife Pamela, 84. The couple, who regularly rides around their home town of Ludlow, in Shropshire are celebrating their 64th wedding anniversary this year. They insist that it's a shared love of cycling that's kept their marriage strong.

Jack and Pamela first met at a South Buckinghamshire Cycling Club meet in 1953. "She was 19, I was 22 and we were both keen cyclists," says Jack, 86. "Pam's sister introduced us and I invited Pam to join us on some club rides." For Jack and Pam cycling together was a first date that blossomed into a true romance. They married a year later and still ride out with their local Cycling UK club having moved to Ludlow from Buckinghamshire when their children left home.

"I'm a very competitive cyclist," says Jack, who still rides an average of 1,000 miles on his indoor turbo trainer over the winter. "But Pam prefers the touring and the social side of cycling. I've taken part in over 800 time-trials and have ridden over 250,000 miles since I took up the sport. Pam has marshalled time trials in the past and also made the cakes and teas. We both get different things out of being on a bike."

The passion for cycling runs in the family too. "As soon as they were old enough we got our two daughters into cycling," says Pamela. "When Jack bought a triplet, him on the front, the youngest, Carolyn, in the middle and Susan on the back. We toured and hostelled with it on the Isle of Wight. That week we became notorious on the island with that triplet, with motorists tooting their horns and waving."

Both Pamela and Jack insist that compromise is a key to enjoyment when riding as a couple. "Jack likes to head off up the hills whereas I will cycle around the towns and villages. In France, Jack cycled up Mont Ventoux while I rode around the villages and stopped at the café for a coffee."

Mont Ventoux, a 1912-metre high mountain, is the hardest of all the Tour de France climbs. "I did it when I was 73, then completed it again when I was 83," says Jack. "It hurt a lot more the second time around. Even though it was in the summer the temperature at the summit was freezing and the visibility really poor, but I managed to climb it ok."

Over the years the couple have cycled through Spain, Cyprus, France and the former Yugoslavia. "France is the best place to ride," says Pamela. "The drivers are more considerate and the facilities are geared up for cyclists. Over here football is the big thing, but in France cycling is definitely a national sport. Yugoslavia was interesting, Dubrovnic was beautiful but we went there over 30 years ago and it was a very different place. I remember the choice in the shops for picnic food was limited."

"It's been incredibly beneficial to our health too," says Pamela. "All of the cycling we've done in the past has definitely paid off now. I've heard it said that cyclists appear 10 years younger than someone of a similar age."

Pamela's thoughts are echoed by a new survey of 300 UK doctors by Patient.Info which highlights cycling as among the best exercises people can do to remain fit and health. "Cycling can help you maintain a healthy weight and improve your cholesterol profile, as well as helping to reduce your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and even cancer," explains Dr Sarah Jarvis, "Not to mention the positive effects on mental health."

Jack and Pamela insist that cycling has been a crucial factor in a loving relationship - but it didn't look like that would be the case at first.

"Jack fell off his bike on the eve of our wedding," says Pamela. "He cut his head open and damaged his shoulder. It meant that the next day we had to remove his bandages before the wedding photos were taken and that I had to carry our suitcase during our honeymoon. When the vicar asked if I take this man for better or worse I thought 'it can only get better!' Almost 64 years later we're still married and we're still cycling."

sauce:A happy, healthy marriage: meet the couple who have been cycling together for 64 years


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## Utilitrack (Jul 13, 2017)

I guess I am jumping the gun and inserting myself into this conversation, but I am not quite 50, though I will be in 2 months... Anyways I do CrossFit 4-5 times a week and have for 4 years, I also run and/or bike 2-3 times per week, I am in the best shape of my life at 49. I find that a stronger core and legs from weight training has helped me in all of my passions in life- skiing, biking, hiking etc. All the good stuff!

I am more of an endurance athlete than a strength athlete, I prefer running, rowing and Assault Air Bike components of WODs and generally scale the weights, because frankly some RX weights are too damn heavy for me for example #155 C+J! I bought a fatbike in late fall 2016 for winter riding because frankly running sucks in the winter in Maine, I have had so much fun that I am now in the market for a full-suspension mountain bike. 

Reading through the personal stories on the thread is so cool and inspiring, I am hoping that my body continues to hold up so that I can keep on keeping on! Good luck on your journeys!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Thank you for sharing your experiences Utilitrack! We are all unique but share so many similarities.

I'm learning that it's never too late to improve or try new things.

On Valentine's Day I did my first toes to bars (using the rings) My core strength is getting stronger... I'm still goofy though


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I signed up for the Crossfit open. Representing Canada East 55-59 age category. (subcategories are my affiliate gym and regional nurses) It's my 4th year taking part. My goal is to do most of the workouts prescribed and finish strong. 

Anyone else signed up?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Kicked off the CF open. It was a 20 minute AMRAP. (ie as many rounds as possible)

8 Toes to bar (which I just learned to do ^^) 
10 dumb bell clean and jerks
12 cal row

I did it prescribed and that was a goal I wanted to accomplish.

No problem with stiffness for my workout the next day and we were still able to do a fun ride in the evening


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## Utilitrack (Jul 13, 2017)

18.1 was a fun one, 17.1 not so much... Good luck on the rest of the Open!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

18.2 completed. Dumb bell squats, burpees over the bar (110 reps total) and then heaviest clean . I did the 12 minute workout Rx. It was a tough one!


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## Utilitrack (Jul 13, 2017)

18.2- 10:55, 18.2A- #165 (about 50# below my 1 RM)- only had time for 2 clean attempts, probably started too low initially but I wanted to make sure that I had something to log. At 6'4" burpees are not my friend...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Cycling keeps your immune system young, study finds



> Cycling can hold back the effects of ageing and rejuvenate the immune system, a study has found.
> 
> Scientists carried out tests on 125 amateur cyclists aged 55 to 79 and compared them with healthy adults from a wide age group who did not exercise regularly.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...ng-keeps-your-immune-system-young-study-finds


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> Cycling keeps your immune system young, study finds...


I've often wondered about that. Good to see it confirmed.

What I have noticed about getting older is how many friends and associates fell by the wayside into unhealthy lifestyles and then think the attendant health issues that result are unavoidable.

If that message could be absorbed by the young, it would be of immeasurable benefit to their lives.

Simple rule don't damage your body unnecessarily, don't poison it, and treat it like a dog you love - take it for walks and runs and bike rides.


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## Utilitrack (Jul 13, 2017)

"What I have noticed about getting older is how many friends and associates fell by the wayside into unhealthy lifestyles and then think the attendant health issues that result are unavoidable.

If that message could be absorbed by the young, it would be of immeasurable benefit to their lives."

Truer words are rarely spoken!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I did the 18.3 scaled. Although for our age group, we didn't have to do muscle ups, the prescribed version was challenging. I'm still working on doubleunders. I can only do them every 2 or 3 skips and to complete 100 after each set of lifts would have eaten up too much time. My pull ups are slow and the crossfit open is no time to practice. So I did the scaled version for the 55-59 age group. I think there are just 4 people (all much younger categories) at my gym that did the workout prescribed

Overall I did well. I did my skips (singles) and lifts unbroken. I finished with time to spare. Good cardio paid off.


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

"What I have noticed about getting older is how many friends and associates fell by the wayside into unhealthy lifestyles and then think the attendant health issues that result are unavoidable."

That!

With me, it's siblings with questionable habits thinking they are unlucky and I am just lucky to have better health.


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## Dr Evil (Sep 20, 2015)

ddoh said:


> "What I have noticed about getting older is how many friends and associates fell by the wayside into unhealthy lifestyles and then think the attendant health issues that result are unavoidable."
> 
> That!
> 
> With me, it's siblings with questionable habits thinking they are unlucky and I am just lucky to have better health.


Exactly. I deal with patients all of the time that think the same. They think that it is normal to have pain, decreased function and illness as we age. I am not saying there isn't a normal aging process. There is. Sadly, most people experience abnormal aging and think that is normal for two main reasons. First, doctors tell them they are getting older and should expect it. Second, they know so many others just like them. Just because a lot of people have the same experience doesn't make it normal. It just means it is COMMON. Big difference.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We all knew this 



> *Forget Pills And Anti-Wrinkle Creams, The Real Trick To Slow Down Aging Is Regular Exercise*
> 
> Hippocrates once said that exercise is man's best medicine and he was not wrong. If you need another excuse to hit up the gym, know that a lifetime of regular exercise significantly reduces the effects of aging on the immune system, muscle mass, and cholesterol.
> 
> ...



















Sauce Forget Pills And Anti-Wrinkle Creams, The Real Trick To Slow Down Aging Is Regular Exercise | IFLScience


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## paramount3 (Jul 13, 2014)

cyclelicious said:


> Cycling keeps your immune system young, study finds
> 
> sauce https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...ng-keeps-your-immune-system-young-study-finds


Here is the original paper:

Major features of immunesenescence, including reduced thymic output, are ameliorated by high levels of physical activity in adulthood - Duggal - 2018 - Aging Cell - Wiley Online Library

The methodology is flawed: To do this right, you would need to take a set of 20-somethings, divide your study group into two cohorts, and assign one cohort to cycle regularly for the next 50 years, while having the control group do no particular exercise. After 50 years, you would then have to select the people left in the control cohort who are still "healthy" and use them as the actual control group for the study, to compare with the cyclists who were still able to ride. Not an easy study to do, I agree.

The problem with the study, as reported, is that only a very select group of people are both willing and able to cycle regularly throughout their lives, and are still going at it at age 70+. is it the cycling that made the difference? Or are these people predisposed to be healthier, and this allowed them to enjoy cycling and continue it into old age?


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

paramount3 said:


> ...The problem with the study, as reported, is that only a very select group of people are both willing and able to cycle regularly throughout their lives, and are still going at it at age 70+. is it the cycling that made the difference? Or are these people predisposed to be healthier, and this allowed them to enjoy cycling and continue it into old age?


Agree. On the other hand, I think most of us who are in that category have seen our compatriots self-select their poor health. We have also seen some of them pull themselves out of poor health by physical activity.

I know that's an anecdotal rather than a scientific approach, but it's backed up by writings throughout human history. Get off your posterior if you want to live. There's no guarantees, but it's better than the other option.

However all the books and advice on how to be healthy sail over the heads of most people.

Maybe what is needed is a manual "How to die early after years of miserable ill health before you collect your pension".


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## panchosdad (Sep 21, 2008)

My anecdotal evidence is that it's not enough to just be active, but you have to push it as well. Max out your heart rate climbing tough hills, lift heavy weights, whatever, but exercise like you mean it.


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## cbrossman (Mar 23, 2004)

panchosdad said:


> My anecdotal evidence is that it's not enough to just be active, but you have to push it as well. Max out your heart rate climbing tough hills, lift heavy weights, whatever, but exercise like you mean it.


:thumbsup: Rippetoe and many others would call it training rather than exercise. Do it with the intent to get stronger, faster ...


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

" My anecdotal evidence is that it's not enough to just be active, but you have to push it as well. Max out your heart rate climbing tough hills, lift heavy weights, whatever, but exercise like you mean it."

I am a firm believer in the idea of training with intensity. I was MTBing for years, but as a social rider. When I upped the intensity, I not only lost significant weight, I was able to throw away my blood pressure and cholesterol pills. It also made a big difference in how I felt.

OTOH: A couple of recent studies I've seen have shown that 15-30 minutes of walking (yeah WALKING) at any pace improves the health profile of older Americans.


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## Fairbanks007 (Sep 5, 2009)

ddoh said:


> " My anecdotal evidence is that it's not enough to just be active, but you have to push it as well. Max out your heart rate climbing tough hills, lift heavy weights, whatever, but exercise like you mean it."
> 
> I am a firm believer in the idea of training with intensity. I was MTBing for years, but as a social rider. When I upped the intensity, I not only lost significant weight, I was able to throw away my blood pressure and cholesterol pills. It also made a big difference in how I felt.
> 
> OTOH: A couple of recent studies I've seen have shown that 15-30 minutes of walking (yeah WALKING) at any pace improves the health profile of older Americans.


As a clinical exercise physiologist with 20+ years in cardiac rehabilitation, I can tell you that both of these are true. Exercise is like anything else, the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it. Also, keep in mind that according to Healthy People 2010 more than 60% of American adults get *no leisure time physical activity whatsoever*.

This becomes even more mind boggling when you realize that bowling counts as physical activity. If you can get these incredibly sedentary folks to do pretty much *anything*, there's measurable health and fitness benefits to be had. Imagine what'd happen if we could bet them out on the trails for what most of us would consider an easy 60 minute ride...


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## paramount3 (Jul 13, 2014)

Like most people here, I do like to push myself. But especially when it comes to riding a mountain bike, pushing yourself too hard brings risks. Overuse injuries, strains/pulls, and crashes all can end up costing you long-term fitness. And it's not that uncommon for a super-fit guy to drop dead of a heart attack running a marathon. Be fit, but listen to your body, and be in it for the long haul.


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

paramount3 said:


> ...Overuse injuries, strains/pulls, and crashes all can end up costing you long-term fitness. And it's not that uncommon for a super-fit guy to drop dead of a heart attack running a marathon...


I've certainly found that it's much easier to overdo it these days and that any extended recovery time is also unfortunately decline time, so it is smarter to avoid punishing your body as opposed to stressing it.

I work on the principle it's good to be breathless but not gasping.

I don't want to be the old guy who drops dead on a group ride - which is something you read about every month or so over here.

What younger riders don't realise when you're keeping pace with them is that you're more likely to be running at the redline than they are. Proportionally you're working harder.

Almost always the person didn't feel well and headed off home. I think the lesson is if you suddenly feel unwell when exercising, don't head home, call an ambulance.


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## Dr Evil (Sep 20, 2015)

paramount3 said:


> it's not that uncommon for a super-fit guy to drop dead of a heart attack running a marathon.


Being fit is part of being healthy but just because you are physically fit it doesn't mean you are healthy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

18.4 Crossfit open done... one more week to go

I was able to do the workout prescribed 21-15-9 reps (deadlifts 125lbs and push presses 65lbs) for 9 minutes. I got as far as the second set of 21-15-9 (deadlifts @165lbs) I got 15 reps in before I ran out of time. Tough work out!


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## roadkill401 (Mar 14, 2017)

You are just confirming that I am an ultra out of shape old fart with an out of wack ego complex into thinking that I was actually exercising quite well for my age.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

Fitness is 20% gym and 80% kitchen.


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## roadkill401 (Mar 14, 2017)

dave54 said:


> Fitness is 20% gym and 80% kitchen.


the kitchen might have the say as to the amount of fat you add your body, but the gym has the last word to how much muscle mass.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

roadkill401 said:


> the kitchen might have the say as to the amount of fat you add your body, but the gym has the last word to how much muscle mass.


Incorrect. With a poor diet you negate the gains a resistance exercise regimen would otherwise give you. A healthy diet is part of fitness -- the major part.


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## Goodwoodz (Dec 10, 2008)

dave54 said:


> Fitness is 20% gym and 80% kitchen.


So if I eat good I'll have good fitness?


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## roadkill401 (Mar 14, 2017)

If all you eat is sugar and processed foods then sure, no amount of exercise will build or retain muscle mass on a person. But in the same breath, if all you are going to do is eat the most healthiest foods but not properly work out the muscles, rather just sit around on the couch and watch pumping iron on Netflix and flick through muscle mags, then your not going to gain, and likely will have a hard time to retain any muscle mass.

I look back to my parents growing up and they were fit as a fiddle. We have next to no money and under what you would call today a pretty below average diet, but what we didn't lack was fitness. Didn't have a spare car to drive everywere so we walked. Didn't have cash for expensive landscapers, so we lugged up I don't know how many tonnes of rock from the ravine behind us and made a beautiful rock garden. Seeing photos of my dad when he was young, he was quite ripped, yet he grew up in a depression era in England with 5 other brothers and they had little if any meat, mostly potatoes and whatever green they could grow themselves.

I think back to myself and I went down hill after a major cycling accident some 15 years ago. It was part stress, part bad eating habits from that stress and dealing with onset migraine attacks from the head injury from the accident that took me from being really fit to where I am now. And along with age against me, it's much harder to shed the lbs and regain the muscle mass that I once had. But I am sure, if I didn't push myself to work out daily and only spent my energy on eating better then I might weight less but would not be nearly as strong as I am now.


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## smoothmoose (Jun 8, 2008)

Just saying hi. Cool to see fellow hybrid Crossfit and MTBers here! May favorite ways to stay fit and have fun!


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## panchosdad (Sep 21, 2008)

paramount3 said:


> Like most people here, I do like to push myself. But especially when it comes to riding a mountain bike, pushing yourself too hard brings risks. Overuse injuries, strains/pulls, and crashes all can end up costing you long-term fitness. And it's not that uncommon for a super-fit guy to drop dead of a heart attack running a marathon. Be fit, but listen to your body, and be in it for the long haul.


I can certainly relate to the crash part of pushing too hard, two collarbones can attest to that. I wonder how common it is for marathoners to die running. Certainly it happens, but I would guess that the numbers would say that it's actually is uncommon.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Here's a good article about strength training (over 40)



> You're not going downhill once you reach 40. You simply have to adjust your training to match your changing physiology.


My take away: 
1) Value form over all. Strength is a skill. To develop that skill, you need to do it over and over with perfect form. I can't match the PRs of some of the younger girls and ladies, but I found that concentrating on technique has lessened the chance of injury and muscle strain.

2) Use Lighter Weights On Single-Joint Exercises. Elbows, shoulders, and knees are more vulnerable to injury after about age 40 because of the inevitable wear and tear of the cartilage surrounding the joints. Single-joint movements hit them most directly because the load isn't spread across multiple joints.

3) Take 5-10 minute to Warm up. for the over-40 lifter the consequences are even more significant. That's because masters athletes are more likely to have a long rap sheet of injuries. They're also more likely to have at least one serious mobility or flexibility hurdle to deal with, for whatever the reason.






read the whole article
sauce 5 Ways To Make Strength Gains Past 40


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## smoothmoose (Jun 8, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> 3) Take 5-10 minute to Warm up....
> 
> 5 Ways To Make Strength Gains Past 40


I turned 40 last year and I spend 15-20mins warming up, stretching, mobilizing before hitting the weights at the gym. Not only does it prevent injury - but given my lack of bendiness - it also helps me get into the proper form and positions for my lifts.

For riding...I notice a huge difference on trails where it starts off steep (either up or down), vs. starting on flat or open fireroad to properly warm up before hitting the steep or technical stuff.


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

Forty? Is that considered old? I've got socks older than you 

I used to stretch a ton, never really noticed any benefits other than I gained flexibility.

I like to start my rides straight up, get nice and hot, then back off and spin.

You ever seen a Cheetah stretch?



smoothmoose said:


> I turned 40 last year and I spend 15-20mins warming up, stretching, mobilizing before hitting the weights at the gym. Not only does it prevent injury - but given my lack of bendiness - it also helps me get into the proper form and positions for my lifts.
> 
> For riding...I notice a huge difference on trails where it starts off steep (either up or down), vs. starting on flat or open fireroad to properly warm up before hitting the steep or technical stuff.


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## J.B. Weld (Aug 13, 2012)

Nurse Ben said:


> You ever seen a Cheetah stretch?


cats invented yoga


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

Always warm up BEFORE stretching. Otherwise, it can be counter-productive.


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## indiomonk (Aug 13, 2006)

Following this thread since I turned 50 this year. Was running on and off but now trying to get back on the bike and hitting the weights and stretching (which I have never done before). Thanks for the inspiration.


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## Fairbanks007 (Sep 5, 2009)

smoothmoose said:


> I turned 40 last year and I spend 15-20mins warming up, stretching, mobilizing before hitting the weights at the gym. Not only does it prevent injury - but given my lack of bendiness - it also helps me get into the proper form and positions for my lifts.


25 or 30 years ago or more, we all grew up *KNOWING* that you had to stretch before exercising to prevent injury. It was an incontrovertible fact passed on by P.E. teachers the world over. Funny thing about science is that it never stands still; someone is always willing to question what we think we know. That's good. New evidence either reinforces what we know, or it doesn't.

In this case, the new evidence (now two decades old) doesn't support our high school coach's claims. *Current (read circa post 1995 or slightly earlier) thinking in sports medicine is that pre-exercise stretching has little, if anything, to do with injury prevention*.

Don't take my word for it, I just do this for a living: http://andrewvs.blogs.com/files/stretching-to-prevent-injury.pdf

So, why do professional athletes stretch before competition then? Two comments: first, they ALWAYS warm up first. Second, it feels good.

Oh, and for many of us, the coach that told us we had to stretch before working out was the same guy that gave us salt tablets and told us that not drinking water during exercise would toughen us up. Knowledge evolves.



ddoh said:


> Always warm up BEFORE stretching. Otherwise, it can be counter-productive.


In the sports medicine world, we rephrase this as warm up to stretch, don't stretch to warm up.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Crossfit Open done! I did the final 18.5 workout prescribed. It was the most pull ups for me (I just started being able to do one or two!)

I ended up placing 44th /135 Canada East (women 55-59 yr ) Not too shabby 

I'm so impressed by the fitness level of the women and men in this age group.


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## smoothmoose (Jun 8, 2008)

Fairbanks007 said:


> 25 or 30 years ago or more, we all grew up *KNOWING* that you had to stretch before exercising to prevent injury. It was an incontrovertible fact passed on by P.E. teachers the world over. Funny thing about science is that it never stands still; someone is always willing to question what we think we know. That's good. New evidence either reinforces what we know, or it doesn't.
> 
> In this case, the new evidence (now two decades old) doesn't support our high school coach's claims. *Current (read circa post 1995 or slightly earlier) thinking in sports medicine is that pre-exercise stretching has little, if anything, to do with injury prevention*.
> 
> ...


Correct. My original post stated warming up first. Static stretching while cold is useless. Warming up without stretching and mobilizing ain't that great either. Dynamic stretches....even better. Gets you warm and bendy at the same time.


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## indiomonk (Aug 13, 2006)

Very impressive cyclelicious! Way to push it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

indiomonk said:


> Very impressive cyclelicious! Way to push it.


Thanks so much indio!

It is nice to feel competitive, regardless of age. Many of the younger athletes are stronger and faster but the true competition with me is seeing my own progression and doing better with each workout. Attending class regularly and working on form and technique is the pay off. Ultimately I'm a fitter rider


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

this guy is amazing!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Strengthen Your Core With These Spine-Sparing Exercises*



> Take the pressure off the sit-up with new and improved ways to strengthen your core.
> As we move through life, our fitness regimens change. The dreaded mile run from gym class turned into an occasional pick-up hockey game in our 20s, which morphed into coaching peewee soccer in our 30s (walking and shouting at kids is exercise, isn't it?). Then middle age came and continues and, well, many of us just got tired. And that's a lame excuse. Anything we can do to limber up will only help as we grow older. But just how to begin?
> The old standby for many is the traditional sit-up, that go-to for
> abdominal muscles. But studies have shown it may not be your best fitness friend after all.
> ...


sauce The Annotated Body: 14 Healthy Head-to-Toe Tips - Everything Zoomer


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## paramount3 (Jul 13, 2014)

OK, I'm willing to try these exercises in lieu of situps. But I think riding mountain bikes puts way more stress on my back than situps do.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I just got the results of my annual bone density test and I'm pleased to report that it has improved since last year. I take a vitamin D supplement. I discussed the results with my oncologist and GP and they both determined that my positive results are primarily related to strength training. While I do take a vitamin D supplement, I regularly practice cross fit and run, in addition to mtb.

I did some searches and found some studies related to improved bone density

1) Progressive load is best for bone health.



> Exercise involving high impacts, even a relatively small amount, appears to be the most efficient for enhancing bone mass, except in postmenopausal women. Several types of resistance exercise have been tested also with positive results, especially when the intensity of the exercise is high and the speed of movement elevated.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9927006

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19453205

2)


> Athletes competing in strength and power events, such as weight-lifting and jumping, have superior bone mass and structure compared with their untrained counterparts in all age groups.


 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16702776

3) Benefit of high intensity impact training



> They posit that exercise should: (i) be dynamic, not static; (ii) exceed a threshold intensity; (iii) exceed a threshold strain frequency; (iv) be relatively brief but intermittent; (v) impose an unusual loading pattern on the bones; (vi) be supported by unlimited nutrient energy; and (vii) include adequate calcium and cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) availability


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16138787

I've learned that it's never too late or impossible to gain strength and muscle mass over the age of 50. As a life long vegetarian and plant-based /vegan for the past 4 years it is possible


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

Cycleicious, WTF does that weigh?? I'm not sure I could lift that.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

NYrr496 said:


> Cycleicious, WTF does that weigh?? I'm not sure I could lift that.


 In the pic I'm lifting 65lbs. I'm doing sets of reps so the weight is about 75% of my maximum effort for a split jerk (my max is 85lbs)


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

Damn.


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## JLDickmon (Jun 4, 2018)

J.B. Weld said:


> cats invented yoga
> 
> View attachment 1189075










I thought it was moose? Mooses?

Anyway.. I figured I'd chip in a couple pennies..
I've been doing strength training since the week before Christmas.
Friend of mine has a full-blown Nautilus Cafe in his garage.. 
We change up a routine of 10 exercises every 12 weeks.. it's time to change again.. some of the exercises stay the same, we add & drop others in cycles.. 
The set we just ended was: 
Lumbar
Leg extensions
Cycling squats
Leg extensions
Dorcy flexes (on the extension machine)
Overhead pulldowns
arm crosses
rowing (on the arm cross machine)
overhead tricep extensions (using the calf machine)
hip abductions & adductions
neck extensions
ab crunches

I told Roger today after we completed the set and cycle that I wanted to keep lumbar, cycling squats, arm crosses & rowing for the next cycle.. the rest was up to him.

We'll see what next week has in store. 
We've alternated in and out bicep curls, tricep curls, pullovers, lateral raises, neck flexes..

I changed my diet to ketogenic when I started working out.. currently down 50 lbs.. looking to drop 30 more..

Just as an example.. I started doing lumbar at 80 lbs.. up to 245 as of today.. arm crosses started at 30lbs.. up to 73.. rowing started at 60 lbs.. up to 73.. overhead pulldown is up to 90 pounds.. 95lbs on hips..

My back doesn't hurt anymore, my hips don't hurt anymore, I can climb stairs without pain, my sleep apnea is gone.. I can see definition coming into my legs..

I've been able to hold more speed on the bike.. I can lift a 20" Load Range E tire on a styled rim onto an axle, rather than using a cheater bar to lever them up off the floor (I'm in the tire & service business)..


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## sleepyguy1001 (May 26, 2014)

Geez, I started riding late in life, just before I was 50 and I had never set foot in a gym or lifted a weight in my life, until the end of May this year. I'm 53 now. My daughter got me into the gym and working with a trainer for a little while. I fully expected to hate it and have been pleasantly surprised that I enjoy it. The trainer kid has moved on to another job so I'm banging away it with my son and daughter now. It's surprising to me that for the little amount of time I've been going to the gym, that I can feel it in my riding, but I'm diggin' it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

An interesting article about sweating: specifically whether you are a "salty sweater" and what to do 



> 6* Signs You Might be a Salty Sweater*
> 
> When it comes to understanding how to hydrate properly you need to consider two things: how much you're sweating (i.e. your sweat rate-usually measured in ml per hour); and how much salt you're losing in that sweat (your sweat concentration. i.e. how salty your sweat is). Understanding both of these gives you an overall appreciation of your net fluid and sodium losses over a given period of time. This enables you to work out a sensible personalized hydration plan.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/6-signs-you-might-be-a-salty-sweater/


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

Well i am late to this thread so i did not read each previous post.
At 54 i did a year of gym not to get strong, not to get big but just for prevention.
My genes allow me to do marathons without training but they take all the place, the power genes are not in me. I am an outdoor guy so i do mainly mountain biking with our cold winter it turns into fatbiking for 4 months.
I just give myself small challenges to climb a hill and i am happy when i make it, it can be the first, fifth or tenth attempt.
So i added 10 pounds of muscles in a year and being active allows me to keep it. At 60 near retirement than moving close to the trails to pedal daily for the next 30 years or more.
I stretch, i smile, i eat veggies, this is my season


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## JLDickmon (Jun 4, 2018)

OK.. the new routine is.. 
Lumbar (machine)
bicycling squats (machine)
leg curls _week to week alternating with_ leg extensions (machine)
Dorcy flexion/extension (free weight)
arm cross (machine)
rowing (arm cross machine)
negative arm cross (machine-technique Art Jones developed)
lateral raises (machine)
tricep curls (machine)
bicep curls (machine)
neck flexion (machine)
Drum Majors w/ankle weights (free)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I like Tony's message in this podcast

He may be 50, but he's is still killing it.



> There's no magic formula behind this man's triumphs. To be sure, he possesses talent -- perhaps an unworldly one at that. But Tony's long-term success in sport, business and life -- through times both thick and thin -- can be credited not to any shortcuts or life hacks, but rather to his unyielding devotion to a handful of tried-and-true, back-to-basics principles:
> Humility. Hard work. A devotion to incremental progress. The courage to constantly take risks. Daring to continually live outside his comfort zone. And above all, a resolve to always, always do what he loves because for Tony, life has always been about process over results and rewards. > Rich Roll


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting approach to leadership. Sharing for those who might like this



> *The Swedish CEO Who Runs His Company Like a CrossFit Gym*
> 
> Work hard and you'll see results. For many in today's knowledge economy, this feeling is elusive. They struggle to see how their labor contributes directly to the performance of the corporation, or how it helps the progress of their career. While there's often increased pressure to be more productive in the office, it's sometimes hard not to wonder, "What's the point?" Whether in marketing or sales, it often feels like jobs are contingent on external circumstances, the whims of executives, strategic pivots, and shareholder demands. What happened to being rewarded for consistent, quality work over the long-term?
> 
> ...


sauce: https://hbr.org/2018/03/the-swedish...true&kwp_0=848270&kwp_4=3129954&kwp_1=1312542


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> In the pic I'm lifting 65lbs. I'm doing sets of reps so the weight is about 75% of my maximum effort for a split jerk (my max is 85lbs)


I am seriously impressed with your fitness and commitment to training! My knees cry just looking at what you lift over your head. 11 knee operations later and some serious osteoarthritis,and there are some things I just shouldn't do.

That said, I've started incorporating a bit of core training into my life. Not at the gym, but at home. I'm hoping to add more as the year goes on. I just make sure I don't strain my knees and it's a nice complement to the cycling. I feel really good about losing ten pounds so far. Just want to drop another five....


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thanks bjeast! 

My original goal was to get stronger. (Dx with breast Ca in 2010: the chemo and radiation treatments had a negative impact on my body) Although I continued to ride, my muscles atrophied and my metabolism slowed. I tried supplementing my riding with spinning and yoga but it wasn't until I started crossfit in January 2014 that I made steady progress. Then I had a massive crash in August 2015 and crushed alot of bones etc. which set me back. As soon as I could, I worked myself back and my recovery was successful. I didn't give up and I surpassed all my previous pr's. I added running to my training and actually got good at it! 

I'm presently in my very late 50's  ... a late starter, had some setbacks but I discovered that it is possible to achieve goals even as a master's class athlete. I've gotten stronger (my original goal); I've gotten leaner (a surprise for me) and I see the results when I ride (and run) and especially when I look in the mirror. I do like the crossfit programs and attending classes. The routine and structure keeps me focused and motivated. And despite having to work full time, I make sure my routine fits into my schedule.


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> Thanks bjeast!
> 
> My original goal was to get stronger. (Dx with breast Ca in 2010: the chemo and radiation treatments had a negative impact on my body) Although I continued to ride, my muscles atrophied and my metabolism slowed. I tried supplementing my riding with spinning and yoga but it wasn't until I started crossfit in January 2014 that I made steady progress. Then I had a massive crash in August 2015 and crushed alot of bones etc. which set me back. As soon as I could, I worked myself back and my recovery was successful. I didn't give up and I surpassed all my previous pr's. I added running to my training and actually got good at it!
> 
> I'm presently in my very late 50's  ... a late starter, had some setbacks but I discovered that it is possible to achieve goals even as a master's class athlete. I've gotten stronger (my original goal); I've gotten leaner (a surprise for me) and I see the results when I ride (and run) and especially when I look in the mirror. I do like the crossfit programs and attending classes. The routine and structure keeps me focused and motivated. And despite having to work full time, I make sure my routine fits into my schedule.


I'm amazed you're able to do all that AND work full time! And, honestly, the setbacks you've had would have stopped a lot of people! Congratulations on being able to persevere, AND setting a great example for the rest of us!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Looks like an optical illusion. The box lines up precisely with the platform


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## andy f (Jan 13, 2004)

I alternate between following Pavel Tsastouline's Simple and Sinister and a modified version of Dan John's Easy Strength, usually 6 weeks on each at a time.

Simple and Sinister is nothing but Turkish Get Ups and kettlebell swings. https://www.strongfirst.com/achieve/sinister/. I have range of motion issues with my shoulders and haven't been able to make the move from a 24Kg to a 32Kg kettlebell with my left arm to make the simple goal but it's a great workout anyhow.

The Dan John workout is described here: Even Easier Strength | Dan John. I change the exercises around but there's always a squat, a hip hinge, a push, a pull, and a loaded carry. Lots of foam rolling and stretching on this program.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ask the Ageless Lifter: What's the Most Important Muscle Group?



> Q: *Are there any muscles or muscle groups that older lifters need to pay extra or special attention to?*
> 
> 
> 
> ...











sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...portant-muscle-group.html?mcid=SM_FB_Training


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

I agree with post # 162 but i see life as a marathon. 
To me stretching is important for everyone.
I try to improve slowly to avoid injuries and to be forced to stop for weeks or months.
I know people in their 40s, 60s that still injure themselves because they try to reach their 100%. The pro athletes are forced to do it but for me being 80-90% constantly is plenty.
Just like in the last 12 weeks i lost 12 pounds, no crash diet for quick results.
Now at 60 my waist line is 28 in. and i can enjoy mountainbiking for 4 hours everyday.
I guess by character some feel the need to be #1 and i am not one of them.

Daily we wait to pay our grocery or other places we can take 1 or 2 min. to stretch and finish our day with a total of 10 min.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This article focuses more on overall fitness for masters athletes ... but some good tips to share

*Keeping It: The Master's Athlete*

In Jeff Bercovici's book, Play On: The New Science of Elite Performance at Any Age, Bercovici says that "finding peak performance as an older athlete isn't about denying reality. Nor is it about reconciling oneself to suffering or disappointment. It's about being the best version of yourself, [and] performing better while feeling better."

The fact is, athletes over the age of 35 are still out there hitting balls, running races, swimming fast and pretty much proving that athletic prowess isn't over in your twenties. In fact, many athletes are just coming into form in their early thirties, especially in endurance sports. The "reality" Bercovici refers to is the effect of age on our physiology. The best diet and training will help ward off cognitive decline, muscle wasting and cardiovascular impairment-but even the most rigorous routine can't completely stop the effect of time on our bodies.

This begs the question, how does an 'older athlete', or masters athlete, continue to remain in the game both physically and psychologically?

*Aim for Consistency*
Adopting a routine that generally follows a predictable, well-planned pattern will reduce your chances of taking on workouts that may result in injury. Anyone who has joined a masters cycling group knows what happens frequently; it's like a world championship on each climb. This is OK, for the well-trained cyclist, but could cause injury for the less-so. Having a coach in this sort of situation can help you set realistic athletic goals and then pursue them in a logical, planned manner.

*Prioritize Sleeping*
I personally can attest to the changes that every older athlete needs to come to terms with. While I was, fortunately, able to deny most of it until I hit 42, the fact is that you can't have it all forever, especially not at a high level. It can be really difficult for the 'once was fast' older athlete to face performance declines than it might be to a new-to-the-sport older athlete.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that endurance junkies are often in it for the fun and adventure as much as the competition, so the "more is more" training model can be appealing on a number of levels. But as Raymond Verheijen, Dutch exercise physiologist says, "if you are extremely fit but also extremely tired, your performance will be ****."

So what do you do? Sleep. Joe Friel puts it in Fast After 50, "Sleep is your primary means of recovery from training stress. There is nothing else you can do that will help you recover faster or more completely." Our production of human growth hormone consistently decreases as we age, and cutting sleep cycles (where that production occurs) to add extra training is a mistake.

*Eat More Protein!*
Another area to focus on is diet. Older athletes need more protein than our younger selves because we don't synthesize it as well when we age. Older athletes may need 40 grams of protein, for example, to achieve the same level of protein synthesis as younger athletes, who need only 20-25 grams. To optimize protein synthesis and retain muscle, be diligent about adding protein immediately after strenuous sessions, which increases the rate of muscle rebuilding. Adding in some protein 30 min before bed can also assist in this. Foam rolling, ice baths, compression, massage, cupping, acupuncture are some other great tools in assisting with recovery.

*Try Intervals*
There are high mileage runners who could handle big weeks in their 30s, but start to experience injury and breakdown in their 40s, and can't get through a successful training block to get to the starting line. Luckily, research is showing us that interval training on an already strong aerobic base allows the experienced athlete to train less and still achieve more.

Aerobic capacity intervals (at or slightly below VO2 max speed/power), and lactate threshold intervals (90-95% of lactate threshold HR) are both effective and require less volume.

*Don't Skip Strength Training*
Every piece of available research suggests that masters athletes will benefit from building each type of muscle fiber. Friel suggests you start your strength program in your base period (20 or more weeks out from your A race) and follow through until you are in a maintenance phase approaching your race. In my experience, strength also works best when it includes mobility and movement patterns. Put your body through the motions you will need to do your sport well, and monitor those patterns as you go so that an imbalance or weakness is stopped before it becomes an injury.

In summary, you can continue to be the best you can be as you age. You may need to make some changes in goal-setting, training methods and lifestyle, but I can tell you it's worth it. You will not only enjoy the great age-defying benefits of exercise, but you'll satisfy your inner endurance monster, creating challenges and adventures that will continue as you age.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/tips-masters-athlete/


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## quite.right (Sep 29, 2016)

Thank you for sharing this. I do totally agree with these acknowledges due to own experiences.
And to the sentence


> Eat More Protein!


 I would like to add "Drink Water!". Without water we are not able to metabolize any kind of Protein nor transport the metabolic end products nor we can sweat nor...


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

quite.right said:


> ...I would like to add "Drink Water!". Without water we are not able to metabolize any kind of Protein nor transport the metabolic end products nor we can sweat nor...


...nor have to search frantically through our bib shorts in cold weather for that which cannot be found but needs to be released to dispose of all that excess recycled water...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to stretch for any type of workout*

A million and one pieces of advice on stretching have already spread the internet thin. Don't fret-this one is different. Instead of giving generic advice on the potential benefits or drawbacks of various stretching methods, we've compiled the best science-backed evidence out there on how to warm up your muscles, in order of your desired fitness level. Don't worry, we know you are reading this on the way to the gym.

*If you're a casual exerciser, especially anything that doesn't require a lot of flexibility*

Congratulations-this whole thing doesn't really matter for you. As long as you do a short aerobic exercise like jogging or a quick, light jaunt on a rowing machine, you're golden. Here's what Jay Hoffman, an exercise physiologist at the University of Central Florida, has to say about it: "Prior to working out performing some dynamic warm-up, like jogging, serves to increase body temperature. This is the goal of the warm-up, period." Physically warming up dilates your blood vessels, allowing more to flow into your muscles and preparing them to work.

So, increase your body temperature with a slow aerobic activity, upping the intensity over the course of five to 10 minutes. Then kick things into high gear.

*I'm a casual exerciser, but I want to increase my flexibility*

Like the previous category, you should do a light aerobic warm up, but don't really need to do a specific stretch routine beforehand. After your workout is over, , that's when to invest your time in static stretching. Exercise causes your blood vessels to open, making your muscles warmer and limber. This means you will be less stiff and therefore less likely to pull something as you stretch. Hold each stretch for 15 to 30 seconds and repeat them 2-4 times as a cool-down phase.

*I'm fairly serious about my regular exercise routine and want to optimize my workouts*

The bottom line is that you still need to up your body temperature, but you can do that in any number of ways. Though not unanimous, the weight of evidence suggests that dynamic stretching, not static, is superior. Static stretches can decrease your muscular output (TK description), and though that might only matter for people lifting heavy weights, it's probably not what you're going for at the beginning of your workout. If you're feeling tight, personal trainer Jessi Haggerty suggests rolling them out with a foam roller and doing some active stretching on those areas. Then, she says, "you can always build something more sports-specific into the beginning of your workout. For example, walking or running at a slower pace if you're going for a long run, or starting off your strength training circuit with lighter weights or bodyweight exercises and build up from there."

So to repeat: no static stretching at the beginning. Light aerobic activity for a few minutes to get the blood moving, then dynamic stretches on tight muscles plus or minus a foam roller. Cool down with stretches and/or another roll session.

*I am an elite athlete*

You should really be going to see a trainer to get a tailored regimen, not to a website that can only hand out broad advice, but we'll roll with it.

A meta-analysis of more than a hundred studies on stretching found that static movements reduced muscle strength by 5.5 percent, whereas dynamic stretching increased it by 2 percent. These are tiny numbers that probably don't matter at all to the recreational athlete, but they're enough that if you're seriously involved in sports of some kind you should pay attention. Here's Hoffman again to back us up: "Stretching is best performed after the workout, but some individuals prefer to do it before with a foam roller as part of their warm-up routine. Not a big deal, I just wouldn't perform any static stretching for a competitive athlete prior to a power event."

Find a short series of dynamic stretches, like walking lunges or bear crawls, that works for you and make a habit of doing it prior to the workout but after a bit of aerobic exercise. Proper mobility is important, but you don't want to risk reducing your peak power by stretching your hamstrings. Do that afterwards.

*I scrolled to the bottom hoping for a piece of blanket advice*

Jog or lightly row on the machine for 5 to 10 minutes. Then do a handful of dynamic stretches that get your muscles mobilized, like this routine suggested by the American Council on Exercise. Foam roll tight muscles if desired. Then workout. Then do some static stretches as a cool down. Done.

sauce: https://www.popsci.com/how-to-stret...bhySRPidQsehcT3di0SJIhxFo6A5DLDa-mnZws#page-3


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

Thanks for this! Looks very helpful!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I prefer wash n' wear events


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Don't skip ... 



> *Excuses We've All Used to Skip Weight Training*
> 
> Strength training has incredible benefits for endurance athletes-but it is often overlooked, or skipped altogether! Let's take a look at the top 5 excuses endurance athletes make for skipping strength training.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/excuses-weve-all-used-to-skip-weight-training/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I started lifting in 2014 through crossfit. I lost weight (diet and exercise) and gained muscle (strength training). I've stuck with the program and seen results... it's never too late.

*Even If You Have A High BMI, Keep Lifting. It Works!*



> Can overweight people build muscle the same way leaner people do? Or does body weight somehow prevent hypertrophy? Those were the questions a study by a group of British researchers set out to answer recently.
> 
> The results are good news for people with a high BMI who are wondering if strength training is "worth it," and for physicians and public health officials working to reduce the prevalence of obesity.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...=social_media&utm_campaign=content_motivation


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## natas1321 (Nov 4, 2017)

I try to work out on a regular basis, lifting six days a week and riding 6-7 days a week for 2-4 hours. I also try to mix in a few runs each week and do eight miles 2-3 times and hope to keep going, not looking to gain any strength but minimize any injuries and reduce recovery for any future injuries.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

natas1321 said:


> I try to work out on a regular basis, lifting six days a week and riding 6-7 days a week for 2-4 hours. I also try to mix in a few runs each week and do eight miles 2-3 times and hope to keep going, not looking to gain any strength but minimize any injuries and reduce recovery for any future injuries.


Are you 41?
I am 61 and it sounds like much to me.
If it works for you, bravo.
I remember at 25, i was unstopable.


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

I am currently 52. Two years ago, I started doing kickboxing, yoga and weights at a local gym. I LOVED it. I was truly in the best shape of my life. 
Then I moved. I now live twenty miles from that gym. I continued to go one evening a week and Saturday morning. My wife was freaking out that I was driving twenty miles to the gym. I finally gave in to the endless complaining and stopped going. I could not find a gym near my house that I liked. Now I feel like crap. 
I recently bought that Piyo dvd and started that. Helps a little. 
I'm going back to kickboxing. I'll just turn her off like I do when she complains about bike parts getting delivered to the house.


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## J.B. Weld (Aug 13, 2012)

33red said:


> Are you 41?
> I am 61 and it sounds like much to me.


I was thinking the same about you, 4 hours a day on the bike is pro territory. Around 1.5 or so is plenty for me.


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

J.B. Weld said:


> I was thinking the same about you, 4 hours a day on the bike is pro territory. Around 1.5 or so is plenty for me.


Beware of the siren call of self-limitation.

I've got a 24 hour race in a few weeks and I'm one of the oldest here.

Simple aim - don't come last.


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## J.B. Weld (Aug 13, 2012)

Velobike said:


> Beware of the siren call of self-limitation


Who, me? I still tell myself that I can compete with 20 year olds, my brain constantly lies to my body .

I suppose I could ride 25+ hours a week but I don't think it would really be good for me. I prefer intensity over volume so I can wring a lot out of a 2 hour ride.


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## natas1321 (Nov 4, 2017)

33red said:


> Are you 41?
> I am 61 and it sounds like much to me.
> If it works for you, bravo.
> I remember at 25, i was unstopable.


I wish, I am in between at 51 but in better shape now than I was in my 20's and 30's as I would rather go out for a ride than sit around and have drinks till 3-4am like I did back then.

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Protein And Aging: Everything You Need To Know*
*


> Your diet tends to evolve along with the number of candles on your birthday cake. For example, in your hard-training teens and early 20s, you could probably eat at Taco Bell several times a week and still remain fairly lean. That changes during your 30s and 40s. After turning 50, many people start dropping their calories in response to an ever-slower metabolism.
> 
> Makes sense-on the surface, anyway.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...m=social_media&utm_campaign=content_nutrition

some interesting points


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How Often Should You Lift Weights for Optimum Heart Health?



> There's a reason we're always touting the benefits of weightlifting here at MH. Not only does it make you feel good (thanks, endorphins) and look good (thanks, chest day), but it's a sure-fire way to ironclad your cardiac health.
> 
> Less than an hour of resistance training a week could reduce your risk for a heart attack or stroke by almost 40 to 70 per cent, according to a new study from Iowa State University.
> 
> ...











I maxed 85lbs for this lift. That's the heaviest I've achieved in a long time. Hope to PR 90+lbs soon for my push press

sauce https://www.menshealth.com/uk/healt...ld-you-lift-weights-for-optimum-heart-health/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I finally succeeded at double unders... It took me 5 years but I finally nailed this useless technique. Anyone who's done crossfit will understand


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Festivus feats of strength


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I had issues with muscle soreness in my hip. I did a little research and decided to try a foam roller just after boxing day. I've been using it after working out and seems to be working. I found this article to share about foam rollers.



> *Why, When, and How to Use A Foam Roller*
> 
> In recent years, foam rolling has gone mainstream. Once a self-massage technique used only by professional athletes, coaches, and therapists; foam rolling is now an everyday practice for people at all levels of fitness. There's a reason for the popularity of this self-massage technique: it's simple and it works!
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/why-when-and-how-to-use-a-foam-roller/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sharing this interesting article which is not directly relate to "strength training" but more to introduce the idea of age being a state of mind rather than being a number (50, 60, 70, 80 +). Being in shape is awesome but getting in shape sucks and many people hold themselves back or give up for many reasons ... age for example. If you define yourself as old, you'll become that number. If you define yourself as "strong or fit" rather than fixate on the age, it will be more beneficial in the long run to setting new goals.



> *Age against the machine: the secret to enjoying a long life*
> 
> Three years ago, Carl Honoré, the journalist whose series of books, starting with In Praise of Slow in 2004, has made him the guru of slow living, had an epiphany. Like a true Canadian, though one born in Scotland and domiciled in London, he adores ice hockey, and still plays hard and fast at the age of 51. But one day, at a tournament in Gateshead, someone pointed out that he was the oldest player among the 240 competitors. "I knew that I was one of the oldest, but being told in such raw terms that I was the oldest - it just shook me. It knocked me for six in a way that shocked me."
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.theguardian.com/society...EZ-Lt6w7ZpDQHsGKqSOVdSEHtA#Echobox=1546507466


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## TraxFactory (Sep 10, 1999)

Thank you for posting that article! I truly got something out of that.


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## bouncy_rig (Aug 22, 2007)

Great advice. Struggling with older parents these days. Amazed how fast you get old. It hits you like a ton of bricks to think their life savings and yours are going to a care facility.


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

"If you think of yourself as old, you will be old." When I'm jumping onto a MTB trail or trying to beat my 30 or 40 something friends, I absolutely forget I'm in my late 60's. 

It's a little harder when I get up in the morning and hobble over and look in the mirror. OH, THE HORROR!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Lifting Weights May Reduce Your Middle-Aged Clients' Likelihood of Heart Disease by 50 Percent, Study Says*



> The authors of a recent study concluded that heart disease-related illness and death was 50 percent lower for subjects who lifted weights, even those who lifted infrequently, versus those who never lifted. Subjects who lifted at least twice a week for a total of 60 minutes were least likely to develop heart disease.











Even a small amount of strength training may significantly reduce one's risk of developing heart disease, the leading cause of global mortality, according to a study recently published in the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal.

"Associations of Resistance Exercise with Cardiovascular Disease Morbidity and Mortality," published in October, analyzed the medical check-up data of 12,591 mostly middle-aged Americans who visited Dallas' Cooper Clinic between 1987 and 2006. The study's authors categorized subjects by their reported exercise routines, including those who did not lift weights to those who participated in multiple weekly strength workouts. This data was then juxtaposed with the subjects' reported strokes, heart attacks and related deaths during the data's 11-year window.

The authors concluded that heart disease-related illness and death was 50 percent lower for subjects who lifted weights, even those who lifted infrequently, versus those who never lifted. Subjects who lifted at least twice a week for a total of 60 minutes were least likely to develop heart disease. Notably, this was broadly applicable to all subjects regardless of their cardio workout routines or lack thereof.

The study states: "Even one time or less than one hour per week of resistance exercise, independent of aerobic exercise, is associated with reduced risks of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. Body mass index mediates the association of resistance exercise with total cardiovascular disease events."

Subjects who lifted at four or more times every week, interestingly, did not show additionally reduced risk of heart disease. The authors did not lend great significance to this finding. However, another study published in the Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism journal in September suggests that, contrary to popular belief, strength training, unlike aerobic exercise, can be adequately performed in less than one hour per week.

This is one of multiple studies published this year that demonstrate long-term benefits of regular exercise, particularly into middle age and beyond. In November, a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that the aerobic capacity of people in their 70s who had exercised regularly for 50 years was at the level of people 30 years younger than them.

sauce https://www.clubindustry.com/fitnes...TB_seaCkhFt_Zzd3HheNt5Ek1C0Bwh9H5NxRvhM7-Rs9o


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *Why are some athletes able to compete into their 40s?*
> 
> _Training, motivation, and luck are key to a long athletic career._
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.popsci.com/upper-age-li...l_RR56Qq8SS9-L4n4ijjcbDnbXHLB_qWRhOzKc#page-3


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> sauce https://www.popsci.com/upper-age-li...l_RR56Qq8SS9-L4n4ijjcbDnbXHLB_qWRhOzKc#page-3


At 61 i am training to enter competition,
at 100 my competitors will not be many


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

33red said:


> At 61 i am training to enter competition,
> at 100 my competitors will not be many


I love it. Those are my goals too... the power curve tends to erode as age goes up 

I do notice that there is more comradery with amongst men and women in my age group. When I'm doing a crossfit competition (or even just a WOD) the glory doesn't come from beating other people in my masters age group. It comes from beating the younger people that are supposed to beat me.


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## badams118 (Nov 5, 2015)

I do the StrongLifts 5x5. I like that it is a simple program, and I can do the whole thing on a squat rack. It has done wonders for my strength training.

https://stronglifts.com/5x5/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Interesting program. How long have you been doing stronglifts 5x5?


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## JimmyAsheville (Oct 21, 2018)

Does anyone have any tips on how to develop my lower quads, the teardrop area near the knee? My upper and mid quads are enormous but my lowers just ain’t there. What I have is from riding, not lifting.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

JimmyAsheville said:


> Does anyone have any tips on how to develop my lower quads, the teardrop area near the knee? My upper and mid quads are enormous but my lowers just ain't there. What I have is from riding, not lifting.


If you go to a gym a machine is like a chair and you simply extend tour legs wich lifts the weight/load. You might try just small diffeneces in feet position and you will know when you connect with your target. The burn just needs to be more intense on your target area.


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## badams118 (Nov 5, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ Interesting program. How long have you been doing stronglifts 5x5?


About a year and a half. I found it while looking for a weight training program in preparation for a triathlon and for off season MTB training.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Meanwhile... the 50+ crew are like....


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

Dammit cyclelicious, you're making me feel guilty.

I might have to do something about it.

The first set of exercises look good.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Strength training and working out is very beneficial for the body (and mind) as we age but so is something as simple as breathing fresh air. "The more air pollution you breathe, the faster your brain ages." If you live within 50 metres of a major road, your chances of dementia go up by 7%.

From a new documentary:



> Matthew, featured in Something in the Air, a documentary from The Nature of Things, is a busy, athletic 10-year-old. He loves playing outside and just tried out for hockey. But he also has asthma and had to move because he couldn't breathe in the city.
> 
> Matthew didn't live in Delhi or Beijing - his family had to move from Toronto.
> 
> ...


sauce 
Something in the Air


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

Went back to kickboxing yesterday for the first time since last March. Felt great to get back into it. The first half was a little rough. My shoulders gave out after about two minutes of throwing punches. I'll get back. I'll never be able to get there 4x a week like I used to but between that, Piyo, mountain biking, Bowflex and I just obtained a stationary bike, I should bounce back.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I registered for the 2019 CrossFit Open. It's my 5th year. 

This evening we did 19.1 which is to complete as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes of:
19 wall-ball shots
19-cal. row

Looks simple and do-able on paper but it was tough


Did it prescribed


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

Made 6 rounds + 17 wall balls


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ That's awesome! You rock jpa102.  I got 6 rounds total


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

That will probably be the best I do this year. My oldest daughter rowed D1 in college and taught me good technique.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I completed 19.2 scaled (My toes to bar are just too slow) Gave it my all


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

I only made it through 6 of the 135lb squat cleans. Scaled as well, my toes will never touch the bar!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Late-blooming exercisers may get the same benefits as lifelong gym rats

It's never too late to get active.*

If you weren't active in your youth, it's easy to feel like you're starting off at a disadvantage. Maintaining fitness is so much easier than gaining it, and It's painful to feel like you're the only one struggling at the gym. If you're in your 40's or 50's and looking to get fit for the first time, you might wonder if it's even worth the effort.

A new study suggests it is. People who start exercising later in life-and yes, we mean as late as your 50's-reduce their mortality risk just as much as people who've been exercising their whole lives as compared to folks who are completely sedentary. What's more, in this new study that held true regardless of how a person's BMI fluctuated throughout their lives.

The study, which was published in JAMA Network Open, shows how powerful exercise is and why it's so important to be active late into your life. Researchers looked at 315,059 participants in total and separated them into three basic experimental groups: those who were active throughout their lives, those who were inactive as youngsters but became active as they got older, and those who were active youths who became less active in their later years.

It shouldn't surprise you to learn that the folks who got regular exercise throughout their lives fared pretty well. Compared to the control group, who had never been active, people who got 2-8 hours of exercise per week had a 29 to 36 percent reduced mortality risk (meaning they were that much less likely to die during the course of the data collection). Folks who got just one hour a week still reduced their risk, but only by 16 percent.

But the researchers write that even they were surprised by how much adults who got into the exercise game late were able to reduce their mortality. Those who upped their activity in their 30's, 40's, and 50's has mortality rates 32 to 35 percent lower than the control group-just as much as those who exercised from adolescence straight through their 60's. That was true even after researchers factored in whether people smoked, their educational level, race, alcohol consumption, diet, and several other confounders that would influence mortality and could correlate with physical activity level.

Meanwhile, people who started out quite active but became sedentary as they got older lost nearly all of the benefit of that early activity. Their risk reductions were only about 8 to 14 percent.

Of course, regardless of how thorough their methods are, studies like these are always going to come up a little short. These are correlations. If we wanted to really prove that working out causes a lowered mortality risk, we'd need to take a large bunch of 15-year-olds and assign them a certain amount of exercise to perform per week at every age, follow them until they died, then figure out which groups fared the best. But no one's going to do that. Instead, we do big studies like this repeatedly and compare them to other big studies to see if we consistently find the same answer. Though there haven't been many studies covering such a long period of time, there have been a few that looked at late-life exercise-and they found largely the same thing. A 2009 study in Sweden found that men who started exercising in their 50's had comparable mortality risks to those who exercised consistently. This 2003 study from Denmark found similar results in both men and women. A 2017 study found that, though people who maintained high levels of activity fared the best, that people who increased activity later in life still reduced their cardiovascular mortality risk by 25 percent.

It's always going to be difficult to know precisely how much you can improve your health by starting to exercise, but it's clear at this point that no matter your age or BMI, getting more active will help you. Any amount is a good amount, and a little is always better than nothing. So get moving any way you can.









sauce https://www.popsci.com/older-adults...n6ojtJGlYeyy2IVRfvk-vQO9pu1DhKMEc-WjR0#page-2


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## JMac47 (Apr 23, 2004)

Subscribed. But over 60 counts too right?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ yes you are in good company


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## Sir kayakalot (Jul 23, 2017)

Cyclelicious, you are my hero!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Thanks Sir kayakalot! I like doing a variety of activities like lifting weights and doing weight-bearing exercise to help prevent loss of bone ... plus it's fun.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I completed CrossFit Open 19.3.

I did it prescribed and wowed myself with good results

The overhead lunges were a descent weight (I've trained with 25lbs so the prescribed weight of 20lbs was awesome!) I got through the 200 meter lunges and 50 box steps with a few minutes to spare so I attempted the handstand pushups . I surprised myself that I had a little gas left in the tank and managed a few before running out of time.

A few pics

































2 more weeks to go!


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

So I thought the 55-59 y.o. workout looked easy so I did the 50-54. Big mistake! That 50lb dumbell got heavy real quick and the extra 4" on the step ups was big. I made it through the lunges and step-ups. By the time I got to the handstand push ups I was done!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

50lb! You are a beast!


The prescribed dumb bell for the 50-54 for ladies was 35lbs (scaled and Rx) ! The difference was where to hold the DB either overhead or shoulder for lunges. 

Most women (at any age) couldn't finish their lunges (if they did it prescribed) and the ones that did it scaled only got to do a handful of the box step ups. 
For once I was happy to be bumped into the older class  but it wasn't easy


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

My oldest daughter did the Rx. She almost finished the handstand push-ups. My wife did 30 step-ups. It was a hard workout.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Way to go to the ladies!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Scientists Find What Makes Our Bones Strong When We Exercise*









Exercise is good for us in a lot of ways. It helps cut the pounds, increases cardiovascular health, adds muscle mass and can boost our mood. What it also does, though, is help keep our bones strong.

Studies have shown that regular exercise, especially involving weights, ups bone mass and maintains the health of our skeletal system. For us spring chickens, having strong bones might not sound all that critical, as our skeleton seems to get by just fine no matter what we do. But in the elderly, osteoporosis, the gradual weakening of bones, is a real threat, and it's estimated to be responsible for around two million fractures annually in the U.S. Finding a way to make bones strong without exercise, which can be difficult for older individuals, could help cut that number substantially.

*Better Bones*
A group led by researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute may have found a way to begin creating such a treatment. Working in mice, the scientists have found a hormone linked to exercise that helps regulate the process of bone growth. The hormone is called irisin, and it's linked to a protein known as sclerostin, another mediator of skeletal health.

Both irisin and sclerostin play a role in the regular turnover of bone cells. While most of our bone cells are quite long-lived, there's still a regular background of death and regrowth among skeletal cells. Irisin and sclerostin both help signal our bodies to begin the process of breaking down old cells so new ones can form, and it's something that's kicked into a higher gear when we work out.

While it may seem confusing that something involved in killing bone cells also keeps our bones strong, it's important to remember that this process is part of a natural cycle of death and renewal. As bone cells are removed, it seems to signal our bodies to create new ones as well, and the end result is stronger, healthier bones.

The researchers confirmed their results with tests in mice modified to lack irisin. As they report in Cell, these mice didn't lose any bone mass when subjected to a model of osteoporosis, indicating that the researchers' hunch was correct. Again, it's counterintuitive, but the test proved that irisin is involved with the turnover of bone cells, which is a critical component of bone health. Paired with previous studies showing that mice treated with irisin have stronger bones, they say it's evidence that the hormone is an important part of skeletal health.

Additionally, irisin has been linked in other studies to fat regulation and brain activity as well, meaning that the hormone could prove beneficial in other ways as well.

The researchers also found a receptor for irisin within bone cells, something that they say should help them to further explore exactly how the hormone works within our bodies. Better understanding how the irisin produced by exercise works to strengthen bones could help lead to treatments based on the hormone in the future.

If so, we'll finally be able to reap the benefits of exercise without the sweat and exertion. At least, when it comes to our bones, that is.

sauce Scientists Find What Makes Our Bones Strong When We Exercise - D-brief


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## jpa102 (Jul 26, 2014)

I need strong bones with my propensity for unplanned dismounts!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Totally agree. Stronger, (check) better balance, (check), agility (check) endurance (check) ... it's all good


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Completed 19.4 as prescribed. Got 4 rounds. Made it to the second half and the chest to bar pull ups (but I'm slow at those) and more burpees. The weight for the snatch was lighter than what I train but throw in 3 rounds @10 reps snatch and 12 bar facing burpees ... it was nuts!

A few pics

























Chris isn't doing the Open so yesterday he did deadlifts and lifted a decent amount


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

CF Open 19.5 done as prescribed! Nothing but thrusters and pullups galore!

2019 Open is done. So far I'm doing well overall  I will know where I placed after all the world wide scores are entered.


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## ravewoofer (Dec 24, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> Completed 19.4 as prescribed. Got 4 rounds. Made it to the second half and the chest to bar pull ups (but I'm slow at those) and more burpees. The weight for the snatch was lighter than what I train but throw in 3 rounds @10 reps snatch and 12 bar facing burpees ... it was nuts!
> 
> A few pics
> 
> ...


First time I've seen Singlesprocket without a helmet. 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## oldcolonial (Aug 28, 2018)

Dr Evil said:


> Being fit is part of being healthy but just because you are physically fit it doesn't mean you are healthy.


Very true fit does not equal healthy. It does turn out that the two are strongly correlated though. Also, ss it turns out, it is pretty uncommon for super fit people to drop dead of a heart attack running a marathon. Of course it does happen, but the folks running a marathon are far less likely to keel over from a heart attack than the folks surfing their couches.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

oldcolonial said:


> Very true fit does not equal healthy. It does turn out that the two are strongly correlated though. Also, ss it turns out, it is pretty uncommon for super fit people to drop dead of a heart attack running a marathon. Of course it does happen, but the folks running a marathon are far less likely to keel over from a heart attack than the folks surfing their couches.


I agree with that.
It happened allmost 30 years ago, i decided to focus on being healthy and happy.
I kind of think it is hard to be happy when unhealthy.
I also think it is not easy to be healthy when unhappy.
Sofar so good, it might have been one of my best decisions.
I know some unhappy millionaires.
I just feel like a billionaire, allways plenty of time, never motivated by $$.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

2019 CrossFit Open results are final. I made an improvement from last year! This year I am 14th place /146 in Canada for my age category and 182 / 2184 in the World  Because I made the top 200 in the world I can move on to the next competition... cool


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> 2019 CrossFit Open results are final. I made an improvement from last year! This year I am 14th place /146 in Canada for my age category and 182 / 2184 in the World  Because I made the top 200 in the world I can move on to the next competition... cool
> 
> View attachment 1244271


Congratulations! That's a great accomplishment!


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## ravewoofer (Dec 24, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> 2019 CrossFit Open results are final. I made an improvement from last year! This year I am 14th place /146 in Canada for my age category and 182 / 2184 in the World  Because I made the top 200 in the world I can move on to the next competition... cool
> 
> View attachment 1244271


Awesome! Job well done! Do it again next year.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thanks guys! I have a good routine and it seems to be working... it gets me through the long winter. As the weather gets nicer and trails dry up, I'll be able to ride more but I do see improvement in my overall fitness level with strength training


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A personal trainer explains the six things he told his out-of-shape friend.

*How to Lose Weight and Get Back in Shape*

Earlier this week, I was talking with one of my best friends. He'd recently started dating again after getting divorced from his wife of 11 years. And let's just say that he wasn't quite as lean as he was when they first met. Not only had his waistline expanded considerably, his confidence had taken a hit. He was disappointed with his lot in life, and didn't feel good about himself and things in general.

He had, to put it bluntly, let himself go. And he wanted me to help him get rid of his paunch and shape up again. I'm a personal trainer with an advanced degree in exercise science, so I get this a lot. Here's what I told him:

*1. First, don't tell anyone what you're doing.*
The stock advice is that you should share your goals with other people, because it makes you accountable and gives you more motivation.

Personally, I think this is a mistake. Research shows that you're far better off keeping things to yourself.

Don't plaster it all over Facebook.

Don't tweet about it.

You want to go about your business like the SAS, on some covert operation behind enemy lines, where nobody hears about it until the job is done.

I'd also suggest that you go and do something that represents a simple "first step" towards getting in shape.

Maybe set your alarm 20 minutes early so you have time to get up in the morning and go for a brisk walk. Or take some of the food in your kitchen that you know you shouldn't be eating and get rid of it.

You want to go and do something positive. Something that says you're serious about getting in shape, rather than just contemplating starting to consider thinking about it.

*2. Next, you'll need to make some changes to your diet.*

You don't need anything complicated or fancy.

Nor do you need to cut out sugar, carbs, fat, lectins, wheat or whatever else the food police say is bad for you this week.

The first and most important thing to focus on is creating an energy deficit.

What exactly do I mean by that?

When you're in an energy deficit, there is a mismatch between the amount of energy your body needs and the amount it gets from your diet. So, it starts looking for something to make up the deficit.

As long as your diet and training program are set up right (which I'll tell you how to do in a moment), that "something" will be the fat you want to get rid of.

You also need to make sure you're eating enough protein. Research shows that protein does a better job at filling you up than carbohydrate or fat, as well as helping you retain (or even gain) muscle while you drop fat.

There are many ways to achieve those two things, from a ketogenic diet to intermittent fasting.

Ultimately, the "best" diet for losing your gut is one that you can stick to. Compliance and consistency trumps most other things when it comes to getting in shape.

Are you hitting your calorie and protein targets for the day? Are you eating mostly wholesome, nutrient-dense foods? Are you cutting down on the junk that you know isn't doing you any good?

If so, you don't need to worry too much about the rest.

You certainly don't need to eat six small meals a day, avoid carbs late at night, or any of the other minor details that people like to waste time thinking about.

*3. What about exercise?*

I'd suggesting lifting weights at least twice a week. Three times a week will be better. And, if you've got the time, four workouts a week is better than three.

Lifting weights isn't just for people who want to gain muscle, and will improve the way you look in two ways.

Firstly, if you don't do some form of weight training while you diet, a good deal of the weight you lose will come from muscle as well as fat.

Second, strength training makes a direct contribution to the energy deficit required to lose belly fat.

And, if you're doing exercises that work large muscle groups - squats, deadlifts, rows, lat pulldowns, presses, and so on - that contribution will end up being fairly substantial.

Make sure to train hard and push yourself. Aim to get each workout done in 45-60 minutes.

As far as cardio is concerned, I like to think of it as an optional extra. As long as your diet is set up properly, getting rid of the fat from your belly doesn't have to involve any cardio at all.

*4. You also need to start taking better care of yourself.*
And that starts with getting a decent night's sleep.

Sleep is something that's very important.

Studies show that lack of sleep can screw around with some of the hormones involved in both hunger (the physical need for food) and appetite (the desire for food), as well as lowering your testosterone levels.

Not getting enough sleep will make it a lot harder for you to get in shape, no matter how well your diet and training program are set up.

If you're struggling to sleep because you're worried about stuff, pick up a pen and paper and write down everything that's on your mind.

You don't necessarily need to find a solution to any of it.

Just get all the crap that's bouncing around in your head down on paper. That by itself will often make it a lot easier for you to relax and fall asleep at night.

*5. You also want to monitor your progress on a weekly basis.*

There's no point wasting money on getting your body fat tested, mainly because most body fat tests (especially the body fat scales) are a waste of time.

They're not accurate enough for you to use the information to make better decisions about what to eat or how to train.

Instead, focus on the way you look in the mirror, how your pants fit around the waist, your weight on the scales and your strength levels in the gym.

Always be willing to change what you're doing if the results dry up.

Don't keep on doing the same thing if it's not working. Stay committed to your goals, but flexible in the approach you use to get there.

*6. Finally, you'll need to be patient.*
You'll come across a lot of crazy claims about how fast it's possible to lose fat or gain muscle. Don't let them distract you or push you off course.

You're not going to lose 25 pounds of fat in 25 days, or gain 30 pounds of muscle in a month. It's all marketing BS.

No two people respond in the exact same way to an identical program of diet and exercise.

Which means that nobody can predict in advance exactly how fast you'll lose fat or gain muscle, because they don't know you.

They don't know what your genetics are like, how much fat you want to lose, or how close you are to your maximum muscular potential, all of which can affect your rate of progress.

What I suggest you do instead is take some advice from John Wooden.

Wooden was college basketball's most successful coach. His teams won 10 national championships in a 12-season stretch from 1964 to 1975. No NCAA men's basketball coach has won more than four championships since Wooden retired.

Wooden's theory was that you worry only about your preparation and the performance of your team.

You have to accept that the result is ultimately out of your hands, but that it is in your control to make sure you have done your very best.

And that's exactly what I suggest you do.

Focus on what you can control-the food you eat, the training you do, the amount of sleep you get, and so on-rather than the things you can't.

Do the right things, every day, and let the results take care of themselves.

sauce https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...bDZrq4BQMFjSMP0Keh92iG-wMI3WiVJRQK5X35eBs6IW4


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## funkle (Sep 11, 2006)

For me, it's a lot of core intensive exercise, and preventative/reparative maintenance. I still use weights, but all motions heavily engage the core, like doing push-ups rather than bench press. Dead-lifts are probably the most beneficial exercise I do. When done correctly, they target the entire core in a way that nothing else I've tried does. Lower back pain is gone.

I also spend a lot of tome on my shoulders. I've had a few separations, and have some pain. So I do a lot of rotational work with the cables & light weights.

Flexibility is soooooo important as you age. For I have tight hamstrings & IT bands, so try to roller & stretch.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Most Overhyped Wellness Promises, Debunked*

(Click link below for full story on each claim)

Raise your hand if you have a friend who's tried one of the following in the name of wellness: apple cider vinegar, gluten-free food, colonics, or detoxing? How about the friend who avoids microwaves and antiperspirant to protect themselves from "radiation" and "toxins," respectively? Or the one who swears that the crystals in their bedroom are responsible for all the positive changes they've made recently? Yeah, that one. Those ones. This list is for them. And for you, to share with them when you're at a loss for words.

Behold our ever-growing list of today's most pervasive wellness lies (or are they misunderstandings? Misguided hopes and dreams*?). Click through on each one for a clear, deeply researched, as-definitive-as-possible explanation, gathered from experts and years of scientific research. You won't find any thin claims based on small studies or experiments on cells or mice, unless we're using them to point out how insufficient the research is on a given subject.

In some of these cases, the body of research continues to develop. There may be a time when, say, there's a probiotic on the market that is proven to improve your mood. But until that time arrives, it's worth saving your time and money and keeping an eye on the research. Here, in no particular order, we're setting the record straight on the the most overhyped health and wellness promises out there today.

*Granted, magical cure-alls are very appealing to people short on time and in a country where healthcare is expensive. But until the "cures" actually live up to their marketing hype, the solution is to do the difficult, boring, and not-Instagrammable things that are shown to work-get enough sleep, work out regularly, drink water, don't drink too much alcohol or do too many drugs, eat a diet full of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and not that much meat, and manage stress (lol).



> 1. *Pink himalayan salt* isn't more "nutritious" than regular table salt.
> While it may contain higher trace amounts of some minerals, the amounts are insignificant and afford no additional health benefits. Read the full story.
> 
> *2. Lectins are not bad for you.*
> ...


sauce https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...5hPlOIdRvexeRXnBp8NSS5YrOiqNZ-IDA2gAX9BSI-FrA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

When Animals Attack:


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

Triathletes now saying "Oh ****"


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## SkolinIN (Feb 16, 2017)

strength training in like running you just can't stop or it will hurt when you come back to it and it makes you more injury prone. Keep moving


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## Merkki (Apr 29, 2019)

I am 58 years old. I was a gym rat in my teens, a bodybuilder in my twenties, and a home gym rat in my thirties up until my children were born (late thirties). I went back into the gym a few years ago after a long layoff. That is when reality hit me. I underwent rotator cuff repairs on both shoulders and knee surgery in my thirties and forties to fix the damage that I did in my younger years. I wanted to train differently. I found that difference in functional training with kettlebells and bodyweight versus traditional isolation training with free weights and machines. Nothing, and I do mean nothing engages one's core in a body mechanics-friendly way like the Russian kettlebell swing when executed correctly (the kettlebell swing is a hinge at the hips movement that engages most of the muscles in the human body, not a squat plus front-raise movement). The American kettlebell swing that was developed as part of CrossFit is an injury in the making. That exercise was created to help prepare people for the barbell snatch, but it is a "no, just no" exercise from a body mechanics point of view. The average 50+ man can see huge results with just body weight and double 12kg and 16kg kettlebells. That setup supports two-handed single 12kg and 16kg swings as well as 2x12kg (53lbs) and 2x16kg double kettlebell (70lbs) swings and other single and double-handled kettlebell exercises. There is a reason why Navy SEALs and other special forces elements train with kettlebells, they work! Nothing burns fat like kettlebells. Most kettlebell movements result in combined anaerobic and aerobic exercise. I guarantee that the average person who trains with isolation exercises will be huffing and puffing after completing 10 sets of 10 Russian swings in 10 minutes with enough weight to load the exercise correctly. Two hundred kettlebell snatches (10 sets of 10 with each hand) in ten minutes will have most non-kettlebell users lying on the floor.


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## funkle (Sep 11, 2006)

I agree 100%. Core intensive functional movement is where it's at and the swing is great. I worked with a trainer that had so many great movements, I wish I remembered more of them. There's one where you bend over as if to touch your toes, put your hands on the floor, walt them out until you're in a plank, do a push-up, then reverse the walk back to where you started.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

funkle said:


> I agree 100%. Core intensive functional movement is where it's at and the swing is great. I worked with a trainer that had so many great movements, I wish I remembered more of them. *There's one where you bend over as if to touch your toes, put your hands on the floor, walt them out until you're in a plank, do a push-up, then reverse the walk back to where you started.*


Sounds like a burpee variation. Excellent


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## funkle (Sep 11, 2006)

My wife says her yoga instructor says he sees more injuries from kettle bell swing than any other exercise, so make sure your form is correct.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

funkle said:


> My wife says her yoga instructor says he sees more injuries from kettle bell swing than any other exercise, so make sure your form is correct.


I see the KB swing butchered more than any other movement save for maybe the squat. But a well executed swing (I'm also partial to the snatch) is the perfect movement for those of us looking for a good combination of strength, flexibility, and overall fitness.


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## funkle (Sep 11, 2006)

Horseshoe said:


> I see the KB swing butchered more than any other movement save for maybe the squat. But a well executed swing (I'm also partial to the snatch) is the perfect movement for those of us looking for a good combination of strength, flexibility, and overall fitness.


I like deadlift. Done well it hits my core like nothing else.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

funkle said:


> I like deadlift. Done well it hits my core like nothing else.


Definitely my favorite and best lift. There is nothing as primal as pulling a heavy weight from the floor. I was on a quest for a 500 lb deadlift and got up to 470 a few years ago while competing in powerlifting and before being being diagnosed with arthritis in my hip. I still work at it periodically but if i go too hard i feel like i'm grinding my femur to dust in my hip socket and the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. But if your body will let you, the deadlift is overall awesome overall for strength development and testosterone production.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ ^I agree. Deadlifts make me feel strong and invincible.

I did deadlifts this evening as part of my workout. I'm competing for crossfit games age qualifier. Workout #1 was 3 sets. 15 deadlifts. 35 overhead squats and 90 double unders (The worst part was the double unders)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Merkki (Apr 29, 2019)

funkle said:


> I like deadlift. Done well it hits my core like nothing else.


I was never a fan of the deadlift, not even when I was a hardcore bodybuilder. It is one of the most injury prone exercises. I have seen a lot of people suffer lower back blowouts over the years. The barbell squat is also an injury-prone exercise. I am a guy who has first-hand experience with lifting injuries. I blew out both of my rotator cuffs and herniated a knee. I only do bodyweight, kettlebells, cycling, and hiking these days.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

Merkki said:


> I was never a fan of the deadlift, not even when I was a hardcore bodybuilder. It is one of the most injury prone exercises. I have seen a lot of people suffer lower back blowouts over the years. The barbell squat is also an injury-prone exercise. I am a guy who has first-hand experience with lifting injuries. I blew out both of my rotator cuffs and herniated a knee. I only do bodyweight, kettlebells, cycling, and hiking these days.


I kind of see things your way. Loading my spine to the max sure looks like early or over decades the outcome will not please me. To me flexibilty is a valuable aspect many should value more. Well adults can choose. Many enjoy riding down fast. I enjoy the challenge of a climb.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

Merkki said:


> I was never a fan of the deadlift, not even when I was a hardcore bodybuilder. It is one of the most injury prone exercises. I have seen a lot of people suffer lower back blowouts over the years. The barbell squat is also an injury-prone exercise. I am a guy who has first-hand experience with lifting injuries. I blew out both of my rotator cuffs and herniated a knee. I only do bodyweight, kettlebells, cycling, and hiking these days.


There is some truth to this, although nothing that can't be overcome through decent coaching. Deadlifts are completely safe and effective if performed with conscious thought towards form (ie proper bracing and a neutral spine), but may be a recipe for disaster for the average gym goer. Back squats are the same and I rarely see these performed properly outside of a powerlifting or Crossfit gym. Of course the downside to cutting either of these from your programming is that nothing you can do will match their impact on overall muscle development, bone density, and hormone production.

FWIW for anyone other than powerlifters I highly recommend some variation of the front squat over the backsquat as it has a similar stimulus at lower weights and removes the lower back from the equation. Further the emphasis on the upper back is a fantastic posterual corrective and fixes a lot of what biking and sitting at a keyboard screw up. It also demands proper form or you the bar will be dumped forward so it is self correcting in that regard. The downside for a cyclist is the overemphasis on quads and will need to be balanced out with a posterior dominant exercise (hint; kettlebell swings are what you're looking for here).


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More good stuff on squats

We did back squats yesterday @70-80% of our max

*What muscles do squats work?*

Unbeknownst to the bros who skip leg day, squats are an incredible exercise for many reasons. They help build your major leg muscles plus all the tiny stabilizing muscles that you need to do basic daily tasks like getting up from a chair. You may not yet be of an age where standing up is challenging, but when you are you will be better off if you built up those muscles earlier in your life. Plus, squats sculpt your butt-and who doesn't want a nice-looking butt?

All of this is true if you're doing a real squat. You may have heard gym-goers talk about getting "below parallel"-that means that when you squat, your butt drops below your knees. They're not just being pedantic. Getting down to that full depth squat is part of what makes it such an effective, useful exercise. "With a squat, you're basically trying to extend your hips and your knees," explains Greg Nuckols, who holds both degrees in exercise science and three all-time world records in powerlifting (his site, Stronger by Science, is a nerdy weightlifter's goldmine). To accomplish that you need to engage your quads, your glutes, and your adductor magnus. (Don't worry, we'll explain exactly what those actually are.)

To be more precise about it, you have four quadricep muscles (that's why they're called quads), and squats primarily work three of them: your vastus lateralis, your vastus medialis, and your vastus intermedius. The fourth, the rectus femoris, doesn't do as much work. Those three muscles all cross your knee joint, so they help with the knee extension portion of the move.

To flex and extend your hips, you need the help of your glutes and your adductor magnus, which roughly translates to your butt and your inner thighs. Lots of people think squats also work your hamstrings (that's the muscle group on the back of your thighs), but Nuckols says they don't do much. "When your hamstrings contract they do help extend your hips, but they also kind of fight against what your quads are doing by imposing a knee flexion moment," he says. Your body is trying to find the most efficient pattern of muscle activation to accomplish any given motion, and your hammies aren't part of that equation in the squat. Other hip flexor muscles will help you far more.

So all of that is how you manage to do the lower body portion of a squat-above parallel, it's a lot of quad work, and below parallel, you engage your glutes.

But you've got one more task to accomplish, especially if you've got a barbell on your shoulders: keeping your torso upright. A rounded back is a recipe for an injury, so maintaining rigidity through your trunk is crucial. Your chest should be upright and your shoulders should be back, which involves engages all those back muscles and abs to maintain a straight spine. "Squats generally work all of the muscles in your torso," Nuckols says, "so that includes your spinal erectors, your abs, your obliques, and probably even your lats to some degree."

The end result is a single lift that works most of your body in one fell swoop. If you're not able to maintain perfect posture or get below parallel, ease up on the weight until your form is flawless, and then build the resistance back up slowly. An unweighted squat will still engage all those muscles if it's done properly, but a sloppy squat under a loaded barbell could leave some of them out-which is inefficient at best, and potentially dangerous at worst.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/what-muscles...TrGvUShmujBJewTNqF0f7_9r7H4TJ3JlM6M7jIKHoS8Rc


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## rdsmith3 (Oct 5, 2014)

I discovered trap bar deadlifts, and that has become my favorite. It does not seem to strain my lower back like regular deadlifts, or even squats.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

rdsmith3 said:


> I discovered trap bar deadlifts, and that has become my favorite. It does not seem to strain my lower back like regular deadlifts, or even squats.


We don't have this piece of equipment at our gym. (I'm a crossfitter) I was curious though, so I found an interesting article on trap bar deadlifts.

*The Trap Bar Deadlift*

Of all the bizarre looking pieces of equipment that inhabit the weight-room floor, none draw as many confused looks from new clients as the trap bar. The sometimes hexagonal, sometimes diamond-shaped bar has been described as a cross between a car chassis and a tenth-grade geometry problem.

But despite the awkward appearance, the trap bar (also known as a Hex Bar) might just be the greatest innovation in strength-training equipment in the last thirty years.

The trap bar was originally patented in 1985 by a powerlifting aficionado named Al Gerard, who was trying to find a way to train around a recurring lower back injury. It has since gained widespread support among many coaches as a back-friendly alternative to both traditional straight-bar deadlifts and squats.

This article will examine the use of the trap bar deadlift in modern strength programs, not only as a means of working around injury, but as a stand-alone exercise whose benefits may surpass that of the traditional straight bar deadlift.

*Trap Bar Benefits*
Less Stress on the Spine
As others have pointed out, the biggest drawback of both the straight bar deadlift and the barbell back squat is the amount of harmful stress it puts on the lumbar spine. Both exercises require the weight to be some distance away from the axis of rotation where the work is being performed (i.e., the hip), thus relying on the back to act like a crowbar to move the weight.

As a result, your training weights are limited to the capabilities of your back extensors to resist flexion as much, if not more, than your legs' ability to produce maximum force. And as you might expect, when things don't go strictly according to plan, it's your spine that's stuck paying the bill.

Since the trap bar configuration allows you to step inside it rather than behind it, the long lever is shortened along a horizontal axis, thus significantly reducing the amount of sheer force on the spine.

Earlier this year, research by Swinton et al. on the biomechanics of the hex bar deadlift versus the straight bar deadlift confirmed what many coaches had theorized for years - that the hex deadlift produced lower peak moments on both the lumbar spine and hips, moving it several notches to the right on the risk-reward spectrum.

*More Power*
Here's where the Swinton study gets interesting. Not only was the trap bar deadlift a safer exercise than the straight bar version, it was also a more effective exercise for building maximum power.

According to the authors, significantly greater levels of peak force, velocity, and power were produced with the trap bar compared to the straight bar across a range of submaximal loads. Since power is a measure of an object's force times its velocity, this means the hex deadlift allows you to lift more weight, over a greater distance, faster.

The authors go on to explain that the peak power values measured with the trap bar deadlift were on par with those captured in other studies that looked at Olympic weightlifting exercises like the power clean. This, of course, is a critical piece of information for coaches looking for a high-benefit, low-cost (in both time and potential for injury) exercise for increasing maximum power.

Why is this the first time we're seeing such high power outputs with a deadlift?

Simple - we've always measured these quantities with a straight barbell. And unless you've completely abandoned all prospects of having children in the future, chances are you spent as much time decelerating the bar as it sped its way toward your nether regions, as you did accelerating it off the ground.

This is obviously a lot less of a problem with the trap bar. Since there is no pelvis-cracking impact at the top of the movement, there's no reason to start pumping the breaks early.

*Better for Beginners*
Most beginner-level trainees deadlift with about the same level of skill that a chef at the Olive Garden prepares authentic northern Italian cuisine, which is to say, not very much at all.

For the majority of the population, getting into a good deadlift position with a straight bar is a huge challenge requiring a lot of upfront coaching and a generous helping of mobility work. This is especially true among the desk-jockey demographic who spend eight hours a day practicing lumbar flexion and posterior pelvic tilt.

Sure, there's that occasional outlier who comes walking into the gym - back arched, abdominals braced, shoulder blades retracted, looking for something heavy to lift off the floor with perfect form - but these people are rare.

That's where the trap bar comes in so handy. Its configuration leads to a much more upright torso position, allowing you to "sit" into the movement with far fewer technical requirements than a traditional straight bar deadlift. It also allows the knees to move more forward and the hips to sit lower than normal, avoiding the bar scraping your shins at the bottom of the movement.

The only potential drawback some coaches have with the trap bar setup has to do with the final stage of hip extension or lockout at the top of the movement. In the straight bar deadlift, you essentially lock your hips into place against the bar, preventing your back from overextending, whereas with the trap bar there's no such stopping mechanism. However, this problem can be easily coached away.

*Execution*






To setup for the trap bar deadlift, first step inside the perimeter of the bar, making sure your feet are positioned equidistant between the front and back of the bar.

Grip the handles tightly on either side so that your middle finger is in horizontal alignment with the front of your shin, while rotating the insides of your elbows forward. This will help to pick up any slack at the shoulder capsule.

Squat your hips down with an arch in your back.

Once in position, stand up by driving your feet into the ground, straightening your legs, and thrusting your hips forward. As you approach the top of the movement, squeeze your glutes together and brace your abdominals to finish the movement.

Sauce, and more stuff: https://www.t-nation.com/training/trap-bar-deadlift


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## rdsmith3 (Oct 5, 2014)

cyclelicious said:


> [edit]
> That's where the trap bar comes in so handy. Its configuration leads to a much more upright torso position, allowing you to "sit" into the movement with far fewer technical requirements than a traditional straight bar deadlift. It also allows the knees to move more forward and the hips to sit lower than normal, avoiding the bar scraping your shins at the bottom of the movement.
> 
> [edit]
> Sauce, and more stuff: https://www.t-nation.com/training/trap-bar-deadlift


Thanks for that info. It confirms what I thought.

This piece of equipment is not used by many people in the crowded gym I go to in NYC, so that is another advantage! While every bench is in use, the trap bar sits unused in the corner. (Why do so many guys focus so much on the bench press?)


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## rdsmith3 (Oct 5, 2014)

*Army fitness test*

It looks like the US Army is using a trap bar deadlift as part of their new fitness test.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your...utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL


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## Rev Bubba (Jan 16, 2004)

Off season, my wife and I go to a local military base and use the Nautilus machines three days a week. She's an RN and totally agrees that it's a necessary thing when you age. I'll be 70 in a few weeks. She will not be 70 any time soon.

I usually ride another three days and we power walk four or five days too. No running because it can damage older joints.

For reasons I can not begin to explain or even understand, I'm just not into free weights. Nor is my wife but we certainly live a very active life.

PS: Off season is after ski season for me. I ski 5 days a week from November to mid April so gyms are not in my schedule. My wife sticks with the gym since she is not overly fond of freezing. Many of the people I ski with are former Euro racers so think of our skiing as pretty freakin' intense even when we are taking it easy. I was an instructor for 26 years myself.

PPS: My mindset has always been that "if I stop moving, I'll stop moving."

PPPS: I weight close to what I weighed in college when I played NCAA Soccer and about what I weighted in the army.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Here are some AMAZING pictures from a new study of masters level athletes. The top pic is a cross section of the thigh of a 40 year old triathlete. The bottom is a triathlete at 70. The middle is a sedentary 74 year old man.

Sauce https://www.bettermovement.org/blog/2012/use-or-lose-looks-like

sauce Masters athletes keep their muscle with age - Bicycle Lab


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

^^ That's very informative. Thanks or the post. 

My 14 year old asked me for a speed bag so last week, we put one up in the basement. He took to it like a duck to water and told me he'd teach me how. I'm very impressed at what a workout it is. Only problem is it's directly under the kitchen and it drives everyone crazy. We try to do it when no one is home.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Regular exercise helps reverse age-related changes in your heart*

Good news: If you've spent most of your life as a competitive master athlete who trains more than six days a week (in addition to competitions) your heart probably looks and performs like one that is much younger than its chronological age.

Doesn't sound like you? Don't worry, there's also some good news for the rest of us. Even if you've spent more time hanging out than working out over the past few decades, starting an exercise program in middle age might earn you a younger-looking heart too.

A growing body of research suggests that exercise regimens - even relatively moderate ones that start later in life - can not only boost your fitness, but also reverse age-related changes to the heart.

One study, published in the January 2018 issue of Circulation, found that a consistent exercise program was able to improve elasticity in the heart's left ventricle by 25% in people who stuck with it for two years. This increase in elasticity is important because as you age, your heart muscle, like other muscles in your body, can become stiffer. "Stiffness limits the heart's ability to keep up with exercise," says Dr. Malissa Wood, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. The more rigid the heart is, the more limited its ability to pump blood efficiently. So, exercise can not only improve heart function, but also essentially reverse some of the changes that could lead to heart failure later in life.

*Workouts lead to benefits*
To come to these conclusions, study authors recruited 61 participants from the Dallas Heart Study. They were all sedentary people, in otherwise good health, ages 45 to 64. Researchers divided participants into two groups: one that performed the exercise intervention and a control group that was assigned to perform non-cardiovascular workouts, including yoga along with balance exercises and strength training three times a week.

People in the exercise group were given an individualized training plan that gradually ramped up their activity level over time. Participants started out doing moderate-intensity workouts three times a week and later added additional workouts and some high-intensity exercises to some of those sessions. (A moderate-intensity activity is one where you are working hard enough to carry on a conversation, but not sing. At high intensity, it's difficult to speak in full sentences.)

By the sixth month of the trial, the exercise group was doing five or six hours of exercise each week, including two sessions that included interval training, which alternates between moderate activity and higher-intensity exercise. This might include walking for a set amount of time and then breaking into a jog for a few minutes before walking again. It is designed to increase the heart rate for short periods of time and has been shown to improve exercise capacity.

While a few people dropped out - 53 of the original 61 participants completed the study - those in the exercise group who stuck with the workouts saw an 18% improvement in fitness, measured by how much oxygen they took in during exercise. Those changes were in addition to the improvements seen in heart elasticity.

*Getting started with an exercise plan*
If you've been sedentary for many years, the findings of this study should serve as an incentive to get moving. To gain the most profound heart benefits, study authors say that ideally you should start a regular exercise program before you turn 65. When you are 45 or 50, you still have good joints, you still have good heart health, and you likely don't have conditions that make it dangerous for you to start an exercise program, says Dr. Wood.

But even if you've missed that window, regular exercise will bring numerous health benefits at any age, she says. Exercise reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease in addition to helping you to manage your weight, blood pressure, and blood sugar. "You are never too old to start exercising," says Dr. Wood. However, if you are older or have any health conditions, be sure to consult with your doctor before you begin an exercise program, to make sure the workouts you choose are appropriate for your condition.

Even brisk walking 30 minutes four or five days a week is good for your heart, says Dr. Wood.

"You really don't have to do a lot of exercise to get the benefit," she says. "It doesn't take a lot of time, and you don't need to exert yourself heavily. Moderate-intensity exercise is sufficient."









sauce https://www.health.harvard.edu/hear...lps-reverse-age-related-changes-in-your-heart


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

All my favorite lifts and exercises

Heavy Lifting For the Endurance Athlete Part 1: Learning the 7 Key Exercises

Addressing Your Limiters
Before beginning a strength program, it is important to address areas that might limit performance. Limitations can arise from repetitive training such as swimming, biking, and running. Endurance athletes spend so much time performing the same movement patterns over and over again. The imbalances that come up can lead to discrepancies between limbs, produce injuries, and can potentially hinder performance.

Cyclists typically have very strong quadriceps, yet weak hamstrings and hip stabilizers. Runners tend to have strong quads and calves, but disproportional glutes and shin muscles. Triathletes often have dysfunctional hips, knees, and ankles. These imbalances lead to discrepancies between limbs, produce injuries, and can potentially hinder performance. Common areas for triathletes include dysfunctional hips, knees, and ankles. In order to reduce the limiters, it is important to warm up well before exercising, stretch well afterward, and take advantage of soft tissue modalities for recovery.

The combination of these three when used regularly can do wonders for performance by minimizing limiters. Another method of reducing limitations is by incorporating mobility and stability exercises. These exercises can help improve the quality and efficiency of movement within a joint or help it to remain steady when the joint is under stress, both of which are very important for triathletes.

Exercise Selection
One of the most important parts of a well designed strength program is exercise selection. Without the right selection, the end result may not be there, as well as a large waste of time. Endurance athletes should prioritize multi-joint exercises (such as a squat), exercises capable of heavy loads (such as a deadlift), and exercises that focus on power development (such as a box jump). Stick to basic lifts for success.

Establish Proper Form
Once these simple aspects are incorporated, it is important to develop a baseline of strength and establish proper form. To do this, perform the exercises that will make up your strength program with a focus on technique and a lighter weight. If you are having issues with a particular exercise, go slower, and improve your control over the weight. When you feel like you can control the weight well, begin to add resistance.

7 Key Exercises
The following text and videos will show you how to perform seven exercises that you can use for your strength routine. Remember, warm up well before starting and don't forget to stretch well afterwards.

DEADLIFT
Start with the barbell on the floor. Keep your chest up, hips back, and pull the bar until you have locked your hips and knees. Make sure your lower back remains neutral.









BOX JUMP
Jump on a box and land as softly as possible. Step down Repeat.









ROMANIAN DEADLIFT

Grip the bar shoulder width pinch your shoulder blades together and keep your chest up. Lower ther bar towards the top of your shoelaces by bending at the hips while keep the bar close to your body

SQUAT 
(Front squats place an emphasis on the quads and core, where back squats work the hamstrings primarily)
Rest a barbell on your upper back. Squat down until your hips are below your knees. Focus on going as deep as possible to work the posterior chain. Push back on your heels as you perform each rep.









BENCH PRESS

Lie on a bench with your feet flat on the floor. Lower the bar to your mid chest. Pressit back up until your arms are fully extended

PULL UP
With hands shoulder width apart, begin by hanging from the bar with arms fully extended. Pull yourself up towards the bar with your chin is clearing the bar. Lower yourself slowly and repeat.
















PUSH PRESS
Grasp the barbell from the rack. Start with the barbell chest high. Dip your body while bending your knees. Drive the barbell over the shoulders extending the arms overhead while explosively driving upward with your legs. Bring the barbell back to the chest.









After managing weaknesses, establishing a solid foundation, and learning proper form, greater loading can begin. For part two of this series, we will discuss how to move into the heavy lifting phase once you have the movements down and a strength base established.

Read part 2 of this series to learn how to schedule your strength training session to improve your performance

sauce https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/...h0RGBKzcEwqscTFmbkbU4JS-02VslmNGCWL53XY5m4p3w


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Cycling is Bad for Bone Density and How You Can Improve It*

Cycling has a variety of health benefits, however, research has shown that it does not help create strong bones. In fact, depending on the amount of cycling you do, it may even decrease your bone density. So, if your only form of exercise is cycling, you may end up with weaker bones than those who are inactive.

*Why Cycling Isn't Good for Your Bones*
There is a lot of research on bone health and a fair amount on bone health for cyclists. Here are several reasons cyclists have lower than normal bone densities.

*1. CYCLING IS NON-WEIGHT BEARING*
The primary reason for cyclists having low bone density is that it is a non-weight bearing activity. High level cycling in articular has been shown to have negative effects on bone strength because of the amount of time cyclists spend training and riding. You are spending a lot of time seated, with no compression forces on your spine and pelvis. Even though it may feel like you are pedaling hard at times, the forces you are putting into the pedals are not distributed in a way that puts significant strain on your bones, which is needed for bone growth.

*2. RECOVERY TIME*
Necessary recovery time from hard cycling usually involves additional non-weight bearing activity of sitting or lying down. Most cyclists reported avoiding weight bearing activities during recovery periods as a way to help enhance recovery from training.
*
3. LOW BODY MASS*
Cyclists are generally lighter, and low body mass is also a risk factor for osteoporosis and osteopenia. This especially applies to women (who in general have lower body mass) as well as to cyclists who are consistently striving to obtain a low body weight in order to improve performance.

*4. INCREASED RISK OF FRACTURES FROM CRASHES OR FALLS*
Whether you compete or just ride for fitness and fun, chances are at some point you will take a fall, or be involved in a crash. This applies to any level cyclist, whether you ride solo, with friends, in groups, or compete in rallies and races.

*What the Research Shows*
If you are a road cyclist, especially if you train hard or have been training for multiple years, you are more likely to develop osteopenia or osteoporosis. This puts you at a higher risk for fractures; a risk that continues to go up with age and training. More masters were classified as osteoporotic compared to age-matched, non-athletes, and the percentage of these increased significantly after a seven-year period.1 So, for those of you in this category, you are not only more likely to be at risk, but the risk factor is higher as you complete more years of cycling training.

In 2012, there was an extensive review of 31 studies on the subject2. The findings were that adult road cyclists who train regularly have significantly low bone mineral density in key regions. This was found to be true when comparing the cyclists to control populations of both athletes in other sports as well as non-athletes. Areas of the lumbar spine, pelvic and hip regions, and femoral neck were all key areas found to have lower values in road cyclists than the controls.

Included in this review were only a few studies involving amateur or low-level cyclists. Differences in bone mass were not found between the cyclists and controls when comparing with low level cyclists. However, studies that examined elite cyclists, or those training at high levels for numerous years, consistently found low bone mineral density in the elite and experienced cyclists.

This further supports the idea that your level of training and the number of years you spend training are strong factors in your risk for low bone density.

*Differences in Cycling Disciplines

ROAD CYCLING*
Road cycling at a competitive level might be more detrimental for bone health than mountain biking and recreational forms of cycling. This is due to all the reasons stated previously. Long hours on the bike, non-weight bearing. No impact forces, low forces in general while pedaling, and a lot of time off your feet trying to recover from training.

*MOUNTAIN BIKING*
Mountain bikers, however, were found to have higher bone mineral density than road cyclists. One reason given for this was the vibrations endured off road. Depending on the level of mountain biking, the increased short durations of high force to get over obstacles may also help.

*SPRINTERS*
Sprint trained cyclists have stronger bones than distance trained cyclists. This makes sense because of the large forces they generate for short periods of time. The leg muscles are creating high forces, which in turn puts high forces on the bones they are connected to. The high forces for short durations are similar to the demands of weightlifting. However, keep in mind that as a non-weight bearing activity, as hard as you might go as a sprinter, compression forces on the spine are still not present.

*TRIATHLETES AND DUATHLETES*
Triathletes and Duathletes: the combination of cycling and running counteracts the negative effects on bone mass that cycling alone may result in. Duathlon and triathlon training do not have the same negative effects as cycling training alone. 
*
JUNIORS*
Most of the differences in bone health were considering those older than 17 years of age. It is worth mentioning that the observation of cycling in the early years of life did not negatively affect the bones. However, it doesn't positively affect the bones either. Participation in other sports has been shown to positively affect bone growth more than cycling does.

*What Should You do To Improve Your Bone Density*
We all want strong bones that are resistant to breaking; especially as we age. This is even more important for cyclists. Let's face it, a crash or fall at some point in your cycling life is likely to happen. Stacking the odds in your favor by including activities to maintain and stimulate bone strength is your best line of defense against a fracture if you do happen to hit the ground at a greater impact than you would like.

"Strength training and putting impact forces on your bones is the number one thing you can do to promote bone health and bone density."

*Put Forces on your Bones to Make Them Stronger*
The aspects that account for bone strength include bone mineral density, content, bone size, and thickness. When muscles contract they pull on the bones to which they are connected. These forces provide the stimulus for bones to grow both thicker and denser. Maximal strength training and impact forces are the best way to provide this stimulus to your bones. A bone needs to experience a tenth of the amount of force needed to break it in order to be stimulated enough to create increased bone density. Remember this key factor in your strength work.

Don't be afraid to lift relatively heavy weights, and add some plyometrics and impact training into your program. Some examples might be jumping rope or any kind of jumping, or, even punching a bag for fun to provide some impact for your upper body. Adding these things to your program AFTER developing a foundation will ensure that you are ready for the higher forces that these often place on the body. Strength training results in your body's ability to actually increase the amount of muscle fibers that are fired, as well as, how fast they are able to fire. Both of these things result in the muscle being capable of producing more force, which in turn, means more forces exerted upon the bones to which they are attached.

In addition to providing greater forces to stimulate bone growth, strength training also reduces risk factors that result in broken bones by increasing muscle mass and improving balance. This is especially important in masters populations at any activity level. If you have better balance, more strength and muscle, and stronger bones, all of those things come together to make you more physically resilient and stable. You will be better prepared to handle that unexpected gust of wind or pothole due to increase core and total body strength and stability. If it happens that you are involved in a crash, your bones are less likely to crack under the impact. Now, you have two ways of staying off the injury list.

*How to Strength Train for Strong Bones*

*1. PUT RANDOM FORCES ON YOUR BONES TO STIMULATE GROWTH*.
Some research has shown that the best results in the short term come out of subjecting bones to high forces in a more random fashion. Shorter term training programs of more random high intensity forces on your muscles and bones have actually been shown to be more effective than programs that progress over time. Now, this is contradictory to a program you might put together for performance gains, but it is still something that should be considered if you are concerned about improving your bone strength. Also, these are short term results. It doesn't mean you shouldn't periodize your program, as longer periods may be needed to produce the benefits to bone density in that case. If you are following a periodized program and want to make sure it addresses your bone health, my suggestion would be to continue to do so. However, make sure to include one or two exercises that target bone health regardless of what the overall program goals are. The goal of these movements is to provide the forces on your bones to stimulate adaptation.

*2. SELECT EXERCISES THAT INVOLVE LARGE MUSCLE GROUPS.*
The movements involving the larger muscles or multiple muscle groups are all good choices, assuming an adequate amount of resistance is used. This is because the larger muscles can produce more force than the smaller ones. Multiple muscles working together will also be able to generate more total forces on the bones as well as provide forces in multiple planes of motion.

*3. ALLOW FOR LONGER REST PERIODS BETWEEN SETS TO ALLOW FOR GREATER FORCE PRODUCTION.*
Circuit training is a type of training program where individuals are performing movements, one right after the other with little rest, and then repeating the circuit multiple times. It has NOT been found to be as effective for bone and muscle growth. The reason for this is due to the lower amounts of resistance used, because of the short rest periods, and the forces you can push are lower. Circuit training may still help with bone health in the long term and is still great exercise. However, if stronger bones are your goal, design a program that involves more strength, higher forces and longer rest intervals. This will allow for more maximal forces to be produced during the sets.

*4. CHOOSE MOVEMENTS TO LOAD KEY AREAS OF THE BODY.*
The results of these studies support that bone density is site-specific. This means that all of the bicep curls and chest presses in the world will not help you increase bone density in your hips and pelvis as much as doing lower body movements. Lumbar spine stress is achieved by loading weight on the back, such as doing deadlifts or squats with weight, and by performing sit-up type movements and back extensions. Stress on the femur occurs when legs are put under heavy load or impact forces. So if you want strong bones in your hips, legs and spine, make sure you are including movements that target those areas. Or conversely, if you have a particular area you are concerned about, make sure and give that area some more love with some additional site-specific exercises.

*5. INCLUDE JUMPING, SPRINTING AND PLYOMETRICS IN YOUR PROGRAM. * 
Plyometrics are movements that enable a muscle to reach maximum strength in as short a timeframe as possible. In addition, the movements make use of the elastic properties of the muscle to generate an even more forceful contraction. They train the neuromuscular system to fire off more fibers, which also creates more force. An example of a plyometric movement would be Jump Squats or Lateral Cone Jumps. The faster the muscle is stretched and lengthened as it controls your deceleration, the more energy is obtained from the elastic properties of your muscle fiber, and the stronger the following contraction will be5. Any of the plyometric or jumping exercises are good choices for stimulating bone growth because of the high forces of the muscle contractions, as well as impact forces they generate.

Impact sports in which loading is applied unevenly and at a high rate also provide more stimulus for bone growth. So, if you participate in sports such as tennis, basketball or other activities that involve jumping, accelerating or quick changes of direction, you have a definitive advantage when it comes to maintaining strong bones. If this is you, strength training is also crucial to ensure your muscles and tendons can handle these high forces.

In addition to suspension training movements, consider adding movements where the spine is placed under load, such as squats with a bag, bar or employ the use of a standing machine. Loading up a leg press might be beneficial for the hips, but will not put the necessary compression forces on the spine which are lacking the most in cycling and are the most important for cyclists to include. The "Farmer's Walk" (an exercise where you are simply carrying heavy weights), heavy kettlebell or dumbbell, or barbell work, kicking, punching, or flipping heavy bags, jumping rope, high intensity running, shuffling or cutting, and jumping, are also all good additions that will stimulate bone growth. These things can supplement your suspension training program as well, if you have access to additional equipment. An example of this would be performing a suspended squat jump, followed by a suspended pushup with high resistance, and a sprint to the end of the block. These would be three extremely beneficial exercises to stimulate bone growth.

*CONCLUSION*
If you are concerned about your bone health, it doesn't mean you need to turn your program upside down. Simply include one or two exercises that stress your legs, hips and lumbar spine in a random manner with some impact and force. If you are just starting to strength train, or have knowledge that you already have low bone density or osteoporosis, the more explosive exercises should be phased in gradually as you improve your strength and fitness level. Always develop the foundation before adding higher intensity, or more specific work to your program. Just keep in mind that being consistent and including bone building activity in your program during the long term will produce benefits.

Sauce https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/...rJWw6k5ENf7hhTKDCGCzyV1SM-k7s5BfuLG_3d9W88xh4


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

I've been aware of the issue of low bone density in cyclists for some time, plus I have virtually no rotator cuff left on one shoulder, so I got myPrimary to order physical therapy for me to build strength in the remaining muscles to compensate. A nice aside is that I'm also regaining some of the lean muscle mass I had when I was younger ("The gun show is back in town"), and that is make me feel remarkably better about myself. 
A good del all around. 

I think any senior would only benefit from a PT or Kinesiologist designed custom workout routine for them.


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

You need to balance all of the bone density workouts with the effects they may have on aging joints. I used to be a plyometrics junkie but those days are long past due to bad knees. I like to do heavy weight workouts but can only do them occasionally because of the stresses on shoulders, elbows, hips knees, etc.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

ddoh said:


> You need to balance all of the bone density workouts with the effects they may have on aging joints. I used to be a plyometrics junkie but those days are long past due to bad knees. I like to do heavy weight workouts but can only do them occasionally because of the stresses on shoulders, elbows, hips knees, etc.


I am an outdoor guy so i only did a bit of gym.
I found out the straight bar is a torture tool.
Try using 2 dumbells, your elbows and shoulders will appreciate it.
For hips and knees i do not like the idea of using big loads. It compresses the spine wich is a bad idea. I am more in mountain and fat bike combined with yoga. Some sprint climbs. The man who built our trails about 80 years ago, *Jack Rabbit* died at 111, was healthy except his last 8 months. When asked at 100 how much exercise he replied daily, enough to sweat. I ride his trails north of Montreal and remember his smile and sparkling eyes. I met him he was about 103 i was 20. He enjoyed canoe and xcountry skiing.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

ddoh said:


> You need to balance all of the bone density workouts with the effects they may have on aging joints. I used to be a plyometrics junkie but those days are long past due to bad knees. I like to do heavy weight workouts but can only do them occasionally because of the stresses on shoulders, elbows, hips knees, etc.


I was diagnosed with a fairly jacked up (FAI/DJD, bone spurs) hip a few years back which will ultimately need to be replaced. I am still relatively young (50) and look to delay this as long as possible. At the time I was diagnosed I was competing in powerlifting, which I gave up once i realized the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze. I'm coming to understand that chasing pure strength may be behind me, but I still see far more benefit to strength training than giving it up. As a result I have taken much more of a bodybuilding approach, using higher reps at lower weights the majority of the time. I think combining this approach with regular biking and hiking will give the greatest benefit long term. My hip sure seems to feel better, anyway.


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

Horseshoe said:


> I was diagnosed with a fairly jacked up (FAI/DJD, bone spurs) hip a few years back which will ultimately need to be replaced. I am still relatively young (50) and look to delay this as long as possible. At the time I was diagnosed I was competing in powerlifting, which I gave up once i realized the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze. I'm coming to understand that chasing pure strength may be behind me, but I still see far more benefit to strength training than giving it up. As a result I have taken much more of a bodybuilding approach, using higher reps at lower weights the majority of the time. I think combining this approach with regular biking and hiking will give the greatest benefit long term. My hip sure seems to feel better, anyway.


Your'e on the right track. Too much strength training is not good for most.....law of diminishing returns. 
\
I have lived a very active life, many extreme stresses placed upon me and my body, most o0f my own design. As a result, at 65, I bear the scars of all these adventures, not to mention the "retained hardware". 
By careful training now, I am coming back in strength and speed and precision in rapid movements. I'm feeling great.


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## rmac (Oct 26, 2004)

Somewhere in the murky depths of this thread someone recommended 'Fast After Fifty' by Joe Friel. I am a couple of chapters in and it has been explaining a lot of what I have been feeling (about my diminished fitness). Many thanks for the info., I am making some changes.


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

rmac said:


> Somewhere in the murky depths of this thread someone recommended 'Fast After Fifty' by Joe Friel. I am a couple of chapters in and it has been explaining a lot of what I have been feeling (about my diminished fitness). Many thanks for the info., I am making some changes.


Great book!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Strength training, weekly mtb rides and running for extra cardio and endurance training helps when you want to try new activities.

2 weeks ago we took a vacation on Vancouver Island and as a treat for my milestone birthday year I took surfing lessons in Tofino.

It was something new. We squeezed into our wet suits and were coached. I managed to stand up twice and ride the waves to shore during our morning lesson! Other attempts I managed to crouch and kneel.  I would love to do this again as I can see how addictive surfing can be

































































Big smiles


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

I read an extensive report a while ago on avoiding/postponing Alzheimer's and Dementia. It mentioned surfing as the the #1 physical activity. MTBing was #2.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

ddoh said:


> I read an extensive report a while ago on avoiding/postponing Alzheimer's and Dementia. It mentioned surfing as the the #1 physical activity. MTBing was #2.


Yup i read on that subject. Many activities that includes balance, dancing, tai-chi....Having an activity with the physical aspect + brain activity. It is also about clean eating, keeping the blood vessels open to feed the brain.


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> Strength training, weekly mtb rides and running for extra cardio and endurance training helps when you want to try new activities.
> 
> 2 weeks ago we took a vacation on Vancouver Island and as a treat for my milestone birthday year I took surfing lessons in Tofino.
> 
> ...


Those are great pics. Glad you had a great time. Despite living out here for 25 years, I've never surfed at the island!


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

Watch out with the surfing, Judy. It can make a bum outta you. Skipping work because of that "epic" swell predicted any day now, etc. 
I even knew of a guy whose construction company name was "Not When the Surf's Up Construction" company. It gets addictive.

For the past several years, I have learned to surf on a 11'6" sit-on-top" kayak. It has several advantages to it
-Ray.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Love it Ray! There is a surf culture here in Ontario. Fresh water surfing on the Great Lakes!









Buoyancy is better in salt water so the freshwater boards are different. They also surf in winter (bigger waves, thicker wetsuits!) I would like to give is a try and work on my skills (next summer  )


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Lifting Weights As You Age Cuts Your Risk Of Early Death By 46%*









The secret to a longer life may be a barbell: Strength training as you age reduces your risk for death, according to a new study from Penn State College of Medicine.

Researchers surveyed people age 65 or older about their exercise habits and then tracked them for 15 years. Nearly a third of the study participants died during that period.

Less than 10 percent of the subjects strength trained, but those select few were 46 percent less likely to die during the study than everyone else.

Sure, you could say that older folks who lift must be in better health to begin with. But even after adjusting for BMI, chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, and habits like total physical activity, drinking, and smoking, lifting was linked to a 19 percent reduced risk of death.

Strength training can keep you active and independent in your golden years, says study author Jennifer Kraschnewski, M.D. Not only does it strengthen your muscles, resulting in better stamina and balance, but it also increases your bone density.









Together, those factors reduce your risk for falls and fractures-major causes of disability for older people.

Plus, you'll burn more calories throughout the day just by having more muscle mass on your frame, which helps you maintain a healthy weight, Dr. Kraschnewski says.

So if you're already lifting, don't retire your dumbbells.

Want to start? Strength training can be safe for just about anyone, but if you're over age 65 and inactive, talk to your doctor about any special precautions you should take, she says. Consider enlisting a trainer to create a program designed around any creaky knees or tight hips.

Don't think that your age will hold you back, though.

"Older adults have the ability to achieve strength similar to those decades younger by engaging in simple strength training routines," says Dr. Kraschnewski.









sauce https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/...QaH7pQc0CgiFYvZ1NWvA4RhRwf3Hputgk-ZDwjsA1D4kI


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## jrm (Jan 12, 2004)

Damn it. im 5 weeks out of rotator cuff surgery and cant begin to you how i want to return to a regular exercising routine.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Rest it per doctors orders. Rotator cuff injury is usually an over use injury so in order for it to heal, you need to not use it. If you do continue to exercise you run the risk of making that injury chronic. Stick to lower body stuff for now.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I registered for the CrossFit Open and did the 20.1 workout Rx

Master Class: 
20.1
10 rounds for time:
8 Ground to Overhead (65 lbs men /45 lbs women)
10 Bar-facing Burpees

Time cap: 15minutes

I did it snatch grip (some participants did clean and jerk). Burpees were killer. I was just shy of 8 rounds


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## waltaz (Oct 14, 2004)

jrm said:


> Damn it. im 5 weeks out of rotator cuff surgery and cant begin to you how i want to return to a regular exercising routine.


Fire up the Netflix, because you have a while to wait...

Seriously, don't rush it. I've had both rotator cuffs repaired in the last 7 years, and, depending on the tear and repair, it takes a while to rehab and re-establish your routine. Plan on doing nothing with that shoulder joint for 6-8 weeks, then meticulous PT and rehab. You'll be off the bike - completely - for 3-4 months. All that said, I started walking within a week of my surgeries, and was in the gym within 2-3 weeks with my arm in the big sling, doing light legs and light opposite arm moves. Everything little bit helps, but don't rush that joint.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

jrm said:


> Damn it. im 5 weeks out of rotator cuff surgery and cant begin to you how i want to return to a regular exercising routine.


jam, find some good anatomy book pics of the actual amount of muscle tissue in the rotator cuff. It's minuscule! Which is why it takes time and time weights to even begin building it up again. Don't let impatience make you do something stoopid...:thumbsup:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I did CrossFit Open 20.2 workout Rx

Master Class:
20.2
Complete as many rounds as possible
in 20 minutes of:

4 dumbbell thrusters @ 20lbs women /35lbs men
6 toes-to-bars
24 double-unders









I don't know how, but I managed to keep smiling on my final round... guess I was glad the end was near


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*This woman is badass. 
Another prime example of use it or lose it.

People would be surprised at what they can do if they just keep active while aging*.

*This 73-Year-Old Fitness Fanatic Is Defying Expectations On Every Level*









Almost three years ago, Joan MacDonald found herself at her doctor's office, where she was told that her health was deteriorating rapidly. At 70 years old, she was on multiple medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and acid reflux. Doctors were telling her she needed to up the dosages-unless she made a drastic lifestyle change.

MacDonald was done with the meds and tired of feeling helpless and uncomfortable in her skin. Even though she couldn't remember the last time she'd really focused on her health, she knew that if she wanted to make a change, it was now or never.

"I knew I had to do something different," MacDonald tells Shape. "I had watched my mom go through the same thing, taking medication after medication, and I didn't want that life for myself."

MacDonald shared her desire to develop healthier habits with her daughter Michelle, who'd been pushing her mom to prioritize her health for years. As a yogi, competitive powerlifter, professional chef, and owner of Tulum Strength Club in Mexico, Michelle knew she could help her mom reach her goals. "She said she was willing to help me get started and said I should join her online workout program to help get me going," says Joan.

Soon, MacDonald began going on walks as her form of cardio, practicing yoga, and she even started weight lifting. "I remember picking up a 10-pound weight and thinking it felt really heavy," shares MacDonald. "I was really starting from scratch."

Today, MacDonald has lost a total of 62 pounds, and her doctors have given her a clean bill of health. Plus, she no longer needs to take all those medications for her blood pressure, acid reflux, and cholesterol.

*But getting to this point took a lot of hard work, consistency, and time.*

When she was first starting out, MacDonald's focus was to build her overall strength and endurance. At first, she was only exercising as much as she could while being safe. Eventually, she built up to spending two hours in the gym, five days a week. "I'm very slow, so it takes me almost double the time to finish a regular workout," explains MacDonald.

Having a consistent routine also helped her immensely. "I just get my workout out of the way first thing in the morning," explains MacDonald. "So, usually every day at about 7 a.m., I head to the gym, then I have the rest of the day to work on other things on my schedule."

MacDonald's workout routine has changed over the past three years, but she still spends at least five days at the gym. Two of those days are dedicated to cardio specifically. "I usually use the stationary bike or rower," she says.

The other three days, MacDonald does a mix of cardio and strength training, focusing on different muscle groups each day. "Using my daughter's workout program, I usually do a variety of upper-body, legs, glutes, and hamstring workouts," she shares. "I still have issues with heavier weights, but I know not to go overboard. I know my limits and do what I can do comfortably, making sure I'm doing it well. The workouts are always changing, so I'm working every muscle in my body on a weekly basis."

But in order to see a major improvement to her health, working out on its own wasn't going to cut it. MacDonald knew she had to transform her diet, too. "When I started, I was probably eating less than I do now, but I was eating the wrong things," she says. "Now, I eat more, (five small meals a day), and I continue to lose weight and feel better overall."

Initially, MacDonald's goal was to lose weight as fast as possible. But now, she says she's all about feeling strong and powerful, challenging herself to achieve specific strength goals in the gym. "I've been working on doing unassisted pull-ups," she says. "I was actually able to do a few just the other day, but I'd like to be able to do it like all the youngins. That's my goal."

Once she found confidence in her body physically, MacDonald says she felt the need to push herself mentally as well. "My daughter introduced me to apps like Headspace and Elevate, and I also decided to learn Spanish on DuoLingo," she shares. "I also love doing crossword puzzles."

MacDonald says reaching her goals comes down to pure dedication and hard work, but adds that she couldn't have done it without her daughter's guidance. "I've admired her all along, but having her train me is something else, especially since she doesn't hold anything back," says MacDonald. "She doesn't let me go at my pace completely. It's a challenge, but I appreciate it."

If there's any advice MacDonald has for older women who want to get into fitness, it's this: Age is just a number, and you don't always need to be "coddled" through workouts just because you're in your 70s.

"We are strong [and] capable of change, but we're often viewed as fragile," she says. "I hope that more women my age embrace being pushed and appreciate that someone is interested in seeing you try harder. Even though you can't turn back the clock, you can wind it up again."

sauce https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-and-body/joan-macdonald-73-year-old-fitness-fanatic


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

Outstanding!


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

*Fit over 50*








I've always kept with my strength training, it's important. I didn't make a career as a trainer but after my 9-5 job I taught a Spin class at gyms for almost 20 years. @mrfitrn is my IG and @hardmtnbiker is my Strava. I do a lot of mountain bike rides on my single speed plus mix in some longer rides on my hardtail and really long rides on my gravel that I use as a rode bike. 
Exercising and eating healthy plus resting properly is critical and you must be consistent. 
I'm inspired by the volume of people I see keeping fit and active!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^Fantastic! I did spin classes for many years and quite enjoyed it. Variety is key!

I came across this article that was written from the perspective of weight lifters/power lifters etc. about the importance of cardio but the context is applies to many athletes measuring or testing their fitness

*Tip: The 1-Mile Fitness Test For Lifters Only
Every lifter should be able to pass this simple test. If not, you have some work to do. Check it out.*

*The Test*
Run one mile on the treadmill with the speed set at 6 miles per hour. That's a 10 minute mile. Now, which category below do you fit into?



> 1 - I Can't Do It!
> Then you're out of shape - deconditioned, a bit chubby, whatever. You're just not "fit" in the broad sense of the word. Yes, even if you can lift a ridiculously heavy barbell for a few reps.
> 
> 2 - I Can Do It, No Problem!
> ...


*But We're Lifters, Not Runners!*
Most of us don't identify as runners. We're "lifters" in one form or another: bodybuilders, strength trainers, or folks who just want to sport a muscular physique. We want to look a little scary maybe, or perhaps just look good naked.

But running? Meh. Maybe we'll add a little when our body fat starts to creep up, but even then most lifters prefer some form of quick metabolic conditioning, not pounding the treadmill or asphalt for distance.

But the one-mile test is still a great barometer. It's a combination of a heart health test and a body fat test. Can't run a mile in 10 minutes? Then either your cardiovascular fitness is lacking or you're just carrying around too much non-functional adipose tissue. (That's "body fat" in fancy words.)

*Where Do You Stand NOW?*
Aging can be tough. And cardiovascular fitness can decline rapidly, even if you're a lifter. That hour or so spent lifting weights 3-6 times per week, plus a hike or a bike ride on the weekend, may not be enough to outweigh a sedentary job and evenings in front of the TV or computer.

If you're in your 40's or older, make sure you can pass this test. According to Dr. Jarett D. Berry, not being able to run a 10-minute mile puts you into the "unfit" category. Remember, heart disease is still the leading cause of death *- a bigger killer than cancer - and minimal run times are a good predictor of long-term ticker health.

Dr. Berry adds that a man in his 50's who can run a mile in 8 minutes or less shows a high level of fitness. For women in that age bracket, it's 9 minute or less.

*The Real Goal*
The goal here isn't to get faster and faster, or to start revolving your training around running. The goal is simply to be able to do it with relative ease and ALWAYS be able to do it with relative ease.

If your lifting program involves some big movements and short rest periods, you should be able to pass this test at any time, even if you hate running.

If you can't do it - or you can but it just about kills you - then adjust your training so that you can pass this low-level fitness test. Basically, make sure that some aspect of your training makes you suck some wind. Or, you know, clean up your diet and drop some of that dead weight.

Don't assume anything. Hop on the stupid treadmill, set the speed at 6 miles per hour, and run a mile. See where you stand.

sauce: https://www.t-nation.com/training/t...pQYT64aIJCgb6iqvYh_6UZtBapMsGxXK2aerg-Cbxxh6k


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

Judy, excellent points. I've known quite a few guys in the first one. They could one -arm curl an 80# dumbbell, but the 150-yard walk to their cars just about did them in. Many of those guys, good fellas or the most part, are no longer Of This World. Only ones still left around are the ones who read the writing on the Wall of Life and took up cardio training.


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## Miker J (Nov 4, 2003)

Great stuff cyclelicious. Thanks for all your posts. They are informative and inspirational.

I'm not fifty yet, but getting close, and old fashioned weight training is what keeps me in the game.


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

I don’t do fitness test anymore but I do continue to use my Polar HRM and take my BP frequently. My resting HR is 60 and my BP is 110/60. I credit my continued fitness at 50 because of my passion for mountain biking. I have always included weight training but it’s only to keep my strength for more cycling. My waist is 32” as it was since HS because I eat healthy and stay strict. Then when ever I have time I go for long road rides. Last Saturday was a 78 mile ride. I try to go at least 2-3 hours without a stop, since it’s a bike path separate from cars and stop lights, it’s possible. I truly believe that maintaining your HR at 70-80% of HR Max is very beneficial. 
Anyway thanks for keeping this thread motivating and I look forward to future post.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Good resting VS baseline hardmtnbiker. Are you still in your 50's?


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

hardmtnbiker said:


> View attachment 1290397
> 
> I've always kept with my strength training, it's important. I didn't make a career as a trainer but after my 9-5 job I taught a Spin class at gyms for almost 20 years. @mrfitrn is my IG and @hardmtnbiker is my Strava. I do a lot of mountain bike rides on my single speed plus mix in some longer rides on my hardtail and really long rides on my gravel that I use as a rode bike.
> Exercising and eating healthy plus resting properly is critical and you must be consistent.
> I'm inspired by the volume of people I see keeping fit and active!


Nice. I like your advice and have learned to do the same as I age.

Now that the weather and daylight is changing here, I'll soon return to the gym on a regular basis for strength/core/stretching work, and spin classes. From about mid-April until around this time of year, I'm out on my bike(s) as much as possible with about a weekly visit to the gym for strength training.


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ Good resting VS baseline hardmtnbiker. Are you still in your 50's?


I'm 51, I have always done strength training and a lot of cardio. 
Personally I keep stats on my Polar training app and Strava. I always choose to get outside and go for a short intense ride on my SS or a longer ride if time permits and the weather is nice, which it usually is. I do get my gym time done and focus on core and functional exercises but it's not where I have my fun. I wanna be on the trail and relay on my strength to smash past a steep technical section of the trail, then bomb down and clean sketchy switch back without having to clip out and dab. 
I do make the best of my gym training sessions but it's better when the weather is bad and I know that I'm not missing out of another great ride.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Crossfit Open 20.5 (the final session) completed! Did all 5 workouts prescribed. Won't know my final position in the competition (Canada and Worlwide) until mid week.

120 Wallballs
80 Calorie Row
40 chest to bar pullups. 
20min cap


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

You are a machine! Congratulations on an amazing performance!


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## beastmaster (Sep 19, 2012)

https://www.outsideonline.com/1784131/biking-bad-my-bones


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Thank you beastie! and thanks for sharing this good article!


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

I’ve read similar findings. CrossFit or other types of agility type exercises are the remedy. 
Personally I do box jumps and burpees with jumps. When I exercise at the park I do pull-ups and runs up steps. 
The “name of the game” is consistency! Don’t let more than 1 or 2 days pass without exercise.


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## jrm (Jan 12, 2004)

Having to start over ....again..in April of last year i had my left shoulder replaced. Once cleared i was off and by July of this year when i dislocated my shoulder, resulting in traumatic major tear of my rotator cuff and bicep i was really happy with my progress. Surgery was in September and i cant start upper body strength training till the PT clears me sometime next year. I started PT last week and was cleared to do passive shoulder/arm exercises, core stretches use a stationary bike. Spent about 2 hours at the gym stretching, core strengthening and an hour on the spin bike. 

This brings me to a question. Is it Ok to left weights with the unaffected shoulder and arm?. I ve read that this is good for circulation to the mangled shoulder and improves recovery. It felt good to have that feeling of muscle tension and fatigue again..dang Thanks....


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## ksj (Aug 31, 2019)

Twice a week we do a 1 hour strength training class at a hot yoga studio. Mostly body weight exercises(variety of pushups, squats, lunges, abdominals, etc), a band and a pair of light dumbbells (I use a couple 10# ones, she uses 5# ones). All in a room that at about 100 degrees. It is surprisingly effective and very exhausting. 

For those in Puget Sound its the classes at the Hot Yoga Inc Bellevue location that Ryan teaches 3 times a week. Note - I do not work there or have any affiliation other than going to their classes.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

jrm said:


> Having to start over ....again..in April of last year i had my left shoulder replaced. Once cleared i was off and by July of this year when i dislocated my shoulder, resulting in traumatic major tear of my rotator cuff and bicep i was really happy with my progress. Surgery was in September and i cant start upper body strength training till the PT clears me sometime next year. I started PT last week and was cleared to do passive shoulder/arm exercises, core stretches use a stationary bike. Spent about 2 hours at the gym stretching, core strengthening and an hour on the spin bike.
> 
> This brings me to a question. Is it Ok to left weights with the unaffected shoulder and arm?. I ve read that this is good for circulation to the mangled shoulder and improves recovery. It felt good to have that feeling of muscle tension and fatigue again..dang Thanks....


Strength exercise for the unaffected arm is beneficial while the injured arm is recovering. I don't know the scientific evidence but my experience is that there is "muscle memory". When I was recovering from a shattered scapula, (plus vertebrae and ribs) I had some routines and lifts that I could do with my healthy arm. (dumb bell work like shoulder presses, dumb bell rows, dumbbell cleans, kettlebell swings, farmer carry's etc) and slowly, slowly (with PT guidance) I was introduced to band routines and very light exercises as tolerated for my affected shoulder as my strength and range of motion improved. My CF coach explained that the body responds positively when only one side is working but you recovery will be smoother because of muscle memory... I hope this makes some sense.

During your recovery you will get a program of the progressions you can do and how to rest etc. But you can still do legs, and your good arm as tolerated.


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

This isn't exactly strength-training per se. BUT, I was pretty happy today. I had a follow-up cardio stress test today. The original test back in April wasn't really for anything more than just to see if things were fine (they were really good), but the doc wanted to follow-up today. 

And, things were fine today. In fact, there was even a slight improvement over the April test (went a little longer with a slightly lower heartrate). I'm pretty happy with the result, since in between the first test and this one I've had two broken ribs, bruised ribs on the other side, and that partially collapsed lung and a messed up sternum. So with the time missed riding... I'm pretty stoked that the doc said based on what he could see, I was in slightly better and still good cardio shape! 

And on the actual strength training front, I'm not the animal at the gym I was 25 years ago, but I'm trying to do bodyweight and band exercises at least three times a week! I can tell it's making a difference, even though I'll never be like some of you!  Oh and stretching. Not as much as I should, but still trying work some in regularly.


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## OzarkFathom (Jul 2, 2019)

Stairs.
Good medicine for this sick horse these days.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I completed the Crossfit Open final competition workout a couple weeks ago but my final score was only posted yesterday... better late than never  Hard work and never giving up paid off

For time, partitioned any way:
40 chest-to-bar pull-ups
80-cal. row
120 wall-ball shots, 10-lb. ball to 9 ft.

Time cap: 20 min.

I completed every workout prescribed (first time) I placed 13th/ 113 for Canada in my age group and 154th/1712 in the World. I improved since the last open 14th Canada and

A few pics from the 20.5


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## ravewoofer (Dec 24, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> I completed the Crossfit Open final competition workout a couple weeks ago but my final score was only posted yesterday... better late than never  Hard work and never giving up paid off
> 
> For time, partitioned any way:
> 40 chest-to-bar pull-ups
> ...


Wow, Judy! Nice job. You are providing great inspiration for us 50+ers.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> I completed the Crossfit Open final competition workout a couple weeks ago but my final score was only posted yesterday... better late than never  Hard work and never giving up paid off
> 
> For time, partitioned any way:
> 40 chest-to-bar pull-ups
> ...


That is great! Fantastic work. You are indeed an inspiration to us 50+ers...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^thankyou bjeast! I'll find out in a few weeks whether I'm invited to participate in the next stage


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Zen of Weight Lifting
Chop wood, carry water and other lessons that apply far beyond the gym.*









One of my favorite movements at the gym is called a farmer's carry. You hold a heavy weight - for me, around 95 pounds - in each hand and attempt to walk with a solid, upright posture for between 30 and 60 seconds.

Once, while my workout partners and I were carrying, as we say, at our local YMCA, an older gentleman enthusiastically asked, "What's it for?" I was quick to explain that farmer's carries work your grip, core, arms, legs and even cardiovascular system - an utterly elegant full-body exercise. But the man wasn't satisfied. "What's any of it for?" he exclaimed, alluding to the two hours I spend repetitively moving iron every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning.

It's a good question. The physical and mental health benefits of weight lifting are well documented. Weight training can help us to maintain muscle mass and strength as we age, as well as better mobility and metabolic and cardiovascular health. It may help ease or prevent depression and anxiety, and promote mental sharpness.

And yet, regardless of why anyone starts lifting weights in the first place, most people I know who stick with the sport over the long haul don't do it because it's a means to an end. For us, lifting weights becomes a transformative practice to be undertaken primarily for its own sake, the byproduct of which is a nourishing effect on the soul.

Weight lifting offers participants a chance to pursue clear and measurable goals with outcomes that can be traced directly back to oneself. In his book "Shop Class as Soulcraft," the philosopher Matthew Crawford writes that "despite the proliferation of contrived metrics," so many activities in the modern world suffer from "a lack of objective standards." In the workplace, for example, a job well done is almost always contingent on external factors like office politics, the opinions of your supervisors or the mood of your clients. In many sports, outcomes are affected by things like weather, equipment, officiating or the performance of teammates.

In the weight room, however, it's just you and the bar. You either make the lift or you don't. If you make it, great. If not, you train more, and try again. Some days it goes well, other days it doesn't. But over time, it becomes clear that what you get out of yourself is proportionate to the effort you put in. It's as simple and as hard as that. A kind of straightforwardness and self-reliance that gives rise to an immense satisfaction, a satiating feeling that makes it easier to fall asleep at night because you know you did something real, something concrete, in the world.

This doesn't mean that progress happens fast or is always linear. Consistency and patience are key. If you try to rush the process or force heroic efforts, you invariably wind up getting hurt. Weight lifting, like so much in life, demands showing up day in and day out, taking small and incremental steps that, compounded over time, lead to big gains.

Whether you like it or not, there will be plateaus, which in my experience tend to occur right before a breakthrough. Weight lifting teaches you to embrace them, or at the very least accept them. This is an important outcome, with consequences extending far beyond the gym. "In the land of the quick fix it may seem radical," writes George Leonard, a pioneer of the human potential movement in the 1960s, "but to learn anything significant, to make any lasting change in yourself, you must be willing to spend most of your time on the plateau, to keep practicing even when it seems you are getting nowhere."

For most, the plateau is a form of purgatory. But to advance beyond the low-hanging fruit in any meaningful discipline - from weight lifting, to writing, to meditation, to marriage - you must get comfortable spending time there. Weight lifting shoves this reality in your face since progress, or in this case, lack thereof, is so objective. Yes, you can make tweaks, some of which will prove beneficial. But none of that matters if you don't keep showing up and pounding the stone.

But here's a paradox: Pound too hard or too often, and you'll run into problems. The only way to make a muscle stronger is to stress it and then let it recover. In other words, you've got to balance stress and rest. Exercise scientists call this "progressive overload." Too much stress, not enough rest, and the result is illness, injury or burnout. Too much rest, not enough stress, and the result is complacency or stagnation. It's only when yin and yang are in harmony that you grow - another lesson that applies to a lot more than lifting weights.

It is true that from the outside, weight lifting can seem dull or boring - same movements, same barbells, same people at the same gym. But once you steep yourself in the sport you realize - and not just intellectually but also in your bones - that it contains the essential ingredients for human flourishing. The perennial wisdom traditions and decades of psychological research point to three basic needs that, when fulfilled, allow people to thrive. Weight lifting offers all three in full:

Autonomy: The ability to exert oneself independently and have control over one's actions.

Mastery: A clear and ongoing path of progress that can be traced back to one's efforts.

Belonging: Being part of a community, lineage or tradition that is working toward similar goals.

None of this is about achieving a specific result or acquiring some bright and shiny object and then suddenly becoming content, an illusion we chase outside of the gym all the time. The Zen of weight lifting - the joy, fulfillment, hard-earned calluses and growth - lives in the process, in the journey. That's why if you hit a big personal record lift, sure, you'll enjoy the moment. But odds are, you'll be back - same movements, same barbells, same people at the same gym - for your next scheduled workout.

There's an old Eastern adage: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." It's great training advice too.

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/...aoqmVKxeznM8bPn7Prbtt6lB70cZNJUiGl-ESDVH3248E

(The comments in the article's link is equally interesting)


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

Very interesting article. And I kinda get it, even if I don't go the gym like, well, many of you. But since I restarted cycling (mostly mountain biking) and I've now incorporated body weight and resistance bands into my workout, I realized something. I feel good. I love riding, and I'm finally reaping the benefits of the core stuff. I know that so many things are beyond our control - we can't control diseases we get (though we can live healthily, etc.), accidents, and the like. But here's the thing. 

Between the combo of biking and core work, and despite the injuries of this summer, and severe osteoarthritis in my knees, and a displaced clavicle that makes some people say "What the he!! is that?" when I change shirts after a ride, I feel good! I feel better than I did a year ago! And I felt better a year ago than I did the year before that! It really does become a lifestyle!


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

For me, weight training has always been about mindfulness training. No ego need apply. Since I began lifting at age 14, it's the mindfulness that has been the big winner for me. Even when I had my 18" guns 40 years ago, still, it was about the mindfulness. I just was not fully aware of it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My new hero. More reasons for strength training.. This story is too good to be true!

*Female bodybuilder, 82, fights home intruder: 'He picked the wrong house'
*

An 82-year-old female bodybuilder fought back against a man who broke into her home on Thursday night as she was getting ready for bed, using her daily workout regimen and various household items to overwhelm the intruder.

Willie Murphy, who attends the Maplewood YMCA in Rochester, N.Y., on a daily basis, was getting ready for bed around 11:00 p.m. when a man started banging on the door asking for an ambulance, while declaring "I'm sick, I'm sick."









Murphy called the police and wouldn't let him inside, which she says angered the man.

"I hear a loud noise," she told WHAM-TV. "I'm thinking, what the heck was that? The young man is in my home. He broke the door."

The award-winning bodybuilder told the outlet she hid under the cover of night -- picking up the nearest object -- as the thief crept through her home.

"I picked up the table, and I went to work on him," said Murphy, who can deadlift 225 pounds. 'The table broke."

"And when he's down," she added, "I'm jumping on him."

After the table drop, Murphy grabbed a nearby bottle of shampoo and went to town

Shen then grabbed a nearby broom and swept the floor with the unknown suspect.

"I got the broom," she said. "He's pulling the broom. I'm hitting him with the broom."

When officers arrived, Murphy says the first responders wanted to take selfies with her and she even received a hero's welcome when returning to her local YMCA.

"He picked the wrong house to break into," she concluded.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/female-bodybuilder-82-fights-suspect-picked-wrong-house


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

I tried CrossFit for the first time back in 2015, love it! I didn’t have any bikes with me I was staying in the Philippines in Makati. 
I love the WOD concept and the team effort of the boot camp type of training. I’m back in PHL since I live here part of the year, but in a more rural Province. I have my gravel bike but I still do a CrossFit type of WOD every other day. 
Functional training is perfect for cyclist and when I need to grind into a steep climb or sustain my cadence to a long flat, I know that I can. 
Congrats on your CrossFit competition. Keep on inspiring others, your amazing!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Most people accept the loss of muscle, bone and all the downsides that follow as a natural part of aging. But studies show you can slow and delay these processes by years or even decades with a muscle strengthening program that works your entire body. Scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging found that doing just two resistance-training sessions each week can reverse the age-related cellular damage that contributes to sarcopenia and functional impairment.

"Resistance training is the closest thing to the fountain of youth that we have," said Brad Schoenfeld, author of The MAX Muscle Plan and an assistant professor of exercise science and director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Lehman College in New York.

*How to Get Strong*

Everyone knows that exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health. But most people ignore one crucial component of it: resistance training. According to federal researchers, only 6 percent of adults do the recommended minimum amount of at least two muscle-strengthening workouts each week. Neglecting resistance training - any type of workout that builds strength and muscle - is a big mistake. It increases your metabolism, lowers your body fat and protects you from some of the leading causes of early death and disability. You don't have to lift like a bodybuilder (or look like one) to benefit from resistance training. And it's never too late to get started. Here is everything you need to know about resistance training, along with some simple, expert-approved workouts you can do at the gym or at home with minimal equipment.

*Fighting Back Against Muscle Loss*

Our muscles are invaluable. They're the reason we can walk, run, climb and carry things around. But as we get older, they begin to melt away. Muscle starts to deteriorate when we reach our 30s. After age 40, we lose on average 8 percent of our muscle mass every decade, and this phenomenon continues to accelerate at an even faster rate after age 60. Studies show that this loss of muscle hastens the onset of diseases, limits mobility, and is linked to premature death.

Another detrimental consequence is the impact that this has on your bones. The same factors that help you maintain muscle are the same factors that keep your bones strong and dense. So as you lose muscle with age - a process called sarcopenia - your bones become brittle, a process known as osteopenia, said Dr. Wayne Westcott, a professor of exercise science at Quincy College in Massachusetts.

"The bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons in your musculoskeletal system all work together, and they either become stronger together or weaker together," he said. "Whenever you lose muscle you automatically lose bone - they go hand in hand."

Because your muscles and bones are inextricably linked, when you lose muscle you're at greater risk of the following:

Osteoporosis
Arthritis
Chronic back pain
Frailty
Fractures

Most people accept the loss of muscle, bone and all the downsides that follow as a natural part of aging. But studies show you can slow and delay these processes by years or even decades with a muscle strengthening program that works your entire body. Scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging found that doing just two resistance-training sessions each week can reverse the age-related cellular damage that contributes to sarcopenia and functional impairment.

"Resistance training is the closest thing to the fountain of youth that we have," said Brad Schoenfeld, an assistant professor of exercise science and director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Lehman College in New York.

Build Muscle, Live Longer
In 2014, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles medical school discovered something striking.

They followed about 4,000 healthy adults over the age of 55 for more than a decade and noticed that their muscle mass was tightly linked to their lifespans. The researchers did this by zeroing in on each person's "muscle index" - your muscle mass divided by your height squared. Those who were in the group with the highest muscle index had the lowest mortality, while those who had the lowest muscle index had the highest mortality rates. This relationship remained after the scientists accounted for traditional markers of disease, and it showed that muscle index was an even better predictor of premature mortality than obesity.

Another study recruited over 2,200 middle-aged men and followed them for up to 44 years. The researchers found that being physically active and having "good muscle strength" in middle age were among the strongest predictors of a longer lifespan. Over the years, a number of other studies have also shed light on why resistance training can be so beneficial.

It improves cardiovascular health. Resistance training increases blood flow to muscles throughout your body, which lowers your blood pressure.

Resistance training significantly improves your VO2max and your overall cardiorespiratory fitness. Studies have linked this to better heart health and a lower risk of death from cancer.

Skeletal muscle helps regulate and dispose of blood sugar. Muscle soaks up glucose like a sponge, using it for energy or storing it as glycogen for later use.
Resistance training makes you insulin sensitive. To absorb glucose from your bloodstream, your muscle cells must be responsive to the hormone insulin, which pushes blood sugar into cells. Studies suggest that an early step in the development of Type 2 diabetes occurs when your muscles become insulin resistant. Resistance training accomplishes the opposite: It makes your muscles insulin sensitive.

Muscle acts like a coat of armor against diabetes. A 2011 study in the Journal of Endocrinology & Metabolism found that for every 10 percent increase in your skeletal muscle index, you see an 11 percent reduction in your risk of insulin resistance and a 10 percent reduction in your risk of pre-diabetes.

*Build Muscle, Lose Fat...And Keep It From Coming Back*

One of the worst parts about losing muscle as we age is that we also get fatter. The average person gains about a pound of fat a year in middle age. That means that our bodies undergo a striking change in composition, with muscle melting away and fat creeping in to take its place. This reshaping of the body reduces your metabolic rate because muscle is more metabolically active than fat - causing things to get worse and worse.

But a recent landmark study provided some reassuring news. It looked at the effects of diet and exercise programs on 250 people over the age of 60 to compare how the programs affected their fat and muscle composition. The subjects were split into three groups. One was assigned to follow a program that cut about 300 calories a day from their diets. Another group cut calories and did about 45 minutes of aerobic exercise four times a week. And a third group cut calories while embarking on a resistance-training program.

The results were striking. The subjects that combined both diet and exercise lost the most amount of weight, roughly 20 pounds on average. But here's where it got really interesting. The group that did aerobic exercise lost 16 pounds of fat and four pounds of muscle - while the group that did resistance training lost more fat (18 pounds) and less muscle (only two pounds).

Other studies have had similar results, confirming that one of the best ways to burn fat and hold onto muscle is to combine diet with resistance training.

Below are two exercise programs designed by a leading exercise scientists who specializes in strength training. One is a workout plan that you can do at home. The other requires a gym.

Chose the plan that best fits your routine and give it a try:

At Home Workout
This program was created by Brad Schoenfeld, an assistant professor of exercise science and director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Lehman College in New York. and it can be done basically anywhere: from your living room or a small hotel room. The only equipment it requires is a resistance band that you can purchase for less than $10.

Note: You should do up to three sets of each exercise and aim to complete 8 to 15 reps on each set. Perform this routine at least twice a week.

Push Ups
Resistence Band Seated Row
Resistence Band Shoulder Press
Squats
Reverse Lunge
Glute Bridge
Plank
Side Bridge

*Short and Sweet Gym Routine*
This plan requires three short sessions spread throughout the week, each consisting of five exercises. The idea behind it, said Dr. Phillips, is to designate one day for "pushing exercises," another for "pulling exercises," and the third day for "leg exercises." Dr. Phillips said it's important to dedicate at least one full session to your legs each week because a lot of beginning lifters ignore them.

"Everybody wants to make their biceps bigger or work on their triceps," he said. "But 65 percent of your muscle is below your belt. It's your legs, your thighs, your glutes, your calves, and your hamstrings."

You can shoot for eight to 15 repetitions of each exercise. Or, better yet, pick a moderately challenging weight and lift it until your muscles become fatigued (see the section on lifting to failure above). If you're uncertain about your form with any of these exercises, consider hiring a personal trainer for a few sessions to help you with your technique.

*Lift to Failure*

You've probably heard the old saying, "no pain, no gain." It's a cliché. But that's because there's truth in it. Perhaps the single-most important thing to understand about building muscle is that your muscles will not grow unless you give them a good reason. Regardless of what exercise you do, or what routine you use, it's imperative that you push your muscles to the point of exhaustion.

"Resistance training is about training hard - if you don't push yourself, you won't see much benefit," said Dr. Schoenfeld. "That doesn't mean you need to train until that vein in the side of your head is bulging like a serpent. But you do need to come pretty close to all out failure on each set."

Here are two different ways to determine the amount of weight you should lift.

Figure out the heaviest amount of weight you can lift one time. This is your so-called 1-Repetition Maximum, or "1-Rep Max." After you figure it out, use a weight that's at least 80 percent of your 1-Rep Max and aim for 8 to 12 repetitions on each set (with the exception of your initial warm-up set, which should be fairly light).

Figure out your 1-Rep Max. Then use weights that are between 30 to 50 percent of your 1-Rep Max and aim to do up to 25 repetitions in each set. A study by researchers at McMaster University in Ontario in 2016 found that people who used this approach gained just as much muscle and strength as a group that did a more traditional weightlifting routine with heavier weights and fewer repetitions

The bottom line is that the number of reps you do is less important than the extent to which you exhaust your muscles. You should do as many reps with proper form as it takes to reach momentary failure, which is the point where you stimulate your muscles to grow and adapt. "You want to do as many repetitions with good form of the exercise as you can," said James Steele, an associate professor of sport and exercise science at Southampton Solent University in England. "It doesn't matter whether you do five reps or 20 reps, but it should mean that the last repetition you attempt you can't complete."

The last rep that you can muster with proper form, Dr. Westcott said, "is the key stimulus for building muscle and building strength."

Another way I like to think about it is this: If your workout doesn't challenge you, it's not going to change you.

*Aim for at Least Two Sessions a Week*

The federal government's exercise guidelines call for adults to do a muscle-strengthening workout at least twice a week. Among the workouts it recommends are lifting weights, working with resistance bands, doing yoga and heavy gardening.

Large studies show that doing two resistance-training sessions a week over a period of ten weeks - with each workout consisting of just ten sets of exercises done to failure - can improve blood pressure, lower body fat and increase muscle size and strength.

But most studies suggest that the exercises have to be sufficiently challenging. So while activities like gardening and yoga are great for you, you shouldn't consider them part of your resistance training routine. "To my knowledge, there's very little evidence that they produce an improvement in strength," said Dr. Steele.

When it comes to muscle-strengthening exercise, focus on things like dumbbells, resistance bands, resistance machines, and bodyweight exercises such as push-ups, squats and lunges. Another thing to keep in mind: Your weekly workouts should engage all of the major muscles in your body. Don't make the mistake of focusing only on the "beach muscles" that you can see in the mirror. "You really need to train your entire body, and you really need to challenge your muscles regardless of your routine," said Dr. Schoenfeld. "Otherwise, you will plateau very quickly."

*Find Your Fitness Level*

Most people who begin a new exercise program measure their progress by the numbers they see on the scale. But looking only at your weight tells you nothing about your muscle levels, strength or overall fitness. Below are some tools you can use to get a better idea as you progress through our workouts.

The Push Up Test: How many push-ups can you do without stopping? Use this online calculator to get a sense of your upper body strength relative to other people your age and gender. Men should perform the test using the standard push-up position. Women can perform this test with their knees on the ground if necessary.

The YMCA Bench Press Test: This is a barometer of your upper body strength and endurance, which requires a bench and a barbell. Women should use a 35-pound barbell, and men should use an 80-pound barbell. Have someone hand you the bar, and do as many full repetitions as you can. Then use this online calculator to see how you did.

The Sit Up Test: How many sit-ups can you do in 60 seconds? Time yourself, and enter your number, age and gender into this online calculator to see where you ranked. Then track your progress.

The Single-Leg Sit Test: Stand on your left leg with a bench roughly one foot behind you. Stick your right leg out in front of you and then sit down on the bench and stand up while continuing to hold your right leg in the air. Do three repetitions, and then switch legs and repeat. Did you do each rep with proper form? Then you did fantastic. If you can do one or two reps on each leg with proper form, then you did O.K. If you could not do a single rep on each leg with good form, then it's a sign that you should work on developing your lower body strength.

*What's Your Fitness Age?*
A major misconception about resistance training is that it has no impact on your aerobic conditioning. But studies show that an eight-week resistance-training program can boost your V02max, which is a measure of your body's ability to utilize oxygen and a barometer of your cardiovascular endurance. The key is to keep the rest periods between your sets fairly short, which increases the cardiorespiratory component of the workout.

As my colleague Gretchen Reynolds explained in an article, there are ways that you can estimate your V02max. You can then use it to calculate your "fitness age," which is a better predictor of longevity than your chronological age. The best part is that unlike your chronological age, you can actually turn back the clock on your fitness age. The way to do it is with exercise, including resistance training.

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-build-muscle-strength


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

As always, thanks for posting!


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

I ride year round and I do a lot of "ranch work" like lifting, polling, digging (waay to much digging), but the idea of going to a gym and being inside just doesn't turn me on.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that you all are into it, but I just can't do that.

So I ride and hike most days, then on the weekends I dig trail and all that sort of thing. Yesterday I used a sledge hammer for four hours to set horse barriers on my trails, drove fifty pieces of rebar, it was like going to cross fit but I was outside playing in the dirt ?

I'm thinking about getting a RipRow, anyone used one of those?

Here's my gym and my work out partner:


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

Nurse Ben said:


> I ride year round and I do a lot of "ranch work" like lifting, polling, digging (waay to much digging), but the idea of going to a gym and being inside just doesn't turn me on.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that you all are into it, but I just can't do that.
> 
> ...


Imagine only 79.99$/month and you would be cool.
All the recycled air is just a bonus, well i guess. At 62 i play outside like at 12. And posters ask how to dress???
I fat.
I am slim.
I smile.
Do not ask me about distance or elevation i have a dumb 7$ watch.


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

33red said:


> Imagine only 79.99$/month and you would be cool.
> All the recycled air is just a bonus, well i guess. At 62 i play outside like at 12. And posters ask how to dress???
> I fat.
> I am slim.
> ...


Why do you need a watch?

Added bonus, I have three miles of trail that I can ride nearly year round, leaving from my backdoor ... and in the next couple years I can connect to the greater trail network 

Now if the wild horses would just stop knocking the fence down ...


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> *The Zen of Weight Lifting
> Chop wood, carry water and other lessons that apply far beyond the gym.*
> 
> View attachment 1294425


Look at them guns!

So are you going to compete or maybe you're already competing?

My wife has been going to the gym, but I really doubt she'll ever be that committed


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thank you Ben! I'm a work in progress and living proof that one can get fitter (and build muscle and build strength) in middle age with perservance.

The key is being consistent with diet and fitness in addition to setting attainable goals. I follow a crossfit program. It's a formula that works for me. I started in 2014 (with my husband) and attend 1 hour classes 5 to 6 days /week. I made gains despite a big setback in 2015 (I crashed my bike and suffered polytrauma) but I did what I could during recovery and surpassed my previous PR's.

I challenge myself with heavier weights and doing the lifts correctly. Although my local cf gym closed in October, I joined another gym that had the equipment I am used to. I continue to follow a set program which my former cf coach provides me daily: The formula is warm-up, strength (eg. an Olympic lift or some aspect), conditioning (etc a WOD (workout of the day) or HIIT and some accessory work. There are workouts posted at every cf gym but mine follows a cycle and I can measure results. 

Chris and I do form checks and support one another. I do extra cardio like running outdoors... my endurance for mtb has improved

I compete with myself (sort of) but I'm also influence by how well others do in comparison. I participate in the CF open and for running I have done more races in 2019. I don't race mtb.


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> Thank you Ben! I'm a work in progress and living proof that one can get fitter (and build muscle and build strength) in middle age with perservance.
> 
> The key is being consistent with diet and fitness in addition to setting attainable goals. I follow a crossfit program. It's a formula that works for me. I started in 2014 (with my husband) and attend 1 hour classes 5 to 6 days /week. I made gains despite a big setback in 2015 (I crashed my bike and suffered polytrauma) but I did what I could during recovery and surpassed my previous PR's.
> 
> ...


What you (and your husband) do is really great! I'm nowhere near where you two are at, but at the same time I can certainly agree that setting attainable goals is key. Mine have been much more modest than yours, but as I've added resistance training (at home doing body weight exercises and a resistance band) to my cycling and become more consistent at it, I've noticed the difference. It's actually kinda, well surprising, what you can do even with a somewhat minimal time investment, but with consistency!


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## OzarkFathom (Jul 2, 2019)

I feel like a wimp......


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More reasons to lift


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

An easy read and good strategies

*6 steps to help you stay a competitive athlete in your 50s and beyond*

I spent the first four decades of my life largely sedentary. As a child, I was the skinny kid on the sidelines with glasses and a back brace.

In my 40s, however, I took up running. No one was more surprised than me. At first, I couldn't run a single mile without stopping. But within a year or so, I was faster and calling myself a runner.

Then, recently, a trusted fellow runner suggested that when I turn 50 in two years, all my progress would fade away.

That stopped me in my tracks.

Turns out, that doesn't need to be your fate-and that's especially true for those of us in endurance sports, such as running, biking and swimming. The key: taking smart action now to effectively counter the common challenges likely to crop up as you age.

As both men and women get older, for example, our bones and cartilage grow weaker, muscle fibers change, and imbalances throughout the body leave us more prone to injury. We are also able to draw less oxygen into the lungs, which means less gets delivered through the blood to working muscles.

Then there's menopause for women and andropause for men. Both sexes experience less muscle mass, tone and elasticity. Shifting hormones can bring depression, anxiety and mood shifts. (Not to mention the hot flashes that can hit women.)

You might think the hormonal symptoms are what slows down athletes once they hit their 50s.

You'd be wrong.

Instead, it's our changing muscles, says Michael Richardson, a family physician in Boston with a strong interest in sports medicine.

"One of the reasons we slow down as athletes is that our muscle fibers change,'' he says. "Fast twitch muscle fibers, responsible for strength and speed, degrade faster than slow twitch fibers."

What does that mean? Good news for those who prefer endurance sports, which engage slow twitch muscle fibers.

Here are six ways recreational athletes can modify their existing regimens to remain competitive. And even if you're not into sports, you may find these steps useful for combatting the aging process.
*
1. Focus on building stronger bones.*
Experts agree that strong bones and muscles are essential to both athletic performance and aging gracefully. Many equate strength with big muscles and forget that bones are also made up of living tissues that are in a constant state of regenerating.

Having strong bone density is as important in older age as it was when we were adolescents.

"Maintaining bone health is a big deal, as hormonal changes put some of us at risk for osteoporosis," says Richardson. "Weight-bearing exercises and strength training both put stress on the bones, which stimulates growth and makes them stronger."

Boris Gilzon, a physical therapist who has his own clinic in Brooklyn, adds that brief, high-intensity bursts are especially effective at making stronger bones in older athletes and have the added benefit of boosting heart and lung capacity.

Ultimately, stronger bones result in fewer injuries, like stress fractures and breaks.

*2. Add in some strength training too.*
Since muscle loss comes with aging, resistance training and weight-lifting are excellent ways to maintain and build muscle. Due to the potential for injury, guidance from a personal trainer may be helpful to make sure you get the most out of your practice and keep yourself safe.

Richardson also says that quality of exercise as we get older becomes more important than sheer volume.

"The way to get faster as a runner over 50, for instance, has more to do with getting stronger and less about running more and more miles," he says. "A smart strength routine will have a greater impact on lowering our times, with less risk of overtraining and injuring ourselves."

Building strength is equally important to fast-twitch muscle pursuits, like golf and tennis. Strength training can help you maintain your swing, for instance.

It will also help slow down any decline. Of course, it won't prevent it entirely, which is why golfers and tennis players especially will need to adapt their playing style to any encroaching limitations.

*3. Boost your aerobic capacity*
For those of us still eager to break personal records, we need to address the diminishing amount of oxygen that our that bodies are able to take in and distribute to our activated muscles.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is any type of cardio workout that shifts between burst of intense effort and slower recovery periods. Due to the level of exertion required for HIIT, these sessions can feel uncomfortable and pose a greater risk of injury. So exercise some caution.

As interval training gains popularity, YMCAs and most gyms offer a variety of group classes appropriate for both newer and more experienced athletes. According to Friel, athletes new to HIIT can experience a boost in performance in a relatively short period of time.

*4. Maintain your core*
Another vital component to middle-aged athletes is building a strong core-think stability, not six-pack abs. Research touts the everyday benefits of strengthening the core, including reduced risk of injury to the lower back, better posture, stability, and balance.

In sporty endeavors, a stable spine and pelvis are responsible for radiating power to our extremities, a requirement for all sports. A well maintained core also promotes efficient movements, and makes us helps youperform better with fewer repercussions.

Richardson prefers the term "balance training," and encourages his patients of all ages to adopt a core-strengthening practice that might include squats, deadlifts, and kettlebell swings. As a way to combat the aging process, a strong core means greater stability and fewer falls later in life.

*5. Reduce inflammation*
Larisa Litvinova practices internal medicine in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn and is passionate about prevention.

"Inflammation in the body makes us more vulnerable to injury and has a negative impact on performance, among other things," says Litvinova. "I encourage my patients to view food as medicine and their first line of defense against inflammation."

In fact, 90% of her arthritic patients have experienced reduced symptoms from an anti-inflammatory diet alone. The Arthritis Foundation promotes a similar diet, which includes berries and other fruits, green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, nuts, olive oil, and fatty fish.

In addition to a cleaner diet, Litvinova recommends omega 3, turmeric, and bromelain supplements as natural remedies to combat inflammation. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that omega 3s may relieve symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and joint pain, but it does not support claims that it reduces inflammation.

But not everyone agrees with her on the latter two supplements. NIH studies on the benefits of turmeric for inflammation are split. Studies on the effectiveness of bromelain, an enzyme which comes from pineapple and is thought to aid muscle soreness, are also often contradictory.

As with any supplement use, it's best to follow the advice of your trusted physician.

*6. Get physical therapy before you're hurt*
Whether you've been active in your sport for decades or you're only a few years in, Gilzon strongly encourages that you get a full body evaluation before pursuing more ambitious goals.

"Most clients come to our offices because they are already injured," he says. "But physical therapy is also designed to prevent injury."

A practitioner will evaluate your form and identify imbalances and weaknesses that might cause problems down the road. You'll also get strength and mobility exercises to restore function.

A preventative visit to a physical therapist is particularly important if you're older and still want to improve your performance.

Being competitive is not a prerequisite for optimal aging. In fact, what matters most is that you remain active and enjoy your exercise routines enough to keep them going. Otherwise, motivation wanes.

And if you're ambitious and still eager to pursue a personal record, go for it. Middle age presents a great opportunity to shake things up and explore new ways of getting stronger and faster.

sauce https://www.considerable.com/health...UtzSJWU9-FPkP87EiwZQK-Ki60EsQm-pBHQFt2b0XPvSU


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## ksj (Aug 31, 2019)

Great advice here. I would add that recent research has shown that as we age we don't absorb leucine (one of the BCAA's) as well as when we were younger. Fortunately you do still absorb it. The solution is to simply take more. I add BCAA's to my protein shakes every day.


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## RooHarris (May 11, 2011)

cyclelicious said:


> Being competitive is not a prerequisite for optimal aging. In fact, what matters most is that you remain active and enjoy your exercise routines enough to keep them going. Otherwise, motivation wanes.
> 
> And if you're ambitious and still eager to pursue a personal record, go for it. Middle age presents a great opportunity to shake things up and explore new ways of getting stronger and faster.
> 
> sauce https://www.considerable.com/health...UtzSJWU9-FPkP87EiwZQK-Ki60EsQm-pBHQFt2b0XPvSU


Your thread has been very inspirational. Thank you!


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## jk59845 (Aug 9, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> An easy read and good strategies
> 
> *6 steps to help you stay a competitive athlete in your 50s and beyond*
> 
> ...


Yes, for turmeric, you may have to look into the absorption and quality of it. For example, forms that are hydro-soluble absorb better.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*We Fail at New Year's Resolutions Because We're Doing Them Wrong*

Statistically, most people have quit their resolutions by now.

Now that the novelty of the New Year has come and gone, we've officially reached that brutal bit of January where reality starts to sink in. Suddenly, the New Year doesn't seem new-it just means back to work, back to paying bills and back to waiting for the next weekend.

With those January blues comes what researchers call Quitter's Day: the day that, statistically, most people end up abandoning their New Year's resolutions. This year it's predicted to be January 17th; a whopping two and a half weeks into the year.

So why does our motivation rarely last longer than a month? Turns out, we often don't think about several make-or-break factors when it comes to setting goals for ourselves. In other words, we're failing at our New Year's resolutions simply because we're doing them wrong.

That's why we spoke with behavioural science experts to help us figure out how to actually develop good habits-and deconstruct bad ones-for the long term...and definitely long enough to humble-brag about it to our friends. 'Cause there's still time for us to turn Quitter's Day into Recomitter's Day. See what we did there? Anyway, here's what the experts had to say.

1. *Start By Monitoring Your Own Behaviour*

If you're setting out to change your diet or quit a bad habit, try to first understand what you're currently doing.

"Spend a week or two tracking your current behaviours, and recognize what the situations and instances are in which you're more likely to fall off the wagon," says Nancy Sin, a health psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. For example, if you're more likely to watch Netflix and eat junk food after dinner, Sin says to make note of that habit and develop solutions to try and curb it.

That means keeping a track of what you're doing and what you want to change, whether that's in your phone or written down the old-fashioned way.

2. *Plan It Out*

This one may seem obvious, but planning is one step that often gets overlooked.
"A lot of people don't plan properly. They'll just decide, 'It's January 1st and I'm going to start working out,' without planning how they're going to do it," says Kim Wolfe, a Montreal-based psychotherapist who practices interventions like cognitive behavioural therapy. "You can't just jump into something just for the sake of it," she says.

And that goes for all kinds of goals you make for yourself throughout the year; not just at New Year's. So when it comes to doing something like Veganuary for instance, figure out if you're going to do meal prep and when, the kind of snacks you need in your home and restaurants that have options you like.

3. *Have A Good Attitude, Seriously*

We know this isn't an after school special, but believe it or not, positive thinking plays a big part in your ability to stay on track with your goals.

According to Sin, self-efficacy is one of the major components of health psychology. "This refers to your confidence in your ability to carry out a particular behaviour," she says. "It's going to be much harder for [someone] to actually stick to a particular diet if they think that they're not going to be able to do it."

So how can you just&#8230; get more confident? Sin suggests thinking of a time when you met a goal in the past and to remind yourself that you really are capable.

Wolfe also says that positivity consistently shows up in her research. "Happier people tend to engage in better health behaviours. They tend to sleep more, they're more physically active, less likely to smoke&#8230; and this is something that's been overlooked in health psychology research and in practice."

So if all else fails, make your resolutions fun.

In the past, Sin has assigned all of the above tasks to her students and many of them actually succeeded in their goals whether it was dramatically decreasing screen time, improving sleep habits, or even quitting smoking.

4. *When You Fail, Just Recommit*

When you do eventually fall off the wagon (because it will happen) just get back on. If that kind of disappointment is too hard a fall for you, think about making smaller goals.

Wolfe regularly sees others make this mistake in her practice. "For people who are trying to lose weight, they'll want to go to the gym five times a week. And I'll tell them, 'well just go once. Just try it and see if you like it. And the gym isn't for everybody so maybe you can find an activity that you like,'" she says. "It doesn't have to be all or nothing."

So if you find yourself knee-deep in fried chicken in the middle Veganuary or if you haven't exercised in eight straight days or if you've been on Instagram for a solid two hours since you got home from work, remember that you haven't failed your resolution when you've made mistakes; you've failed when you throw in the towel.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/partners...ars-resolutions-because-were-doing-them-wrong


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## chuckha62 (Jul 11, 2006)

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to cyclelicious again.

Judy, you're an inspiration. Seriously!

Cheers to a wonderful 2020 to you!


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> Then, recently, a trusted fellow runner suggested that when I turn 50 in two years, all my progress would fade away.
> 
> That stopped me in my tracks.
> 
> Turns out, that doesn't need to be your fate-and that's especially true for those of us in endurance sports, such as running, biking and swimming. The key: taking smart action now to effectively counter the common challenges likely to crop up as you age.


When we're young it's all about being faster, stronger, and looking good. These sort of motivations work fine when we're "competitive", but once we're old, the only competition is time.

What changes as we age is the realization that all the exercise we're doing is simply to slow the gradual decline, which can lead to boredom, and ultimately lack of activity (and death).

Make exercise out fun, don't be a slave to progress or routine, how you get exercise matters less than simply getting exercise. Don't wait, don't make excuses, get routine exercise and live longer, healthier, and happier.

I got up this morning for "dawn patrol", rode trails with my dogs for twenty minutes and then went to work. I did this knowing that a snow storm was hitting us tonight; I'm looking outside at 2" new snow and a whiteout.

Tomorrow I "cross train", shoveling snow, riding snow, and maybe I'll do a little trail work


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

Nurse Ben said:


> When we're young it's all about being faster, stronger, and looking good. These sort of motivations work fine when we're "competitive", but once we're old, the only competition is time.
> 
> What changes as we age is the realization that all the exercise we're doing is simply to slow the gradual decline, which can lead to boredom, and ultimately lack of activity (and death).
> 
> ...


Maybe you will be lucky next month, big wind storm, trees down that need to be cut and removed to reopen some trails.
I totally agree. I play outside enough hours smiling, sweating that exercises are very a tiny part of my year. Some stretching, some rolling with a massage stick and of course a plant based diet. I have no problem riding my bike 4 hours for 62 i cannot complain.


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

33red said:


> Maybe you will be lucky next month, big wind storm, trees down that need to be cut and removed to reopen some trails.
> I totally agree. I play outside enough hours smiling, sweating that exercises are very a tiny part of my year. Some stretching, some rolling with a massage stick and of course a plant based diet. I have no problem riding my bike 4 hours for 62 i cannot complain.


What I'm hoping for is a warm up, snow melts, I get to ride, and then I can keep digging a trail I started last weekend with my daughter. I love building trail because it is satisfying exercise, I get to ride, to share, and I get to be outside.

That said, I'm picking up a spin bike in the morning cuz I need a little more saddle time than I'm getting in mid winter. Cycleops, used, only $250!

Next I'm going to get a rower (Concept probably) for the wife, then if I can pick up some extra work I want to buy a RipRow for me


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## paramount3 (Jul 13, 2014)

I agree with this view. Varied exercise, practical work, some hard, some easy, keep it interesting.

Regarding the strength training articles referenced above, recommending working your muscles to failure, multiple times a week: I wince. I'm a scientist. If the data truly supports this practice, then that's how it is, but I suspect that there's more to this story than a straight line correlation between vigorous strength training and longevity; i.e. I suspect that the data is incomplete or there is a bias. Anecdotally, when you see stories about people who live to be 100 or 105 or 110, you don't hear of any body builders, and you usually don't hear of people who even did abnormally vigorous exercise or work. On the other hand, when I think of ex-NFL linemen, I envision guys who lifted a ton of weights, became injured (more from the football than the weights, of course), were unable (or uninterested) in doing much exercise after their playing days, and then die of a heart attack at age 63. Yes, I'm assuming a lot. But I believe that moderation, perhaps not pushing your muscles (tendons, ligaments, bones) to the breaking point all the time, is the better path. Also, I suspect there's a difference between a life of moderate to vigorous exercise, where a person is active from childhood continuously through old age, and a situation where an overweight, sedentary person takes on a vigorous exercise routine.

At the end of day, if the only way for me to exercise was to go to a gym, I might become sedentary. I force myself to do light upper body weights 2-3 times a week. But I ride (or run) about 6 days a week, outside, because that's what works for me.


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## bdundee (Feb 4, 2008)

I hit the Gym 6 days a week especially in the winter and have been at it for almost 15 years. I gave up on winter riding due to my feet not handling the cold any longer so I started really hitting the weights harder during the winter months. I love biking but I also love the rush of throwing heavy weights around as well, it's addicting and if I had to give up one I can't say for certain which one it would be? 

I love the gym rat life.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ok not strength training per se but this story made me smile. Life goals for sure!

*100-year-old rower says she has no plans to stop*









If you would've asked Nanette Fishman if she ever thought she'd take up rowing in her nineties, it would've been one of the last things on her mind.

The New York native came to the Atria Lynbrook as a way to continue living semi-independently in her golden years. Soon after the move she took up rowing, using a training machine that uses a water tank to create resistance. That was three years ago.

Now, Nanette is 100 years old and has no intentions of stopping.

"One hundred doesn't mean a thing," she said. "It's only a number."

She paddled through the waters of Oyster Bay in September, casually competing to set world records in rowing in her age category.

FOX 5 NY caught up with her during a weekday workout with her coach Dianna Viglietta by her side.

Exercising regularly has become part of Nanette's routine.

Nanette is one of three residents here at the Atria in the centenarian club. But what's the secret to such a long life? They say it's good living and finding the humor in everything.

With her drive and determination, Nanette has become an inspiration to many other residents and staff.

"You can do anything at any age," Viglietta said. "So anytime anybody says I can't do this or that, you see Nanette doing these things, it's kind of like you can't say no."

Nanette's son Marc says his mom is in relatively very good health for her age and on most days she makes him look like the lazy one!

"A few aches and pains but I'll tell you, I think I have more trouble getting out of bed than she does," he said.

She has no plan on slowing down any time soon.

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/100-yea...AkvLZSqCHgzp_Mpvyt5hHY08DRfj4B2PoFY8_lLXuf5N4


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

I just want to say, this thread has been an inspiration and motivation to me. I appreciate everyone’s contribution to it. 
Just recently got a new mountain bike. (Kona Hei Hei if you have to know). 
The wife suggested that we join our new local Planet Fitness at the end of last year. I poo pooed the idea, telling her that I didn’t have a beer belly or any trouble opening new jars. They had a great introductory price to join. So, what the heck, I’ll try it. It has been a good thing. Been going every other day for a bit over 3 weeks now. And I’m liking it! 
Feels good to be in a facility where everyone there is in the mindset of improving themselves! Happy to have get past quitters day as mentioned earlier in this thread.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

As a cancer survivor myself ...i can relate 

*Exercise can help in the fight against cancer, but how do we persuade patients to do it?*

When a major new set of international guidelines on exercise and cancer was released in October, most of the headlines understandably focused on two key promises: That appropriate levels of physical activity could enhance quality and possibly length of life in those with a cancer diagnosis; and that they might help others avoid developing cancer in the first place.

The evidence for these two claims was dissected in depth in a pair of papers published simultaneously in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the fruits of a lengthy roundtable process involving more than three-dozen researchers from 17 health organizations around the world, including the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.

Less heralded, however, was a third paper from the same group that addressed a knottier problem that's all too familiar to exercise researchers: How do you move from knowing that something is a good practice to getting people to actually do it? Establishing a regular exercise habit can be challenging for just about anybody, but there are extra hurdles for people with cancer.

"They're all in different types of treatment, they've had different surgeries," says Kristin Campbell, the director of the University of British Columbia's Clinical Exercise Physiology Lab and one of the authors of the new guidelines. As a result, "cancer survivors themselves have a lot of questions, like 'Is this safe for me?' "

The answer, in most cases, is yes - but with some adjustments. While a previous set of guidelines published in 2010 had suggested that those undergoing cancer treatment should aim for the same amount of exercise as everyone else, meaning at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise for each week, the new guidelines revise that target down to three weekly sessions of 30 minutes each.

That adjustment, based on a wealth of new evidence published in the past decade, "is a good change," says Margie McNeely, the director of the University of Alberta's Cancer Rehabilitation Clinic, "and a more realistic standard for a survivor undergoing - or in the early stages of - recovering from cancer treatment."

For reasons that aren't fully understood - theories include reduced inflammation and oxidative stress, better blood-sugar control and changed hormone levels - exercise has powerful effects on cancer cells.

There's now strong evidence that regular physical activity lowers your risk of at least seven different types of cancer, and moderate evidence that it raises your chances of survival if you do get diagnosed. For those undergoing cancer treatment, it staves off reductions in physical function and helps reduce anxiety, depression and cancer-related fatigue.

In other words, the pressing question isn't whether cancer survivors should exercise - it's how to give them the confidence and information they need to do it.

"Oncologists and oncology nurses are not trained in exercise," Campbell points out. "They don't really know how to screen people or what to prescribe for exercise, because it's just not their wheelhouse."

In the third roundtable paper, Campbell and her colleagues propose a three-step process for oncologists: Assess, advise and refer. Simply asking about a patient's current exercise capacity - assessing - is a good way to raise awareness, and basic advice about the new exercise guidelines - advising - may be enough to send some people down the right path.

But many will need a referral for more detailed help from an exercise specialist. That's where initiatives such as the Alberta Cancer Exercise program, a continuing study led by McNeely, come in. Over the last year, more than 1,500 people with cancer have taken part in the supervised 12-week program at sites across the province.

About a quarter of the participants have what McNeely calls "chronic cancer." They're not cured, but are living with the disease and will likely live for a long time while cycling in and out of treatment. Prescribing exercise for these people is trickier, but the benefits - quality of life, physical function and the fitness to withstand their treatments - are even more significant.

Given these constraints, there will never be a single set of generic exercise guidelines that applies to all cancer survivors. But the most essential message, now backed by solid science, is the simplest: "Avoid inactivity," Campbell urges. "Get out there and start doing whatever you're able to do."

sauce https://www.theglobeandmail.com/lif...YKSKBZf9agAfLnzCw3pk7YAUCMDevtnyVXg4baFGroQcs


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

One of the side benefits for my wife and I since starting our ‘new’ exercise routine is more interest in the food And nutrition that we put into our bodies. Seems natural to us.

We didn’t start this program so we could get away with eating like crap and drinking like a fish. We were eating pretty well before, but now have more focus on our food.

There have several times when I wake up on “exercise day” and think ‘maybe I’ll skip today, cause my heart isn’t in it’. But then I think about this thread and all the stories and articles. Better get my dumbass down to the gym you slacker!


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

Retire said:


> One of the side benefits for my wife and I since starting our 'new' exercise routine is more interest in the food And nutrition that we put into our bodies. Seems natural to us.
> 
> We didn't start this program so we could get away with eating like crap and drinking like a fish. We were eating pretty well before, but now have more focus on our food.
> 
> There have several times when I wake up on "exercise day" and think 'maybe I'll skip today, cause my heart isn't in it'. But then I think about this thread and all the stories and articles. Better get my dumbass down to the gym you slacker!


That's exactly how I feel too. In fact, it often causes me to turn onto my good ear and try to block out the world. But the xtra-large cats I live with thwart that within 15 minutes or so. When I was 40, I couldn't even imagine a day would come when I would allow myself to slack off on my gym days, which were like5-6 days a week. Now, two days a week is good enuf...


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

”But the xtra-large cats I live with thwart that within 15 minutes or so.”

I gotta laugh at that! My cat is such a sweetheart. She waits for me to stir a bit before coming over to get her morning loving. I’ve opened my eyes and see her sitting there waiting for signs of life from me!


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

Holy crap! Anyone here using a jump rope as part of their exercise regime?

I bought one today to incorporate a little HIIT into my program. At first I felt uncoordinated, my timing was awful. Started to get good enough to go 60-90 seconds. Then rest up some, go again. My heart rate hit redline quickly (220 minus your age right?).
I did 7 sets. I definitely feel it in my calf’s now as I type this. Right now I don’t think this is something I want to do everyday. I’m sure I’ll get better at it with more practice, hope so anyways. Probably haven’t skipped rope in 45+ years.


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## oldcolonial (Aug 28, 2018)

Much of the difficulty in skipping rope relates to coordination. Once you get the coordination down standard single under skipping is not much more taxing than light jogging. If you keep working at it you will progress to double under skips. These require the combination of a faster rope (ball bearings in the handles), faster rope motion and higher jumps. Being able to rip off a hundred of these in a row will get your heart rate up there fast.

Also, on the heart rate red line, 220 - age is very crude. This can easily be off by +- 20 beats per minute as there is large variation among people with regard to their max heart rate. I would use the, if it feels like the red line, it probably is the red line approach.


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

I’m gonna have to look up this double under thing of which you speak. Pretty sure I’m going to stick with just jumping rope. 
You are right I feel uncoordinated. And I thought that I was coordinated!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> I did CrossFit Open 20.2 workout Rx
> 
> Master Class:
> 20.2
> ...


Doing doubleunders. Looks like regular skipping in the pic


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

I can’t even do one! Like Oldcolonial said “practice with just the one unders at first “


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

My 96 neighbor was like a 21 yo boxer with her rope, playing tennis twice a week year round until her last 3 months. She looked 59.


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

So my goal is to be able to do ONE of these bad boys! But not in the immediate future. Baby steps, baby steps.....

I can see where they would certainly be beneficial, must help with balance too.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Strength training is vital in avoiding injuries and staying independent as you age*









When an intruder broke into the Rochester, N.Y., home of 82-year-old Willie Murphy a few months ago, he was met with a big surprise. Murphy, a diminutive but powerlifting woman, quickly jumped into action, using her strength to pummel the intruder with a broom and send him running for the door.

Not surprisingly, the story went viral as people embraced the images of the elderly Murphy flexing her muscles for the cameras.

While older men and women needn't become powerlifters, athletes like Murphy who lift massive weights, experts say strength training - using weights heavier than you might expect - can be an important component of a healthy future.

Beginning about age 30, men and women lose muscle mass at about the rate of 10 percent per decade until about 50, when that loss accelerates to 15 percent per decade, according to research.

By the eighth decade, the loss of muscle mass - known as sarcopenia - and strength can be severe, greatly affecting quality of life by increasing the odds of falls and bone breaks that can cascade into other medical problems.









"When we talk about bone health and falls, we talk about three factors: fall, fragility and force," says Matt Sedgley, sports medicine physician with the MedStar Orthopaedic Institute. "Participating in weight-bearing and resistance-training exercises helps develop muscle mass. This may help treat fragility conditions like osteoporosis. So if you fall you have stronger bone density. It may also lead to more cushioning when you do fall."

Building strength can also help with the ability to stay independent as someone ages. "Strength declines rapidly if it's not maintained," says Seth Larsen, a Fort Worth-based primary care physician and certified strength and conditioning coach. "Without it, daily activities like picking up a bag of groceries, opening a kitchen cabinet or getting in and out of a chair can become difficult."

Resistance training can be part of the antidote, but picking up five-pound dumbbells and doing a few biceps curls won't get you where you need to be, Larsen says.

"In daily life, you're going to need to lift things bigger than five pounds all the time, You might also need to catch yourself from falling, or get yourself off the floor. Both require far more strength," he says.

For the best results, experts say a varied, heavier workload is needed.

"In most cases, what people think of as strength training really isn't," says Chris Nentarz, a Buffalo-based physical therapist. "If you want to offset age-related muscle loss, you need to be working at an intensity of 60 percent to 80 percent of your maximum load [meaning the highest amount you can lift]. You can't recruit your muscles if you aren't working hard enough."

Larsen agrees. "If you don't overload your tissues, they won't respond," he says. "If you continue using the same weights and rep scheme, you'll actually go backwards. The body wants and needs to be challenged."









*Have a good routine*
Before embarking on a program of heavier weight training, however, it's important to get a medical checkup, particularly if the person is middle aged or older, with a focus on heart health to ensure it can handle the demands, Larsen says. And it's important to assess whether there are any muscular problems or bone issues that need to be worked with before starting a new regimen. "The approach should be very individualized," he says. "If vascular health is good, there's not much off limits, but you need to start simple and progress."

After that, finding a qualified trainer, gym or coach is the best place to learn how to lift weights without injury and also obtain guidance for progression to heavier loads.

Many gyms offer basic weightlifting classes using everything from barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells, or, in larger gyms, even a TRX system, a suspension system of straps that taxes you with body weight.









At the heart of a good strength routine, says Larsen, are several moves. "You need to be able to push, pull, hinge at the hips, carry and squat," he says. "And as you age, you must be able to get up off the floor in case you fall. This is what saves lives."

Developing good balance is also important, and something you can work on with your strength routine. Mortality rates within a year of a hip fracture in populations over 60 range between 14 percent and 58 percent.

"The most common algorithms to assess fall risk recommend strength and balance exercises whether you are found to have low, moderate or high risk for falls," Sedgley says. If it is not challenged, balance disappears with age. Strength moves that meet this need include those like a split squat - where one leg is in front in a lunge position - with a barbell you are able to handle comfortably on your back/shoulders.

The good news is that to make the strength and balance gains you need, you won't have to invest a massive amount of time.

"Three to four sessions a week that include 20 to 30 minutes of intense training does it," Nentarz says. "Use some of that time to practice your moves with good form." Especially for beginners, a trainer can help discern the right starting weight as well as watch your form to help you make adjustments and ensure you are executing the moves properly.

Larsen adds that good form is key and should serve as a guiding principle. "Your workload should be determined by your ability to complete it with the proper form," he says.

Another guiding principle is progressing in small increments. "We know that spikes in volume or intensity increases the risk of injury," Nentarz says. "In general, this means increasing either at a rate of about 10 percent week to week."

If you begin chest pressing using an empty barbell pole - weighing 35 pounds for women/45 for men - then you'd go up 3.5 pounds/4.5 pounds the next week, assuming you have proper form at the lower weight and have performed the exercise several times the previous week so your muscles are prepared.









*Keep fit and confident*
Michele Greenfield, 58, has been active all her life - including as a collegiate swimmer.

Since college, she has been a runner and has weight trained. But two years ago, she felt like her strength-training routine had stagnated, so she began taking group fitness classes that included a large element of strength training at a nearby gym.

Today, she says her legs have more muscle tone, her back is stronger and her overall body composition has changed.









And progressing to lifting much heavier weights has made a difference. "I don't need to return to the strength level of my college days, but I want to take advantage of the things I can control as I age," she says.

"I see some of the older people in my life and how they have to work to do simple things, like getting out of the car," she says. "I feel confident in my strength and movement and I want to stave off losses as long as possible."

As for Willie Murphy, the 5-foot powerlifter who bested the intruder, she told NBC's "Today" show that she began powerlifting in her mid-70s to stay healthy, fit and independent.

"When it snows in Rochester, guess who's doing the snow? Me," she said in the interview.









sauce https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...-cOmzsdDu302XbqBOuzOVKK7HmVUIlfKMzkqeDX46yyRk


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

Cool articles. And great picture of you guys! Absolutely love it!


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## upstateSC-rider (Dec 25, 2003)

Retire said:


> Holy crap! Anyone here using a jump rope as part of their exercise regime?
> 
> I bought one today to incorporate a little HIIT into my program. At first I felt uncoordinated, my timing was awful. Started to get good enough to go 60-90 seconds. Then rest up some, go again. My heart rate hit redline quickly (220 minus your age right?).
> I did 7 sets. I definitely feel it in my calf's now as I type this. Right now I don't think this is something I want to do everyday. I'm sure I'll get better at it with more practice, hope so anyways. Probably haven't skipped rope in 45+ years.


I've attempted it each winter for the past 3 years but quickly got frustrated, need to try it again. I'm fairly fit but even when I can only get 15 or 20 seconds I quickly go anaerobic.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

Retire said:


> Holy crap! Anyone here using a jump rope as part of their exercise regime?
> 
> I bought one today to incorporate a little HIIT into my program. At first I felt uncoordinated, my timing was awful. Started to get good enough to go 60-90 seconds. Then rest up some, go again. My heart rate hit redline quickly (220 minus your age right?).
> I did 7 sets. I definitely feel it in my calf's now as I type this. Right now I don't think this is something I want to do everyday. I'm sure I'll get better at it with more practice, hope so anyways. Probably haven't skipped rope in 45+ years.


I absolutely love jumping rope, and work it in and out of my routine regularly. I'll do things like see how many i can get unbroken, how many I can get in half an hour, how quickly I can get 2000 skips... Once your calves get used to the work I think it is truly an invaluable cardio tool. Have fun with it!


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## andytiedye (Jul 26, 2014)

I haven't tried jumping rope since I was a kid, and I was far too uncoordinated to do it then.

How high do you have to jump to do a double-under? 2 feet?


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

andytiedye said:


> I haven't tried jumping rope since I was a kid, and I was far too uncoordinated to do it then.
> 
> How high do you have to jump to do a double-under? 2 feet?


It is more like surgery. Your brain is the key. If the rope does not touch the ground you are making it tougher. Same if it touches it too much, that would slow it down. With a light touch down and good rotating speed just add good coordination and there is no need to jump high. You can play like boxers crossing your wrists in front of you to gain confidence. Just do some minutes daily and your brain will get used to the activity than your confidence will improve.
Just like crawling, being on 4 than walking, running....


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Double unders takes practice. I finally got the hang of it... after several months! If I can't do a warm up run before a workout, I skip and practice double unders. Fast wrists and keeping your elbows close to the body etc. There are tutorials available to learn the fine details but practice is the key


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Don't forget to keep lifting 

*Lifting weights 'protects the brain from long-term degeneration'*

Lifting weights can help protect the brain from degeneration, and its benefits last for many months after training, according to Australian research.

A study by University of Sydney researchers has found that the areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer's disease are protected for one year after training.

The research, published in NeuroImage: Clinical, found that six months of strength training led to cognitive improvements in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and significantly slowed neurodegeneration linked with Alzheimer's disease.

Dementia affects 47 million people globally and there are estimates this figure will rise to 150 million by 2050.

Exercise is known to benefit cognition, but there is very little research into the effects on older adults with MCI who are able to go about their daily activities but are forgetful and are more vulnerable to developing dementia.

For the new study, 100 participants with MCI were randomly assigned to one of four different interventions.

The twice-weekly supervised sessions, which lasted for six months, comprised of strength and computerised cognition training, strength training (progressively increasing load using free weights and exercise machines) alone, computerised cognition training alone or a "double control condition" of stretching and watching videos.

The participants were assessed via MRIs, physical, metabolic and cognitive tests at the start of the study, at the end of the six months and then again at 18 months.

"At the end of the six months there was a significant effect on cognition ... for anyone doing resistance exercise," said senior author Professor Michael Valenzuela, leader of the Regenerative Neuroscience Group at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre.

One year after the program ended, the researchers found the "cognitive benefits were preserved" and loss of volume in the hippocampus was largely prevented among those in the strength training group. It did not seem to matter whether or not participants kept up their training during that time.

"There seems to be a delayed effect on the brain that is specifically related to that six months of training," Professor Valenzuela said.

The cognitive training group showed improvements in memory at six months, but the effect was "not as strong" at 18 months, while the group who did both cognitive and strength training did not have statistically significant results at the end of 18 months.

"We had been expecting the two things to be better than either, but we didn't see that," Professor Valenzuela said. "Our working hypothesis is that we may have overloaded participants with the double intervention of 45 minutes of strength training and then ... 45 minutes of brain training. My perspective is you probably need to space these things out and have a rest day in between."

Aerobic and strength training share common biological mechanisms but they also have some specific mechanisms to each other, Valenzuela explained, noting it was too early to tell whether one type of exercise was more beneficial than the other.

"Exercise stimulates a whole cocktail of biological changes in the bloodstream," he said.

"Strength training specifically promotes anti-inflammatory types of mechanisms in the body ... and it strengthens your bones more specifically than aerobic [but] how you get from lifting a dumbbell to an improvement in the hippocampus is not clear at the moment."

Rodent studies have found that exercise stimulates the arousal and alertness centres in the brain.

"Those brain centres that underlie arousal or alertness are deep in the brain and they have direct connections to the same hippocampal areas that we found to be protected," Valenzuela said, speculating that this pathway may help to explain the findings.

Rob Newton, a Professorial Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University's Exercise Medicine Research Institute, says "this is an excellent piece of research".

"Any physical activity is beneficial," Newton added. "Heavy resistance training drives more mechanisms for potential neuroprotection such as BDNF and testosterone."

Professor Valenzuela added: "The main message is we can reduce our risk for dementia through lifestyle changes. Exercise is very important."

sauce https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/he...zUxps6n7kZHX_C2uWOolRPOlBhrDm2WWqyk0KKVn8WgLg


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

2000 skips, 24 consecutive double unders!! I am honestly impressed with you guys!
I have always been in decent shape due to work before I retired and the dabbling I do in the summer time as a retiree (arduous wildland firefighter). Someone talked about the 45 pound weight over 3 miles in less than 45 minutes test required. Never had a problem with it. Joined our new Planet Fitness 6 weeks ago and have been faithfully going every other day. 
Really felt like I was making some improvement in my health. UNTIL I picked up a jump rope. That thing is torture....the most I can do is 60 seconds at a leisurely pace!! I’m not getting frustrated....just surprised at how difficult it is. I know it is something that I need to keep after. All that gym work has not prepared me for the rope. I really thought it was going to be easier than what it has been so far.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

There are many ways to play. Doubles are just 1 variation. You can alternate, instead of bouncing of both feet you can alternate left-right. Do 10 on right foot fallowed by 10 on your left. You can watch TV and at each commercial skip to add minutes. Than you can practice speed because you know in a bit you will have time off to rest. Just take the boredom away. You can skip 200 times than do some pushups, skip than do some body squats.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

Retire said:


> 2000 skips, 24 consecutive double unders!! I am honestly impressed with you guys!
> I have always been in decent shape due to work before I retired and the dabbling I do in the summer time as a retiree (arduous wildland firefighter). Someone talked about the 45 pound weight over 3 miles in less than 45 minutes test required. Never had a problem with it. Joined our new Planet Fitness 6 weeks ago and have been faithfully going every other day.
> Really felt like I was making some improvement in my health. UNTIL I picked up a jump rope. That thing is torture....the most I can do is 60 seconds at a leisurely pace!! I'm not getting frustrated....just surprised at how difficult it is. I know it is something that I need to keep after. All that gym work has not prepared me for the rope. I really thought it was going to be easier than what it has been so far.


Just like anything else, you get more proficient the more you do it. I've found that it's a lot easier to make quick gains with conditioning than it is with strength. One trick I like to use when I'm trying to master something is to make a monthly "challenge" and do it every day. I got decent (although I'm still pretty lousy) at double unders when our gym set a challenge to do 2010 DUs in January of 2010 to kick off the new year. i chipped away at 100 every day until i got it, and that daily practice really helped. Maybe try a monthly challenge and see how many regular skips you can get unbroken every day? It wouldn't take but a minute or two and I bet you would be impressed with the results.


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## oldcolonial (Aug 28, 2018)

Nick Symonds ( formerly, world class middle distance runner) has a nice video for weight training. His strength coach, James Radcliffe is also one the fathers of the functional weight training movement. His stuff is well worth looking up.

Two good links below:


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

I think this jumping rope is making my knees ache. Or I’m using using muscles that I was not aware I had. Gonna back off for a bit and see what happens.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

Retire said:


> I think this jumping rope is making my knees ache. Or I'm using using muscles that I was not aware I had. Gonna back off for a bit and see what happens.


This should be a no impact activity. Do you lack flexibility?
Did you do lots of weigh lifting?
Are your feet parallel? pointing inside? outside?


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## paramount3 (Jul 13, 2014)

33red said:


> This should be a no impact activity. Do you lack flexibility?
> Did you do lots of weigh lifting?
> Are your feet parallel? pointing inside? outside?


Unless you set the rope down on the floor and gently step over it, then both of your feet need to be off the ground at the same time to clear the rope. If both of your feet are off the ground at the same time, then you are by definition airborne, and when you return to earth there will be some amount of force greater than your static weight that will need to be absorbed by your joints. This is not a "no impact" activity.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

paramount3 said:


> Unless you set the rope down on the floor and gently step over it, then both of your feet need to be off the ground at the same time to clear the rope. If both of your feet are off the ground at the same time, then you are by definition airborne, and when you return to earth there will be some amount of force greater than your static weight that will need to be absorbed by your joints. This is not a "no impact" activity.


This is not serious. If we can skip real fast it is obvious we are not jumping 4 in high.
It is simply a coordination skill where we go as low as possible.
The ankles can manage that with no problem. The quads are not realy working. 
It is like you are describing sitting as an exercise because some breathing is involved.


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

No impact? Not for me..maybe I’m jumping too high. Both feet off the ground. I’m certain coordination has something to do with it. Doctor says me flexibility is excellent. I have recently started lifting some weights and using the machines. I’m not heavy...5’10.5”
( I swear I used to be 6’ tall) and 168 pounds. Toes pointed straight ahead.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

Retire said:


> No impact? Not for me..maybe I'm jumping too high. Both feet off the ground. I'm certain coordination has something to do with it. Doctor says me flexibility is excellent. I have recently started lifting some weights and using the machines. I'm not heavy...5'10.5"
> ( I swear I used to be 6' tall) and 168 pounds. Toes pointed straight ahead.


Most activities we see an expert and it looks easy. You will get there. Instead of using your arms and shoulders only your wrists will whip it and only your ankles will barely lift your feet. Like xcrountry skiing a beginner waste energy climbing but it can be done mostly by proper technique. I also lost an in. It is like 25 mm, 1 for each disc. I still have my long legs, no bike fits me without modifications.


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## Retire (Jan 11, 2020)

Thanks guys for the advice regarding jumping rope. I truly appreciate it! Not giving up. Just lowering my expectations. 

Another activity to add to the list of “Things I am Not a Natural At” and I have tried my entire life to find that elusive activity! Bowling,golf,pool,swimming,running,painting,snorkeling,scuba,MTB,dirt bikes,street bikes,razor pilot,drone pilot,archery,marksman,gardening,home improvement, etc etc!
Ha Ha!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Retire said:


> Thanks guys for the advice regarding jumping rope. I truly appreciate it! Not giving up. Just lowering my expectations.
> 
> Another activity to add to the list of "Things I am Not a Natural At" and I have tried my entire life to find that elusive activity! Bowling,golf,pool,swimming,running,painting,snorkeling,scuba,MTB,dirt bikes,street bikes,razor pilot,drone pilot,archery,marksman,gardening,home improvement, etc etc!
> Ha Ha!


I'm a late starter at everything! I didn't have the same opportunities now as when I was younger. I had different interests, different priories and involved in different relationships when I was younger. So I can't blame myself for not knowing or trying. The physical and mental barriers haven't stopped me from trying new activities in my 50's and beyond. What amazes me, when I set achievable goals, spend time, practice with training, I can do it. A lot of it is a mental game and self doubt is a time waster.


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## andytiedye (Jul 26, 2014)

cyclelicious said:


> ...For the new study, 100 participants with MCI were randomly assigned to one of four different interventions.
> 
> The twice-weekly supervised sessions, which lasted for six months, comprised of strength and computerised cognition training, strength training (progressively increasing load using free weights and exercise machines) alone, computerised cognition training alone or a "double control condition" of stretching and watching videos.
> 
> ...


This last part does seem rather odd, and hopefully there will be further study of the interaction between the two.

Here is another study, much longer-term, which examined the relationship between participation in various cognitive and physical activities and the onset of dementia. It did not include weightlifting.
In this study, dancing turned out to be the most beneficial of the physical activities they looked at.


Bronx Aging Study said:


> We examined the relation between leisure activities and the risk of dementia in a prospective cohort of 469 subjects older than 75 years of age who resided in the community and did not have dementia at base line. We examined the frequency of participation in leisure activities at enrollment and derived cognitive-activity and physical-activity scales in which the units of measure were activity-days per week....
> 
> Over a median follow-up period of 5.1 years, dementia developed in 124 subjects (Alzheimer's disease in 61 subjects, vascular dementia in 30, mixed dementia in 25, and other types of dementia). Among leisure activities, reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing were associated with a reduced risk of dementia....
> 
> Among cognitive activities, reading, playing board games, and playing musical instruments were associated with a lower risk of dementia (Table 2). Dancing was the only physical activity associated with a lower risk of dementia. Fewer than 10 subjects played golf or tennis, so the relation between these activities and dementia was not assessed....


https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022252


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## Squeeze (Apr 14, 2015)

I can relate to the difficulty jumping rope mentioned above. I never could figure it out. I'm the same now as when I was a kid - I can jump the rope two or three times but by loop four or five, my feet hit the rope (or vice-versa). Yeah, I know, practice makes perfect, but one needs to be interested in something to make practice even tolerable, nevermind enjoyable. It's not my thing and never has been.

I did just start weightlifting again and am pretty pleased with myself. Not in the gym but in my basement with a flat bench and with a couple dumbbell bars with spring-clamps to hold the weights on and more weight discs than I need (for now). Most of this stuff I've had for years but lost one of the spring-clamps (sorry if that's not the right word) a couple years ago and finally bought one at a Play It Again Sports store this weekend (a used sporting goods store).

Now to keep it up and not just let it fade away into something I used to do.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

Squeeze said:


> one needs to be interested in something to make practice even tolerable, nevermind enjoyable. It's not my thing and never has been.
> 
> Now to keep it up and not just let it fade away into something I used to do.


I think you hit on the key piece of any training routine, and it's something I tell anyone looking to get started at getting off the couch. You have to find something you enjoy, or you aren't going to stick with it. For me personally, the idea of training on machines or a treadmill just makes me want to die. I just don't understand the point. But give me a barbell, a kettlebell, a jumprope, a snowboard, a bike... anything that rewards practice and persistence with tangible improvements and I am down. But yeah, if the jumprope doesn't do it for you, move on and find something that does.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*62-year-old former Marine breaks planking record for second time - Wowza!*









It's an incredible feat at any age. But George Hood, who set the male world record for longest time in the abdominal plank position, is 62 and says he's in the greatest shape of his life.

On February 15, Hood held a plank for 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds, which Guinness World Records confirmed was the new record.

The female record is currently held by Dana Glowacka from Canada, who held a plank for 4 hours, 19 minutes and 55 seconds last year, according to Guinness World Records.

Hood, a former US Marine and retired Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory special agent, has broken the record for longest plank before, in 2011 when he held it for 1 hour and 20 minutes. But when he tried to set it again in 2016, he lost to Mao Weidong from China, who held a plank for 8 hours, 1 minute and 1 second.

Hood, of Naperville, Illinois, said he was determined to reclaim his title. He trained every day for an average of 7 hours for the 18 months leading up to the big day.

"It's 4-5 hours a day in the plank pose," Hood told CNN. "Then I do 700 pushups a day, 2,000 situps a day in sets of a hundred, 500 leg squats a day. For upper body and the arms, I do approximately 300 arm curls a day."

In total, Hood did around 2,100 hours of planking to prepare for the event, according to Guinness World Records.

When Hood finally got up on the platform to break the world record, he said he thought of his three sons. His rock music -- including Van Halen and "Du Hast" by Rammstein -- also kept him going.

"When it gets tough, you know what I do? I turn that music up so loud, you'd think you're at a rock concert. I always had a fantasy of being a rock star back in the '80s," Hood said. "And at least for those 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds, I was a rock star."

Hood said the phases of prolonged planking are similar to the walls one encounters while running a marathon.

"The burning will set in those elbows. The skin will break and they will bleed," Hood said. "When that happens, (my coach) talks me through it and I take lots of water and eventually they go numb. When the numbness sets in, I'm generally pretty good. It's just a matter of being tired and wanting to stop."

But no matter how much he wanted to stop, Hood said he had to keep going because he was doing this for a bigger reason than just himself. He was doing it to help raise mental health awareness.

With his experience in the military and law enforcement, Hood said he knew mental illness is often stigmatized. So he completed the challenge at 515 Fitness, a gym that helps address mental illness through exercise and professional help.

"When you're in a combat situation, and even in law enforcement with the agents that I used to work with, we get involved in shootings," Hood said. "Some people don't handle it well because they're burdened with other issues that are running in the background, whether it be marital issues, kid issues or financial problems. Sometimes those things can push people over the edge and they don't know how to flush it out, how to talk about it.

"But when they walk through the door at 515 Fitness, there's hope because there's licensed clinicians there and trainers that will help them get well," Hood added.









He could have stopped planking at any time after the 8 hour and 1 minute mark, but Hood said he pushed toward 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds to get the "515" numbers in there and dedicate it to the gym.

To celebrate the reclaiming of his world record title, Hood finished off the event with a quick 75 pushups.

Hood said this will likely be his last time breaking the world record for planking, but his next goal is to set the Guinness World Record for most pushups completed in one hour, which currently stands at 2,806.

If there's a lesson to be learned from this, Hood said it's this: "Anybody can do what I do."

"Everybody has to start somewhere," Hood said. "Every tree that's planted has roots. Once that tree is planted and those roots start to grow, whether it be 30 seconds or a minute or 5 minutes or an hour (of holding a plank), you start repeating the process and taking care of your tree, it will grow and you will improve and you will actually get better."

sauce https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/23/us/new-planking-world-record-trnd/index.html

8 hours??? That's incredible at any age! I can't even sleep for 6 hours without getting up to pee!


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

And to think I was pretty proud of myself when I managed 2 minutes of plank the other day!


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

Wow. If, as the Marines say, "Pain is just weakness leaving the body", then that is one strong Jarhead today. His face on that first pic in the article was a veritable Mask of Pain.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good video endorsing the benefits of strength training for riding. This is preaching to the over 50 strength training choir ... demo'd by younger pro downhiller Remy Metailler; sharing his training regime.






We incorporate the same equipment and lifts in crossfit (bands, kettlebells, box jumps, rings, bars, plus Olympic lifts and weight training etc) And for bragging rights (I'm 5'4", 122lbs, ... over 50  ) I can deadlift more than Remy.:thumbsup:

I am impressed by Christina's workout ability! I think she could out lift Remy


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Practicing social distancing, we set up a home gym. We have some basic equipment and we are practicing minimalism 

Bar rack
2 Barbells 35lbs & 45lbs
1 kettlebell 35lbs/16kg (we will add a 53lbs/24kg KB)
2 skipping ropes
2 dumbells (various weights to add)
weight plates 10 lbs, 25lbs, 35lbs (to add more)
restistance bands
yoga mats
foam roller
timer
white board

It's a work in progress. (we need more weight plates , workout bench etc. etc. but it's a start) We can do alot of body weight exercises. We follow a program by a certified crossfit and olympic weight lifting coach. Yesterday's workout:

Warm up:
2km run
bar warm up exercises

Strength: 2 Push presses @ 85% + 30 sec hollow holds x5 sets

Conditioning: 7 sets
3 push up (strict)
6 thrusters 
12 burpees

Accessory: 2 sets
10-12 dumbell rows
30 sec active hang


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## bdundee (Feb 4, 2008)

I did the same thing, I was looking at the Push shock before all this hit and I'm glad I held off because that $1200 went a long ways for a home gym.
So far:

300# Olympic weight set
pro bench
full squat rack with pull up and dip bars
battle ropes
landmine setup
Also building some stuff like weight racks and box's with the free time between home schooling the turds.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ That's awesome. Seems like a good set up. It is pricey initially and many people buy equipment that they will hardly use. We carefully bought stuff we used for crossfit which was pretty minimal. We are still working on getting a few more things that won't collect dust


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It takes a pandemic to change people's habits


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## NYrr496 (Sep 10, 2008)

Funny^^


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I do a 2km warm up run prior to my strength training work out in the home gym. Today I also did some rock jumps


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## bdundee (Feb 4, 2008)

My happy place at least for awhile yet.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I dislike the term seniors, especially for those of us over 50 and active. I prefer master-class athletes or even "perennials"

But here is another article presenting the virtues of strength training 
*
The Advantages of Weight Training for Seniors*

The secret to a long life may be a barbell. A great opening sentence-and I will explain as we proceed. I have written from time to time about the advantages of weight training for seniors. These statements have come from studies that I have read, my experience with senior trainees, and my own personal experience. At the risk of repeating myself and of preaching to the choir, I want to discuss some of the material I previously discussed, as well as a trove of new material that excites me about the advantages of weight training for seniors.

As I previously discussed, we begin to lose muscle in our third decade, and bone density in our fourth decade. These eventualities can be prevented by weight training. The loss of bone density and muscle mass contributes to older frailty. The loss of bone density in post-menopausal women who are not on hormone therapy is especially concerning. Although both men and women decline in bone density, the rate is faster for women. The really good news is that weight training can not only prevent these events but also can restore both muscle mass and bone density after they have occurred. An alarmingly sad statistic is that one-half of all people over 65 who break a hip die within two years. There is no reason for this! Proper rehab and weight training would prevent this.

I am too old to start. Bullsh*t! It is never too late to start. Regardless of previous conditioning levels, seniors' ability to create new muscle is the same as experienced lifters'. Studies show that masters athletes do not demonstrate a greater ability to add muscle when compared with a beginner who is unaccustomed to resistance training. So, if I started to train a senior without weight training experience, he could add muscle at the same rate as me, and I've been lifting since 1957. Beginning resistance training at any age will delay or eliminate frailty and muscle weakness. Some form of a regular routine is essential. I began training a friend when he was 79. He was a former excellent athlete who had been sedentary for a long time. He could barely walk. Now at 88, he continues to train three times a week. He increases his weights regularly, continues to get stronger, and plays golf. It is indeed never too late to begin!

Older people (think 80s), regardless of training history, can build muscle mass. In a long-term study of multiple individuals, some of whom died during the study, and not all of whom trained with weights, those in the study who did train with weights were 46% less likely to die. A more realistic number is that lifting weights was linked to a 17% reduced risk of death. In any event, it is indeed the barbell that is the secret to life. If you are over 65 and are inclined to begin, it would be a good idea to hire a trainer for a time to work around creaky knees and shoulders, as well as tight hips.

What about (yuk) cardio? A recent Wake Forest study showed that weight training was more effective for overweight seniors than cardio was. The study involved 249 adults and was active for 18 months. The study divided the individuals into three groups. One group was diet only, another was diet and cardio, and the third was diet and weight training. All three groups lost weight. However, the diet-only group and the diet- and- cardio group also lost significant muscle mass. The diet and weight training group lost weight and gained muscle mass. In other words, it was the stronger and healthier group.

Weight training for seniors is not only good for the body but also it is good for the mind. Weight training has proved to relieve stress, depression, and feelings of sadness. A woman whom I have been training reports feeling less stressed and has greatly improved her depression. Australian research has demonstrated that weight training can protect parts of the brain that are vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. The Neurolmage: Clinic journal reported that strength training slowed or halted degeneration in the hippocampus and subregions of the brain. The study involved 100 participants, and the results were not vague; rather, they were clear and obvious. Weight training releases a myriad of chemicals that are good for the brain and body. Repetitive weight training electrically stimulates the memory parts of the hippocampus. Weight training needs to become a standard part of dementia risk reduction strategies. Even though I've lifted since 1957, I still can't remember names. I can remember everything about the person but not the name. I also cannot remember a word I know in a conversation. I usually remember it 10 minutes after the conversation is over.

So, there you have it. We meatheads have known for years that weight training is good for you. The medical/scientific community is finally coming around and is doing studies to prove what we have known all along: that weight training is good for you both physically and mentally. It's about damn time. I thought it would never come around. Indeed, it is still new to many doctors. But at long last, it is finally becoming an accepted medical practice in the U. S. that weight training is beneficial, especially for seniors. I know that I am preaching to the choir. Anyone reading this article is already predisposed to weight training. My request is for you to help me to convey this information to my peers. Whether they are your peers, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, or friends, please make them aware of the benefits of weight training. By doing so, you will help to keep them around longer.

sauce https://www.elitefts.com/education/...GmZ-D3DeQBL3QomZ4qVTnp7olQKYFN1q5EWKbggnKm92U


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I've been going to gyms for years! I started lifting (seriously  ) when I started crossfit in 2014. The gym capacity was relatively small... no more than 12 to a class (most classes would only be 3 to 6 members). The box owner and most members were cleanfreaks. Peer pressure and diligence kept the place clean and orderly. The norm was to cleaned up after ourselves, management cleaned the floors and equipment regularly. When the cf gym closed in October 2019, Chris and I joined another gym that accommodated our crossfit workouts and provided requirements for racks, weights and accessory equipment (medicine balls, boxes, kettlebells etc.) This gym in comparison was disorganized and dirty and at times didn't have basics like disinfectant spray to wipe the equipment or would run out of soap in the washrooms, no hand sanitizer to wash our hands. Fortunately, we started acquiring our own equipment to workout at home.

We left the "new" gym before the lockdown in February and follow an excellent workout program from our former cf coach. But I now wonder about the future of commercial gyms (they are very very popular) but can be regarded as a petri-dish of germs. In the past I recall members working out coughing and sneezing, "feeling sick", giving each others high fives, etc. Sharing this article which offers some insights and future possibilities.

*Is It Safe to Go Back to the Gym?*

Is it safe to return to the gym? As a growing number of communities ease the stay-at-home mandates they had put in place to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus, gyms are beginning to reopen their doors - even as the virus continues to infect thousands more every day.

To find out more about gyms and the risks for coronavirus exposure there, I spoke with clinicians, researchers, engineers and a gym owner in Atlanta whose newly reopened facility caters, in part, to scientists from the nearby Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What follows is their expert consensus about whether, when and how best to head back safely to weight rooms, cardio machines and classes, including tips about which gym wipes are effective, what equipment is most grimy, how to socially distance on treadmills and why we should keep several clean gym towels draped over our shoulders throughout our workouts.

*Gyms and Germs*
By their very nature, athletic facilities like gyms tend to be germy. In a study published earlier this year, researchers found drug-resistant bacteria, flu virus and other pathogens on about 25 percent of the surfaces they tested in four different athletic training facilities.

"When you have a relatively high density of people exercising and sweating in a contained space, you have conditions where communicable diseases can spread easily," says Dr. James Voos, the chairman of orthopedic surgery at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, head team physician for the Cleveland Browns and senior author of the study.

Gym equipment also can be devilishly difficult to sanitize. Dumbbells and kettle bells, for instance, "are high-touch metal, with strange shapes and many different places people can grasp," says Dr. Deverick Anderson, a professor of medicine and director of the Duke Center for Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. His group consults with the National Football League and other sports teams about infection control. "They are not easy to clean."

In consequence, "people are going to have to understand and accept that there will be some risk" of virus transmission, if and when they revisit their gyms, Dr. Anderson says.

"But," he says, "there are many steps people can take to mitigate those risks."

*Wash. Spray. Wait. Wipe. Repeat.*
First, and most essential, the experts agree, plan to disinfect yourself and any surfaces that you touch at your gym, frequently.

"There should be a sink with soap so you can wash your hands, or a hand-sanitizer station as soon as you walk in the door," says Radford Slough, the owner of Urban Body Fitness, a gym in downtown Atlanta frequented by doctors and C.D.C. scientists. Sign-in procedures should not require touch, and gym employees should stand behind sneeze guards or be wearing face masks, he adds.

The gym space itself should be plentifully stocked with spray bottles containing disinfectant that meets Environmental Protection Agency standards against coronavirus, as well as clean cloths or bleach wipes for sanitizing surfaces. The standard all-purpose wet wipes that many gyms stock are not E.P.A.-approved, Dr. Voos says, and "will not kill most germs." Bring your own water bottle to avoid using drinking fountains.

When spraying a disinfectant, give it time - a minute or so - to kill germs before wiping. And clean any grime or dust off surfaces first.

Ideally, other gym patrons who have lifted weights or perspired on machines will have scrupulously scrubbed them afterward. But do not depend on the cleanliness of strangers, Dr. Anderson says. Instead, disinfect any weights, bars, benches and machine rails or knobs yourself before and after every use.

It would be advisable, too, to carry several clean towels, he says. "I would keep one on my left shoulder to wipe sweat from my hands and face, so I am not touching my face all the time, and the other to cover the weight bench" or yoga mat.

*Space Out*
Social distancing is also necessary. Mr. Slough says to reduce density, his gym currently allows only 30 people an hour into its 14,000-square-foot facility. Colored tape on the floor boxes off spaces wide enough to keep weight trainers at least six feet apart on either side.

Treadmills, elliptical machines and stationary bicycles also can be moved apart, or some can be taped off or removed from service, Dr. Anderson says.

But appropriate distancing during indoor aerobic exercise remains problematic, says Bert Blocken, a professor of civil engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and KU Leuven in Belgium. Dr. Blocken, who studies airflow in buildings and around bodies, says exercisers breathe heavily and produce many respiratory droplets, and with no wind or forward momentum to shift and disperse these droplets, they could linger and drop inside the facility.

"Therefore," he says, "it is very important to have a well-ventilated gym," preferably using a system that constantly refreshes inside air with filtered air from outside. If your gym does not have such a system, expect, at minimum, "peak natural ventilation" - meaning wide-open windows on opposite walls - to help move air from inside out, he says.

*Educated Decisions*
Finally, to help these various safety measures take hold, gyms should sprinkle their space with posters and other reminders of why and how to sanitize, Dr. Voos says. In his study of microbes and infection control at athletic facilities, germs became somewhat less prevalent when the researchers set out cleaning supplies for trainers and athletes. But the prevalence of germs fell almost to zero when they began regularly educating the facilities' users about how and why to clean their hands and surfaces.

Still, the decision about whether to return to our gyms as soon as they open likely will remain knotty and personal, dependent to some extent on how each of us balances the benefits of exercise, risks of infection and any health fragilities among those we live with and would return to after working out.

There also may be flash points, including about masks. Dr. Anderson predicts that "few people will wear them" while working out inside, though gyms may require them. He also notes they would rapidly dampen during exercise, reducing their antimicrobial benefits.

"What it comes down to is that the risks will never be zero," Dr. Anderson says. But at the same time, "there are so many mental and physical health benefits" to the workouts. "So, my approach is that I will accept some risk but be aware of the steps I need to take to mitigate it. And then, yes, I will go back."

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/...O5buHraczIW3UJETv6la7E9Ke3eCqPMyzjZ6t0dLRmzPA


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

I've been working out since I was 14, Judy, and the gyms I see around me are all closed, and I think for good reason. They were fillllthy!.


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> I dislike the term seniors, especially for those of us over 50 and active. I prefer master-class athletes or even "perennials"
> 
> But here is another article presenting the virtues of strength training
> 
> sauce https://www.elitefts.com/education/...GmZ-D3DeQBL3QomZ4qVTnp7olQKYFN1q5EWKbggnKm92U


OK, I'm convinced. Off to get a barbell.

I've relied on riding my singlespeed keeping in trim, but with limited exercise opportunities with lockdown I'm starting to miss the feeling of my body being "right".

But I've now got a whole host of ideas for when lockdown finishes.

Best one is I want to do an Everest on my singlespeed for my next birthday. I don't expect to make it, but it's worth a go, and I'll have to train for it - which gives me an excuse to go and find some nice hills.


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## firemedic.br (Apr 23, 2020)

At 54, and still working full time as a fireman with a large urban NorCal agency, keeping up my strength is paramount. Over the last 6 mos I've shaved 40lbs with focused diet planning, no booze, consistent weight training and now increased saddle time on both my mtb and gravel bikes. I won't go down without a fight. Kudos to all of you who are remaining active and motivated whatever your medium is. Nothing feels better than passing a younger guy on a bike, outlasted them on the fire ground or getting told "you're full of ****" after disclosing how old you are. Swing for the fences all and enjoy the ride!









Sent from my SM-T860 using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Velobike said:


> OK, I'm convinced. Off to get a barbell.
> 
> I've relied on riding my singlespeed keeping in trim, but with limited exercise opportunities with lockdown I'm starting to miss the feeling of my body being "right".
> 
> ...


Oh Wow ! I've heard of the Everest challenges. That is so cool.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

firemedic.br said:


> At 54, and still working full time as a fireman with a large urban NorCal agency, keeping up my strength is paramount. Over the last 6 mos I've shaved 40lbs with focused diet planning, no booze, consistent weight training and now increased saddle time on both my mtb and gravel bikes. I won't go down without a fight. Kudos to all of you who are remaining active and motivated whatever your medium is. Nothing feels better than passing a younger guy on a bike, outlasted them on the fire ground or getting told "you're full of ****" after disclosing how old you are. Swing for the fences all and enjoy the ride!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Right On! And welcome to the forum  Genetics (and sometimes luck) plays a part in longevity however there are things we can control to have a better life and outcome :
1)Having a purpose (ie doing meaningful work either a job/career, volunteer etc), 
2) Avoid social isolation (connect with people... it can be virtually like social media groups; friends, neighbours, relatives etc It doesn't cost anything to give someone a compliment or to ask a question), 
3) Excercise the brain (seek to understand things, learn a new skill, solve problems, plan and strategize to accomplish a goal etc), 
4) Stay active, stay active, stay active ('nuff said  ) 
and finally: 
5) Good nutrition (if you eat crap, you will feel like crap and life is too short to feel like crap)

Maybe there are more


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> Oh Wow ! I've heard of the Everest challenges. That is so cool.


Don't be impressed until I've actually done it.

Although I did mention it here so I've imposed a bit of pressure on myself. If I go quiet around the end of September it's because I'll be hoping no one is going to mention it... 

Best bit is I realised I've given myself an excuse to build up a bike specially for the job.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Velobike said:


> Don't be impressed until I've actually done it.
> 
> Although I did mention it here so I've imposed a bit of pressure on myself. If I go quiet around the end of September it's because I'll be hoping no one is going to mention it...
> 
> Best bit is I realised I've given myself an excuse to build up a bike specially for the job.


Your secret is safe with me. You are stronger than you think


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## matt4x4 (Dec 21, 2013)

Everest - Where 5k+ have summitted, and 800/year try to climb, and 300 died in total.
A helicopter once landed a slider on the summit, a few have skied down it. K2 Mountain on the other hand is technical and very difficult with a 25% death rate.

Space, where hundreds upon hundreds have been before circling earths outter atmosphere/thermosphere at 220 miles. 

The gym to workout, a desert for 2 months now, closed and no mention of a reopening plan as restaurants have plans. Stores are sold out of free weights. Have to do body weight exercises. Balance on one leg and go down, push ups, sit ups, wall pushups good for balance and stretching, curl crush them heavy grocery bags full of products, curl crush them bags of soil and water softener salt. Can't wait to crush it at the local gym when it reopens but its going to be different times. The employee's counting customers in the gym area, probably a code of conduct of be atleast one station away, or they will re locate and spacing out the universals, benches and other machines. Who knows what the sauna, hot tub and pool codes of conduct will be handed down from government health authorities.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## matt4x4 (Dec 21, 2013)

Where are the free towels to use?
No more free locks to use
Cant even take a picture of your child in the pool anymore.
Will the hair dryers still be there when the gym opens up.
And that weight scale, they must calibrate it, I swear its off by a ton.


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## sbd (Sep 23, 2011)

55. Been on MTBs since 1992. Just started strength program in November. Primarily body weight, pilates type stuff but some weights as well. 

Improved my everything well beyond my expectations. In it for life now. 

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1333933


A belated Happy B-Day to you, Judy!
The gang over at hk misses you!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

OMG Thank you Rad! I haven't visited hk in a while and I do miss the group


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## Radium (Jan 11, 2019)

cyclelicious said:


> OMG Thank you Rad! I haven't visited hk in a while and I do miss the group


Rad Ray.......I think you just helped me find a new screen name! Thank you!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Exercise could improve muscle repair in seniors
*

A team of Canadian researchers studying mice have found that exercising into old age could help muscles repair themselves as quickly as possible after injury.

The speed of muscle repair declines with age in many mammals, including humans, and it was once thought that after a certain age complete repair of the muscles after injury wasn't possible.

This new research however suggests otherwise and adds to the growing body of evidence on the benefits of exercise even into old age.

o look at the effects of exercise on aging muscles the team of researchers from McMaster University, Canada studied three groups of mice.

The first group included old mice that were exercise trained; the second, old mice that were not exercise trained; and the third young mice that were not exercise trained.

In the first group, the old mice trained three days a week for a period of eight weeks.

To compare the rate of muscle repair between each group the researchers injected the mice with a snake venom commonly used to induce muscle injury in rodent studies, with the researchers comparing the mice prior to muscle injury and again 10 and 28 days following the injury.

The results showed that after just eight weeks of exercise, the old mice benefited from faster muscle repair and regained more muscle mass than the old mice that had not exercised.

Thoru Pederson, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, which published the results, commented: "This is a clean demonstration that the physiological and metabolic benefits of exercise radiate to skeletal muscle satellite cells, the adult stem cells responsible for repair after injury, even in senescent animals."

He added: "Strikingly, even as the contractile elements of muscle tissue wane with age, the capacity of the satellite cells to respond to exercise cues is maintained."

The results of the study also follow previous research which suggests the importance of looking after muscle health in old age.

In a large-scale study of seniors over the age of 65 carried out by Penn State University earlier this year, researchers found that that when compared to those who didn't strength train, those who strength trained at least twice a week had a 41 percent lower risk of cardiac death, 19 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, and a 46 percent lower risk of death for any health reason.

And U.K. researchers found in another study published this year that weight-lifting in addition to aerobic exercise provides huge health benefits for those over the age of 65 and can help seniors preserve vital muscle mass and strength.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/exerc...3Uy5Dypt-eI9PUPS0yFEdsY7Hj5ppeGthvgTBF290ZFdE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

During the week, we do our weight training after work. Lately its been so hot but we wait for late evening when the shadows are longer to do a 3km warm up.

Last evening the strength focus was back squats followed conditioning Tabata (back squats, pullups and rows). Tonight it's deadlifts (one of my favorite lifts)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"Ummm...so where we goin'?!" - Praying "Stay alive...or get laid." Mantis. Found Mr Mantis sitting on the back door so he was safely relocated to a leafy plant in the garden. We did our 3km warm up run and he was gone we returned. Push jerks for strength and 30-20-10 box jumps, V-ups and push presses for conditioning. Daily Basement session workouts after work are going well. We are following an excellent strength training program


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## bouncy_rig (Aug 22, 2007)

So motivational the Mantis are freaks of nature. Your strength training is inspirational.



cyclelicious said:


> "Ummm...so where we goin'?!" - Praying "Stay alive...or get laid." Mantis. Found Mr Mantis sitting on the back door so he was safely relocated to a leafy plant in the garden. We did our 3km warm up run and he was gone we returned. Push jerks for strength and 30-20-10 box jumps, V-ups and push presses for conditioning. Daily Basement session workouts after work are going well. We are following an excellent strength training program
> 
> View attachment 1350953
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


>


I am in my sixties and i see no difference in shape compared to 40 years ago.
The 25 pounds weights looks just like it did.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Even cats lift  Happy Caturday!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*For Successful Aging, Pick Up the Pace or Mix It Up*

If we want to walk easily and well as we age, we may need to do more than just stroll now, according to an eye-opening new study of older walkers and cyclists. The study finds that people who often cycle for exercise can walk more efficiently than people whose primary exercise is placid walking, even if everyone works out for the same amount of time.

The results, which build on earlier work involving walkers and runners, raise important questions about whether gentle exercise, by itself, is enough for our well-being or if we might need, at least sometimes, to add oomph to our workouts.

In general, exercise science shows that doing something - anything - physical is much better for our health and longevity than doing nothing. A raft of epidemiological studies indicate that if men and women start moving just enough to lift themselves out of the group of people who are the most sedentary, they get greater reductions in their risks for chronic diseases and premature death than if a marathon runner crams in a few additional, weekly miles.

But most of us are not completely inactive or in constant motion and, for us, many questions remain about the ideal mix of duration, intensity or type of exercise to elevate our fitness and health. Can we get away with an occasional amble around the block? Or should we keep going for a longer period of time? And is it important to intentionally get out of breath on occasion?

Intrigued by those concerns, a group of exercise scientists at Humboldt State University in California and the University of Colorado at Boulder began to wonder recently about walking and whether it might tell us something about workouts and ideal intensities.

In general, most of us can walk from the time we are small and probably expect to continue to be able to walk for most of our lives. But past biomechanics studies show that people tend to become physiologically inefficient walkers with age, using more oxygen to walk at the same pace as younger people. In practical terms, this rising inefficiency would make walking feel harder and more tiring, perhaps prompting older people to walk less, sit more and potentially become frail.

The researchers speculated that exercise might maintain walking efficiency in older people, although what type of exercise was not clear. So, for a study published in 2014 in PLoS One, they invited healthy walkers and runners who were 65 or older to the lab and asked them to walk on a treadmill at various speeds while wearing headgear to measure their oxygen consumption.

They then compared the runners' and walkers' efficiency and crosschecked those results against similar data from earlier experiments with sedentary college students and retirees. It turned out that older runners were quite efficient walkers, using about the same amount of oxygen to walk as young people. But the older walkers had lost a step, physiologically, requiring about 7 to 10 percent more oxygen to walk at the same pace as the runners or the students. Their efficiency matched that of the older men and women who rarely exercised at all.

Now, for the new study, which was published in July in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, the researchers set out to see if a different exercise, in this case cycling, might likewise affect the ease of walking. They recruited older riders and walkers and asked them how strenuously they felt they worked out, on a scale of 1 to 3, from easy to tiring. The walkers' reported intensity hovered at just under 2, while the cyclists', as a group, neared 3. The researchers also brought in a group of healthy young people as a control.

Everyone then walked on a treadmill at paces ranging up to about 4 miles per hour while the researchers tracked their oxygen consumption. And, as with the runners, the older cyclists walked well, their efficiency matching that of the young people. But the older walkers' efficiency was as much as 17 percent lower.

In effect, walking for exercise seemed not to have "supplied sufficient physical stimulus" to maintain people's ability to walk easily as they aged, says Justus Ortega, a professor at Humboldt State University who co-authored both studies. Running and cycling were associated with more efficient walking than regular walking was.

The studies did not delve into how cycling or running might have affected people's walking efficiency. But Dr. Ortega says he and his colleagues suspect that the more demanding exertions boosted the health and function of mitochondria inside muscle cells in ways that gentler walking did not. Mitochondria affect how cells make and utilize energy. Healthier mitochondria should contribute to more efficient movement.

Of course, these studies were single snapshots of people's lives, and do not show that running or cycling directly caused people to be efficient walkers, only that the activities were related. They also did not look at middle-aged people and whether different types of exercise then might affect how well people walk later.

But Dr. Ortega says he believes the studies' findings can be both cautionary and encouraging, suggesting that, while any physical activity is worthwhile, pushing yourself a bit now might yield lasting benefits for health and mobility. So, if you currently stroll for exercise, he says, perhaps consider cycling or jogging sometimes, too, if possible. Or add hills to your usual walking route, or, at least for a block or three, pick up the pace.

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/...ing.html?emc=confirmation_ru&regi_id=78430320


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> *For Successful Aging, Pick Up the Pace or Mix It Up...*


Keep posting those articles.

Eventually there will be one that will get people in my age group off their arses and doing something to improve their lives.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

My suggestion is try stuff(outdoor activities).
You might find something you enjoy.
You will do that often with a smile and will have a good life.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*FIT OVER 50: 4 LIES YOU TELL YOURSELF THAT KEEP YOU FROM YOUR GOALS*









The body is resilient, remarkably so. Even as you age, your body is able to do incredible things, especially if you're willing to challenge it. Whether you worked out in the past or you are just getting started, there is no reason you can't get fit over 50 years of age. Though you might not be able to do what you did at 20 or 30, the human body can still be impressive at 50, 60, 70, and 80 years of age. However, a lot of older people tend to lie to themselves. Personal trainers like myself hear it all the time.

That's why I wanted to discuss the 4 biggest lies you tell yourself that keep you from your fitness goals and why those lies are indeed untrue.
*
Myth 1: "I'm too old."*
There are bodybuilders over 70, yogis over 90, and physical education teachers over 60 throughout the world. Age is but a number. It is how you perceive that number and the traits society has placed upon that number that keeps you from working out. In reality, it's never too late to start, especially when physical activity is critical to increasing longevity and maintaining independence in your advanced years.

Men and women can get into the best shape of their life even after 50 years of age. You simply need to remove the idea that your chronological age somehow plays a role on what you can and cannot do. By removing that barrier, you will see that your body is still a powerhouse. Muscles still grow. Fat still burns. You just need a wellness plan that is fine-tuned to your specific needs.









*Myth 2: "I'm not motivated enough."*
Food for thought: Motivation is a limitation. If you wait to get motivated, you will never find it. This whole idea that you need to be motivated to do something is a lie-one of the biggest lies in fitness and everything else. Motivation comes and goes, so don't rely on motivation to get you started.

The underlying issue is your internal dialogue. Among the lies on this page, I'm sure there are dozens of others that you tell yourself to remain on the couch rather than getting to the gym or going for a walk. What is your attitude towards working out? Do you see it as punishment or as something you enjoy? Did you have a poor experience in the past that made you dislike working out? What goals are you trying to achieve?

When you get to the bottom of your feelings, you will realize that the motivation comes from doing something you enjoy. So think about activities that are fun, even if it doesn't seem like a workout, and start from there.









*I'm too busy
Myth 3: "I'm too busy."*
One time a client looked me dead in the eye and said, "I'm might be retired but that doesn't mean I sit around on my butt all day. I'm too busy for this." I told him that just because time passes, it doesn't mean you're using your time wisely. If you want to get fit, you need to make time. Or, you need to reallocate your time.

Fitness is a lifestyle change. Therefore, if you want to get fit, you need to change a little. Think about your life right now. Do you spend time on social media? Play games on your phone or computer? Spend hours walking around the mall? It's great to have things that occupy your time but think about how much you could get done if you weren't idling. You don't need 3 hours a day on Facebook, nor do you need to play games so often. When you cut away the distractions, I'm positive you will find at least 30-45 minutes a day where you could squeeze in a decent workout. Take a walk after dinner. Go swimming. Do housework. There's always a physical activity you can be doing.









*Myth 4: "I'm the only one struggling to stay in shape."*
You're never alone. The very fact that this article exists means you are not alone! Other people over 50 are worried about the same things you are and have lied to themselves hundreds of times. There are plenty of "silver" level group exercises classes out there made for people over 50 who want to stay in shape and join people their age. There are personal trainers who work specifically with aging populations.

Not to sound mean, but you need to hold yourself accountable for your own fitness. No one is going to put you on the treadmill but you. No one is going to make the correct meal choices but you. Therefore, if you want to get fit over 50, you need to stop putting yourself on a deserted island and open up to the possibilities. Join a fitness group for people your age, team up with a trainer, use technology, and muster up a little bravery to go out and reclaim your life.









*The Only Barriers You Need To Worry About*
Now that you know that you've been deceived, let's touch on the only barrier you should fret over-the biological ones. When you stop exercising, regardless of your age, you are bound to lose muscle mass. The muscles and connective tissues become inflexible and shorten. You also increase your risk of osteopenia and osteoporosis. Men and women both lose hormones, and as the hormones dissipate, more fat forms around the midsection.

Although this does impose some complications, that doesn't mean you can't get in shape. With the correct dietary choices and an understanding of how many calories you need throughout the day, you can start to burn fat rather than put it on. Add on some extra activity and functional strengthening exercises, and you will lose weight and gain muscle, just as you did at a younger age. It might take a little longer because you have less testosterone, but again, that doesn't mean your muscle won't grow.

Start slow, work at a moderate pace, and be patient with yourself. Nothing's stopping you from getting fit over 50 except you.









sauce https://gasparinutrition.com/blogs/...u-tell-yourself-that-keep-you-from-your-goals


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What two weeks of inactivity can do to your health*



> Even before the coronavirus, researchers wanted to know what happens when you're stuck at home with fewer opportunities to exercise.


"A lot of work has been done on complete bed rest or immobilization, but little attention has focused on how acute periods of limited activity affect older adults," says Chris McGlory, assistant professor of exercise metabolism at Queen's University in Canada.

So he and his colleagues had 22 older overweight people with prediabetes slash their usual steps per day-from 7,000 to about 1,000-for two weeks and then return to their normal activity for another two weeks.

"We tried to mimic the number of steps someone would take, say, when they stay at home because there's a flu outbreak or because it's too cold to go outside, so they're physically inactive for a number of weeks," says McGlory.

The results: During the inactive period, "we found an increase in insulin resistance and blood sugar and a decrease in the rate at which muscle proteins were created," says McGlory. "And none of those things were fully recovered after the two-week period when they returned to their usual activity."

What if you don't have prediabetes?

"If you start off without prediabetes, you'd shift toward the prediabetic state, and if you have prediabetes, you'd shift toward the diabetic state," says McGlory.

Most older people have already shifted. Among Americans aged 65 or older, 47 percent have prediabetes and another 27 percent have diabetes.

When it comes to muscle, older people are also at a disadvantage.

"After the fourth or fifth decade of life, we start to lose 1 to 2 percent of our muscle mass per year," says McGlory.

"And during a period of inactivity, you lose muscle whether you're young or old. So inactivity combined with the biological loss of muscle is a double whammy for older people."

What's more, adds McGlory, seniors don't regenerate lost muscle as well, "so they don't recover as quickly as younger people." Odds are, the participants would have returned to normal if the study had lasted longer, he notes. "But we don't know how long it would have taken."

What we do know: staying as active as possible, especially with exercises that build strength, should help.

"If you have stairs in your home, walk up and down to keep up your daily step count," suggests McGlory. Climbing stairs is ideal because it's both aerobic and strength exercise.

"You can also do squats and go for a daily walk or jog or cycle within safety guidelines for avoiding coronavirus."

sauce https://www.nutritionaction.com/dai...jUYVKpsvPOF2j7x1FPqlF6O4_xUcIQCaN5vZa423krONA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Army Rolls Out a New Weapon: Strategic Napping*



> Because fatigue can corrode mission performance, a new physical training manual tells soldiers to grab 40 winks when they can, part of a new holistic approach to health in the ranks.


Turns out Beetle Bailey had it right all along.

The loafing comic-strip Army private has been sleeping on duty for 70 years, to the frequent fury of his platoon sergeant. But on Wednesday, the Army released new guidelines for optimal soldier performance - and they include strategic and aggressive napping.

The recommendation is part of an overhaul of the Army's physical fitness training field manual, which was rebranded this week as the FM 7-22 Holistic Health and Fitness manual. No longer is the guide focused entirely on grueling physical challenges like long ruck marches and pull-ups. Now it has chapters on setting goals, visualizing success, "spiritual readiness" and, yes, the art of the nap.

"Soldiers can use short, infrequent naps to restore wakefulness and promote performance," the new manual advises. "When routinely available sleep time is difficult to predict, soldiers might take the longest nap possible as frequently as time is available."

It is the first update to the manual in eight years, and it reflects growing scientific evidence that peak physical performance includes more than just physical training.

"The goal of the Holistic Health and Fitness System is to build physical lethality and mental toughness to win quickly and return home healthy," the introduction tells readers.

The manual also has updates on running techniques to avoid injury, and a section on the importance of spirituality, with entries on meditation, journaling and how the "act of serving others" helps some soldiers realize the "interconnectedness of all things and people."

That is a conversation Private Bailey never had with Sarge.

To promote good sleep, the manual warns soldiers to avoid video games, texting and other screen activity before bed, and recommends winding down by "listening to soothing music, reading, or taking a warm shower or bath" instead. It also says to avoid alcohol before sleep.

The new guidance comes as the military has become increasingly aware that chronic sleep deprivation during missions can cripple decision-making and lead to disaster. The Navy recently overhauled sleep schedules at sea after determining that fatigue was a factor in two fatal warship collisions.

During deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, commanders often failed to prioritize sleep. Changing schedules, long duty shifts and overnight missions led to chronic fatigue that fueled a voracious dependency on energy drinks, which left many troops feeling frazzled. Army research found that soldiers who guzzled energy drinks had higher levels of mental health problems, which can make it harder to deal with the stresses of missions.

"The Army has always had an internal dynamic that real men don't need sleep and can just push on, and it's incredibly stupid," said Lt. Gen. David Barno, who was commander of combined forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. "Combat is a thinking man's business and your brain doesn't function without sleep."

General Barno said he worked hard to "protect eight hours of sleep a night" while deployed and found that it gave him a clearheaded advantage to accomplish his mission. Putting that practice in official doctrine, he said, will help put old beliefs that sleep is a luxury to rest.

"The Army is on to something here," said Phillip Carter, a former soldier who served during the Iraq War and now teaches veterans' policy at Georgetown University. "The old manual looked like something out of a gym class from the 1960s. There was lots of jumping jacks and wind sprints. It wasn't keeping pace about what we knew about combat. The truth is, we know sleep is critical to better decision-making."

The military's interest in holistic health began years ago in elite Special Operations units, which brought in trainers, dietitians and wellness coaches and treated operators like elite athletes.

The shift to a broad approach to fitness that includes sustainable exercise, better recovery and proper sleep and nutrition could have big payoffs in the wider military, Mr. Carter said, both in terms of lifelong well-being and in monetary savings for the taxpayer.

Worn-out knees, injured backs and other musculoskeletal injuries are the leading reasons that troops receive disability payments after leaving the military. "The government is spending billions of dollars a year to compensate troops for breaking them in service," Mr. Carter said. "If it's just a little bit better, it could be a huge difference."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/us/army-naps.html


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

I haven't been posting much, but really, thanks for posting this! It's very valuable. I've been trying to keep with my core and resistance band work on top of the biking! Articles like this keep me going.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This article rings true for me. My exercise routines have slowly progressed over the years but this year has been an added boost to strength and endurance. I currently workout ie lift/do crossfit in my home gym 5d/wk; I run daily. My weekly km totals have gone from 35km/wk (last year) to an average of 50km/wk (since the pandemic) and I trail ride twice /wk. All that vitamin D and social distancing has made me fitter 

Since I started running in 2015, I've never seen so many runners and people out walking, biking and even rollerblading in my neighbourhood! Passersby wave and we give each other the thumbs up. If anything good is coming out of this pandemic it is an increase in activity for some people... which is a good thing.

*
How the Pandemic Is Changing Our Exercise Habits*

Are you exercising more or less since the coronavirus pandemic began?

According to a new study that focused on physical activity in the United Kingdom, most of us - not surprisingly - have been less physically active since the pandemic and its waves of lockdowns and quarantines began. Some people, however, seem to be exercising as much or more than before, and surprisingly, a hefty percentage of those extra-active people are older than 65. The findings have not yet been peer reviewed, but they add to a mounting body of evidence from around the globe that the coronavirus is remaking how we move, although not necessarily in the ways we may have anticipated.

The pandemic lockdowns and other containment measures during the past six months and counting have altered almost every aspect of our lives, affecting our work, family, education, moods, expectations, social interactions and health.

None of us should be surprised, then, to learn that the pandemic seems also to be transforming whether, when and how we exercise. The nature of those changes, though, remains rather muddled and mutable, according to a number of recent studies. In one, researchers report that during the first few weeks after pandemic-related lockdowns began in the United States and other nations, Google searches related to the word "exercise" spiked and remained elevated for months.

And many people seem to have been using the information they gleaned from those searches by actually exercising more. An online survey conducted in 139 countries by RunRepeat, a company that reviews running shoes, found that a majority of people who had been exercising before the health crisis began reported exercising more often in the early weeks after. A separate survey of almost 1,500 older Japanese adults found that most said they had been quite inactive in the early weeks of lockdowns, but by June, they were walking and exercising as much as ever.

A gloomier June study, however, using anonymized data from more than 450,000 users of a smartphone step-counting app, concluded that, around the world, steps declined substantially after lockdowns began. Average daily steps declined by about 5.5 percent during the first 10 days of a nation's pandemic lockdowns and by about 27 percent by the end of the first month.

But most of these studies and surveys relied on people recalling their exercise habits, which can be unreliable, or looked at aggregate results, without digging into differences by age, socioeconomic group, gender and other factors, which might turn up telling variations in how people's exercise habits might have changed during the pandemic.

So, for the new study, which has been posted at a biology preprint site awaiting peer-review, researchers at University College London turned to data from a free, activity-tracking smartphone app available in the United Kingdom and some other nations. The app uses GPS and similar technologies to track how many minutes people had spent walking, running or cycling, and allows users to accumulate exercise points that can be used for monetary or other rewards. (One of the study's authors works for the app maker but the company did not provide input into the results or analysis of the research, according to the study's other authors.)

The researchers gathered anonymized data from 5,395 app users living in the United Kingdom who ranged in age from adolescent to older adults. All of them had been using the app since at least January 2020, before the pandemic had spread to that country.

The researchers used data from the app on users' birth dates and ZIP codes to divide people by age and locale to learn how much they exercised in January. Then they began comparing, first to the early days of social-distancing restrictions in various parts of the United Kingdom, then to the stricter lockdowns that followed and finally, to the dates in midsummer when most lockdowns in that country eased.

They found, unsurprisingly, that almost everyone's exercise habits changed when the pandemic started. An overwhelming majority worked out less, especially once full lockdowns began - regardless of their gender or socioeconomic status. The drop was most marked among those people who had been the most active before the pandemic and among people under the age of about 40 (who were not always the same people).

After lockdowns lifted or eased, most people began exercising a bit more often, but, in general, only those older than 65 returned to or exceeded their previous minutes of exercise.

The results are surprising, says Abi Fisher, an associate professor of physical activity and health at University College London, who oversaw the new study, "especially because 50 percent of the older group were 70 or older."

Of course, these older people, like the other men and women in the study, downloaded and used an exercise app, which distinguishes them from a vast majority of people around the world who do not use such apps. The study also looked only at "formal" exercises like walking, running or cycling and not lighter activities like strolling or gardening, which can likewise benefit health and most likely also changed during the pandemic.

And the study tells us nothing about why exercise habits differed for people during the pandemic, although some mixture of circumstance and psychology may very likely be a factor. Older people probably had more free time for exercise than younger adults who are juggling child care, work and other responsibilities during the pandemic, Dr. Fisher says. They also might have developed greater concerns about their immune systems and general health, motivating them to get up and move.

Far more large-scale and long-term research about exercise during the pandemic is needed, she said. But for now, the message of the available research seems to be that we may all want to monitor how much we are moving to help assure that we are exercising enough.

"While it is no surprise that the lockdowns disrupted people's exercise patterns," Dr. Fisher said, "we cannot just assume everyone will bounce back once restrictions are lifted. We need to help people to get back to doing regular exercise, within the limits of ongoing pandemic restrictions, of course."

sauce: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/...te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## Dave Mac (Jan 9, 2017)

these articles remind me
as I once herd it said "give me discipline over motivation"


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This article is for the ladies  By the Joan Benoit Samuelson cross trains with cycling. Another bonus is the reference to the benefits of a vegan diet! Bonus for me 

*Menopause and Training*

In 2019, 40 years after her record-setting 2:35:15 at the Boston Marathon, Joan Benoit Samuelson took on the course with a new goal of finishing within 40 minutes of that original, historic day. She succeeded, with plenty of time to spare, in 3:05:18. She was 61.

Samuelson, who earned a gold medal at the first running of the women's Olympic marathon in 1984, also holds the 55-59 marathon age group record; 2:50:29 which she set in 2013. The longevity and dedication Samuelson brings to running are awe-inspiring, and allow fresh perspective when contemplating the effects of age on performance.

*Lack of Data*
While every human's hormonal balance changes throughout the lifespan, understanding the shift particular to female athletes is often hampered due to a lack of research data. A Sports Medicine article published July 2020 reviewed available historical data related to female hormones and sport performance, noting that "general guidelines on exercise performance across the MC (menstrual cycle) cannot be formed; rather, it is recommended that a personalized approach should be taken based on each individual's response to exercise performance across the MC."

The takeaway here: a lack of definitive data means science can't offer much specific advice on using the MC and hormonal shifts as a guide for peak performance. While female athletes wait for more peer-reviewed studies to emerge, there are some solid approaches to coping with physical and mental changes throughout the lifespan that come from other research or experience. Women over 40 regularly execute incredible endurance performances, demonstrating that while age may change your body, that does not mean abandoning your goals.

Erin Dawson-Chalat MD offered some perspective about the aging female athlete. Dr. Chalat, an OB-GYN based in Maine, didn't take up competitive running until her forties. At age 52 she ran 3:01:52 at the Chicago Marathon, dominating her age group and has since gone on to numerous finishes under 3:10. Dr. Chalat eats a predominantly plant-based diet, and despite a schedule that requires regular all-nighters, she manages to find enough rest and recovery to allow for long-term goal achievement.

In her experience both working with menopausal women and being one, Dr. Chalat has found that three key topics emerge again and again, specifically: changes to body sleep patterns and body composition; changes to hormonal patterns and period symptoms; and the influence of thoughts or belief systems on performance and mental well-being.

*Body Composition, Sleep and Hydration*
Two of the most common complaints during the menopausal transition phase are weight gain and disrupted sleep due to shifts in metabolic processes and hormones. Many female athletes are attuned to body composition and the importance of sleep for performance, so this phase can be particularly frustrating.

*BODY COMPOSITION*
A 2016 review of masters athletes suggested slower muscle repair after exercise indicates they "may benefit from higher doses of postexercise dietary protein, with particular attention directed to the leucine content of the postexercise bolus."

While leucine is found highest in animal products, it can also be obtained through soy, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils. In fact, an interesting 2018 study of 754 females over the age of 45 discovered a link between a vegan diet and less-bothersome menopausal symptoms-so don't feel like you need to get all your protein from meat! Add low-rep, high-weight strength training to that increased protein intake, and you may alleviate some of the body composition changes that seem inevitable with age. 

*SLEEP*
Sleep should also continue to be a focus for anyone seeking peak performance for mind and body. Try to keep sleep and wake times relatively constant, and don't hesitate to use the power nap as a tool. Studies have found even 5-10 minutes of sleep in the afternoon can refresh the mind and body so you have the energy for that evening workout. If you have difficulty sleeping, avoid caffeine and sugar, and don't eat right before bed. Keep your bedroom cool and dark, and try chilling out with a book instead of a screen.

*HYDRATION*
Finally, hydrate. According to Dr. Stacy Sims in her book Roar, older women tend to have a higher core temperature than younger women and the hormonal flux can make it harder for them to perform in the heat. She even goes so far as to say that "precooling and hydrating are non-negotiable."

As you age, it's more important than ever to go into training and racing fully hydrated and prepared to hydrate throughout. Start the day with hydration and understand that your needs will be higher in the heat. If you are taking on long-distance training and racing, you may even want to consider taking (or re-taking) a sweat test to help pinpoint your sodium and fluid needs.

*Hormones*
Hormonal fluctuations occur in all humans and can vary vastly from one individual to another. They also work in patterns, meaning one hormone may signal the release or retention of another-which makes it difficult to equate the release of specific hormones to specific physical effects. Unfortunately with aging, those hormonal patterns become even more erratic, which means that a once-predictable period might begin to become heavier or more scarce, or that you might experience new related symptoms.

It is essential to remember that your performance during your period, even an unpredictable one, is not necessarily diminished. Dr. Chalat points out, "there seems to be a lot of individual variability in how much hormones fluctuate throughout the female cycle and whether those changes influence an athlete's VO2 max at all." Of course, that doesn't mean it's not inconvenient; one hallmark among aging females is a longer period with heavier bleeding-which is obviously less than ideal during any endurance event.

Dr. Chalat suggests one simple, safe solution: try an IUD (intrauterine device). Developed for birth control, the small amount of progestin released by certain IUDs can also help reduce both the length and severity of the period, leading some doctors to prescribe them during perimenopause. It should, however, be noted that an IUD will not alleviate other menopause-related symptoms such as hot flashes or mood changes.

*The Power of Thought*
The power of thought is of massive importance. Masters athletes are often disciplined, organized people who manage busy lives and training. While it is essential to accept that your reproductive hormones, over which you have very little control, may not stay predictable, you can choose how you deal with it.

A person's belief in their capacity to achieve and be successful is called self-efficacy. (Bandura 1977). Basically, if you feel like you will be effective and are competent, you are more likely to take risks and have a positive outcome. In the case of the tidal nature of female hormones, head into the waves ready.

Dr. Chalat concurs, "If you think you will perform poorly in the luteal phase of your cycle, this very well may contribute to poor performance." While this advice applies to almost any area of performance, it helps to apply it specifically to your physical changes during the menopause transition. Recognizing that changes happen and taking steps to work within your new framework can help you stay on track and even make athletic pursuits more rewarding.

Age doesn't have to be a barrier to continued enjoyment and success in endurance sport participation. There are so many strong aging female athletes out there reminding us all that it's possible to manage change and maximize potential throughout your entire athletic career. As an athlete, you already know how to tap the benefits of proper diet, sleep, hydration and exercise for peak human performance. Roll with the changes while keeping a positive outlook, and you'll continue to be your best, most powerful self. Carrie McCusker is a level 2 TrainingPeaks coach and a lifelong athlete who enjoys bringing individual attention to every level of athlete. You can find her on Strava and Instagram or check out her coach profile at TrainingPeaks.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/...CVBYIUMWcRBP9VWB96QufanEV6XHkbYJWk8ilXMvShieQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This study has a small sample (28) so the findings here is likely due to chance. However there's no question that exercise is healthy, both physically and mentally, ... and many of us have benefitted greatly from resistance training. When combined with cardio (and done regularly) the results are significant .

*Weight Training May Help Ease Anxiety*









Roiled by concerns about the pandemic and politics? Lifting weights might help, according to a timely new study of anxiety and resistance training. The study, which involved healthy young adults, barbells and lunges, indicates that regular weight training substantially reduces anxiety, a finding with particular relevance during these unsettling, bumpy days.

We already have plenty of evidence that exercise helps stave off depression and other mental ills, and that exercise can elevate feelings of happiness and contentment. But most past studies of exercise and moods have looked at the effects of aerobic exercise, like running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike.

Scientists only recently have begun to investigate whether and how weight training might also affect mental health. A 2018 review of studies, for instance, concluded that adults who lift weights are less likely to develop depression than those who never lift. In another study, women with clinical anxiety disorders reported fewer symptoms after taking up either aerobic or weight training.

But many of these studies involved frequent and complicated sessions of resistance exercise performed under the eyes of researchers, which is not how most of us are likely to work out. They also often focused on somewhat narrow groups, such as men or women with a diagnosed mental health condition like depression or an anxiety disorder, limiting their applicability.

So for the new study, which was published in October in Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Limerick in Ireland and other institutions decided to see if a simple version of weight training could have benefits for mood in people who already were in generally good mental health.

To find out, they recruited 28 physically healthy young men and women and tested their current moods, with a particular emphasis on whether the volunteers felt anxious. All the participants scored in a healthy range on detailed anxiety questionnaires.

The scientists then divided these well-adjusted volunteers into two groups. Half were asked to continue with their normal lives as a control group. The others began to weight train, a practice with which few were familiar.

The scientists had devised a helpfully simple resistance training routine for them, based around health guidelines from the World Health Organization and the American College of Sports Medicine. Both those organizations recommend muscle strengthening at least twice a week, and that's what the volunteers began doing. After initial instruction from the researchers, the volunteers took up a basic program of lunges, lifts, squats and crunches, sometimes using dumbbells and other equipment.

Their training continued for eight weeks. Throughout, both groups periodically repeated the tests of their anxiety levels, including at the end of the full program. (After the study ended, the control group was given the option of starting the weight training routine.)

As expected, the control group, for the most part, retained their original low levels of anxiety. They still felt about as tranquil as eight weeks before.

But the weight trainers scored about 20 percent better on the tests of anxiety. They had started with low levels of anxiety to begin with, but felt even less anxious now.

This effect was "larger than anticipated," says Brett Gordon, currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Penn State Cancer Institute at Penn State College of Medicine, who was a co-author of the study with Matthew Herring, Cillian McDowell and Mark Lyons. The benefits for mental health were greater, in fact, than those often seen in studies of aerobic exercise and anxiety. But Dr. Gordon cautions that such comparisons are limited, since the various experiments use different amounts of exercise and measures of moods.

The new study also did not delve into how weight training can affect anxiety. But Dr. Gordon and his colleagues suspect increased physical and psychological potency figure in. The lifters became stronger over time and able to lift heavier weights. "Feelings of mastery may have occurred" then, he says, leaving people feeling generally more capable of coping. Molecular changes in the lifters' muscles and brain likely also occurred and contributed to improvements in their moods, he says, noting that future studies may help to detail some of those changes.

Or course, this experiment featured only healthy young people performing one version of training, so the findings cannot tell us if lifting likewise eases anxiety in older people. Nor can it tell us which regimen might be enough, too much or just the right amount to bolster mental health. Finally, it also does not prove that heading to the gym today can acutely soothe any mental turmoil we may be feeling, since the improvements in the study showed up after weeks of training.

But if you are feeling tense and uptight, as so many of us are these days, becoming stronger is probably a worthwhile goal and need not be intimidating, Dr. Gordon says. "There are numerous ways to strength train with little to no equipment," he says. "Try common body weight exercises, such as push-ups, situps or squats, or use household items as weights."









sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/...te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> *Weight Training May Help Ease Anxiety...*


Keep those links coming. I'm spreading them around where they do the most good. I know someone who could benefit from this one.


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## Scott O (Aug 5, 2004)

I can confirm that this lifting video elevated my mood.





Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ :lol: "How not to lift heavy things"


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## andytiedye (Jul 26, 2014)

It's good that weight training reduces anxiety, but as the above video shows, that sort of thing tends to go horribly wrong without a trainer. The idea of setting foot in a gym during the pandemic fills me with anxiety and the experts say it very well should do. Home exercise equipment is just about unobtainium.

But I have firewood to sp


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

andytiedye said:


> It's good that weight training reduces anxiety, but as the above video shows, that sort of thing tends to go horribly wrong without a trainer. The idea of setting foot in a gym during the pandemic fills me with anxiety and the experts say it very well should do. Home exercise equipment is just about unobtainium.
> 
> Most people can go to a librairy and barrow a book about body weight exercices. There are lots of exercises to be done. It is not just limited to pushups.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Exercise Might Affect Immunity to Lower Cancer Risk*

_Working out may enhance the immune system's ability to target and eradicate cancer cells, a study in mice suggests.
_

Exercise may help to fight cancer by changing the inner workings of certain immune cells, according to an important new study in mice of how running affects tumors. The study involved rodents but could also have implications for understanding how exercise might affect cancer in people as well.

We already have considerable and compelling evidence that exercise alters our risks of developing or dying from malignancies. In a large-scale 2016 epidemiological study, for instance, highly active people were found to be much less likely to develop 13 different types of cancer than people who rarely moved.

Likewise, a review of past research released last year by the American College of Sports Medicine concluded that regular exercise may reduce our risks of developing some cancers by as much as 69 percent. That analysis also found that exercise may improve treatment outcomes and prolong life in people who already have cancer.

But it is not yet fully clear how working out may affect tumors. Animal studies show that exercise lessens inflammation and may otherwise make the body's internal environment less hospitable to malignancies. But fundamental questions remain unanswered about the interplay of exercise and cancer.

So, recently, a group of scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and other institutions began to wonder about white blood cells. Part of the immune system, white blood cells play a key role in our defense against cancer by noting, navigating to and often annihilating malignant cells. Researchers have known for some time that different types of immune cells tend to target different types of cancer. But little has been known about if and how exercise affects any of these immune cells and if those changes might somehow be contributing to exercise's cancer-blunting effects.

Now, for the new study, which was published in October in eLife, the scientists in Sweden decided to learn more by inoculating mice with different types of cancer cells and letting some of the rodents run, while others remained sedentary. After several weeks, the researchers saw that some of the runners showed little evidence of tumor growth. More intriguing, most of these active mice had been inoculated with cancer cells that are known to be particularly vulnerable to a specific type of immune cell, known as CD8+ T cells, which tend, primarily, to fight certain forms of breast cancer and other solid tumors.

Perhaps, the researchers speculated, exercise was having particular impacts on those immune cells.

To find out, they then chemically blocked the action of these T cells in animals carrying tumor cells and let them run. After several weeks and despite being active, the animals without functioning CD8+ T cells showed significant tumor growth, suggesting that the CD8+ cells, when working, must be a key part of how exercise helps to stave off some cancers.

For further confirmation, the scientists then isolated CD8+ T cells from animals that had run and those that had not. They then injected one or the other type of T cells into sedentary, cancer-prone animals. Animals that received immune cells from the runners subsequently fought off tumors noticeably better than animals that had received immune cells from inactive mice.

These results surprised and excited the researchers, says Randall Johnson, a professor of molecular physiology with dual appointments at the University of Cambridge in England and the Karolinska Institute, who oversaw the new study. They seemed to demonstrate "that the effect of exercise on the T cells is intrinsic to the cells themselves and is persistent," he says.

In other words, exercise had changed the cells in ways that lasted.

But what, the scientists wondered, was exercise doing to the cells that made them extra effective at fighting tumors? To explore that question, the researchers let some mice run until they tired themselves out, while others sat quietly. They then drew blood from both groups and put the samples through a sophisticated machine that notes and counts all of the molecules there.

The blood samples turned out to be quite different at a molecular level. The runners' blood contained far more substances related to fueling and metabolism, with especially high levels of lactate, which is produced in abundance by working muscles. Perhaps, the scientists speculated, lactate was affecting the runners' T cells?

So, they added lactate to CD8+ T cells isolated from mice and grown in dishes and found that these cells became more active when faced with cancer cells than other T cells. Basically, having marinated in lactate, they became better cancer fighters.

In simpler terms, Dr. Johnson says, "It does seem from our studies that these T cells are potently affected by exercise."

Of course, his and his colleagues' experiments involved mice, not people. We humans also produce extra lactate and other related molecules after exercise (which the researchers confirmed in a final portion of their study, by drawing blood from people after a run and analyzing its molecular composition). But whether our CD8+ T cells respond in precisely the same way to working out remains uncertain.

The study also does not show if all exercise has the same effects on T cells or whether some workouts might be more beneficial than others for amping up these cells' powers. It also does not suggest that exercise reduces cancer risk and progression solely by strengthening these cells. More likely, being active affects how well our bodies deal with malignancies in multiple and perhaps interlinked ways.

Dr. Johnson and his colleagues plan to explore many of these issues in future studies, he says.

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/...te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*4 Common Strength Training Mistakes Masters Athletes Make*

Over the years of playing or participating in any sport, our body goes through changes and adaptations to help us better get into the positions and movements for that sport. While our body is trying its best, cycling and triathlon can lead to poor posture and a loss of range of motion at many of the joints. Luckily, with an intelligent strength training program, you can avoid these negative changes and instead bolster your in-sport abilities and boost your performances.

Here are four common mistakes masters make when it comes to strength training for their sport, and how to avoid them.

*Myth: Focusing on mimicking sport movements *

Many athletes who are new to strength training for sport performance make the mistake of thinking that in order to get better at their sport, they need to strength train in the same movement patterns as their chosen sport.

Baseball is a great example of this. With its specific throwing and batting movements, you'd think that baseball players are simply going into the weightroom and performing similar movements, yet when you look at well-designed programs from the best in the business, you'll notice that less than 15 percent of most programed movements match those of the sport. Close to 40 percent counter the movements dominant in the sport, helping the athlete maintain balance.

Work on balancing out the imbalances that occur in our sport. Working on good breathing patterns, thoracic extension, pulling, and rotary stability give you some of the biggest returns on investment.

Exercise to utilize:

The Suitcase Deadlift-three sets of eight each side

*Myth: Weight training only in the off-season or base phase*

Strength, just like metabolic fitness, falls off when the individual is not constantly being pushed beyond their baseline. In as little as two weeks, one can see a drop in strength and explosiveness if the system is not challenged.

This doesn't mean that you should be lifting heavy things all year, but it does mean that if one learns how to build an intelligently-designed strength training program, they can reap massive benefits throughout the season through nontraditional variations of exercises that provide massive bang for the buck.

Exercise to utilize
Double Kettlebell Hover Deadlifts-three sets of eight with two- to three-second "hover"

*Myth: Not training heavy*

Training with heavy weights-those that challenge you at a seven or eight on a scale of one to 10-is very important. Integral, in fact!

Lifting heavy things challenges our bodies to coordinate itself in ways that can supercharge our results. It creates intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) to stabilize our spine, uses our prime movers to pick up a weight or put it down, and engages our stabilizers to keep the joints in their optimal positions to execute the task.

Don't get too excited here-heavy weights do not, and should not be one-repetition maximums. We don't have a need for that kind of work as triathletes, and more importantly, we do not have the tissue adaptations necessary to properly deal with and distribute the forces exerted on the tissues and structures of the body.

Sets of three and four repetitions of prime exercises such as deadlifts off of blocks, bench press, seated rows, and front squats are all incredibly useful when you understand when, how and why to program them into a training plan for an athlete. Also understand how they shouldn't be incorporated into a training plan. For example, don't hit the gym and immediately go into heavy weights. You first need to go through two stages in the strength training cycle-anatomical adaptations and hypertrophy.

Learn how to write intelligently designed strength training programs & when to incorporate heavy strength training, here.

*Myth: Training explosively (plyometrics) without a solid and balanced base of strength*

Many cyclists head to the gym and immediately start blowing through plyometrics. Four sets of 20 and three sets of 10 high box jumps, and three-plus minutes of high-intensity jump rope are all fairly popular exercises in the cycling community.

These exercises are extremely hard on the joints, as when done in such large quantities (and with poor posture and joint position), can lead to not only unnecessary wear and tear on the joints, but also decreased performances.

If you really want to get the most out of your plyometrics, learn how to get what's called triple extension-the extension of the ankles, knees, and hips. This should come after first working to balance out your muscular imbalances, and learning how to get into powerful postures that protect your joints, not expose them to forces they aren't built to deal with.

Also, learn how to land. Simply learning how to absorb the forces of jumping through the muscles, and not in the joints, allows the muscle tissue to become more spring-like, as well as helps you have a much longer, and more successful career.

Exercise to utilize:

Hands on hips vertical and absorb-three sets of five repetitions

Sauce https://www.trainingpeaks.com/coach...g-mistakes-for-masters-and-how-to-avoid-them/

73 year old Arnold still lifts and rides


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

To Lose Weight With Exercise, Aim for 300 Minutes a Week









Can exercise help us shed pounds? An interesting new study involving overweight men and women found that working out can help us lose weight, in part by remodeling appetite hormones. But to benefit, the study suggests, we most likely have to exercise a lot - burning at least 3,000 calories a week. In the study, that meant working out six days a week for up to an hour, or around 300 minutes a week.

The relationship between working out and our waistlines is famously snarled. The process seems as if it should be straightforward: We exercise, expend calories and, if life and metabolisms were just, develop an energy deficit. At that point, we would start to use stored fat to fuel our bodies' continuing operations, leaving us leaner.

But our bodies are not always cooperative. Primed by evolution to maintain energy stores in case of famine, our bodies tend to undermine our attempts to drop pounds. Start working out and your appetite rises, so you consume more calories, compensating for those lost.

The upshot, according to many past studies of exercise and weight loss, is that most people who start a new exercise program without also strictly monitoring what they eat do not lose as much weight as they expect - and some pack on pounds.

But Kyle Flack, an assistant professor of nutrition at the University of Kentucky, began to wonder a few years ago if this outcome was inevitable. Maybe, he speculated, there was a ceiling to people's caloric compensations after exercise, meaning that if they upped their exercise hours, they would compensate for fewer of the lost calories and lose weight.

For a study published in 2018, he and his colleagues explored that idea, asking overweight, sedentary men and women to start exercising enough that they burned either 1,500 or 3,000 calories a week during their workouts. After three months, the researchers checked everyone's weight loss, if any, and used metabolic calculations to determine how many calories the volunteers had consumed in compensation for their exertions.

The total, it turned out, was an average of about 1,000 calories a week of compensatory eating, no matter how much people had worked out. By that math, the men and women who had burned 1,500 calories a week with exercise had clawed back all but about 500 calories a week of their expenditures, while those burning through 3,000 calories with exercise ended up with a net weekly deficit of about 2,000 calories. (No one's overall metabolic rate changed much.)

Unsurprisingly, the group exercising the most lost weight; the others did not.









But that study left many questions unanswered, Dr. Flack felt. The participants had performed similar, supervised workouts, walking moderately for 30 or 60 minutes, five times a week. Would varying lengths or frequencies of workouts matter to people's caloric compensation? And what was driving people's eating? Did the differing amounts of exercise affect people's appetite hormones differently?

To find out, he and his colleagues decided to repeat much of the earlier experiment, but with novel exercise schedules this time. So, for the new study, which was published in November in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, they gathered another group of 44 sedentary, overweight men and women, checked their body compositions, and asked half of them to start exercising twice a week, for at least 90 minutes, until they had burned about 750 calories a session, or 1,500 for the week. They could work out however they wished - many chose to walk, but some chose other activities - and they wore a heart rate monitor to track their efforts.

The rest of the volunteers began exercising six times a week for about 40 to 60 minutes, burning close to 500 calories a session, for a weekly total of about 3,000 a week. The researchers also drew blood, to check on the levels of certain hormones that can affect people's appetites.

After 12 weeks, everyone returned to the lab, where the researchers refigured body compositions, repeated the blood draws and began calculating compensations.

And again, they found a compensatory threshold of about 1,000 calories. As a consequence, only the men and women in the group that had exercised the most - six days a week, for a total of 3,000 calories - had shed much weight, dropping about four pounds of body fat.

Interestingly, the researchers did uncover one unexpected difference between the groups. Those burning about 3,000 calories a week showed changes now in their bodies' levels of leptin, an appetite hormone that can reduce appetite. These alterations suggested that exercise had increased the exercisers' sensitivity to the hormone, enabling them to better regulate their desire to eat. There were no comparable hormonal changes in the men and women working out less.

In essence, Dr. Flack says, the new experiment "reinforces the earlier finding" that most of us will eat more if we exercise, but only up to about the 1,000-calories-a-week inflection point. If we somehow can manage to burn more than that amount with exercise, we probably can drop weight.

But, of course, burning thousands of calories a week with exercise is daunting, Dr. Flack says. Plus, this study lasted only a few months, and cannot tell us whether later changes to our appetites or metabolisms would augment or undercut any subsequent fat declines.

Still, for those of us hoping that exercise might help us trim our waistlines during the coming holidays, the more we can move, it seems, the better.

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/...te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A nippy 3km warm up run this evening at -16c. We kept the juices flowing with front squats (6reps x5 sets). Ending with a good 30 min conditioning session of pull ups, thrusters and skipping. Daily workouts for gains and maintenance. Happy Hump day!
















❤??


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Principals of Crossfit! It's workouts like these utilizing our homegym that are keeping Chris and I strong year round and allow us to continue to make gains in our other sports like dirt biking, short and distance running and mountain biking. The max strength test is a good measure for baseline. 1) 3 rep maximum: Back Squat, Overhead Press and Deadlift The High intensity interval training workout is also a great conditioning measure as well 2) 5min AMRAP 10 cal on the assault bike, 6 box over burpees and 6 shoulder presses. These athletes are impressive! But keep in mind they are probably in their 20s or 30s


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## Sideknob (Jul 14, 2005)

I'm 52 and been lifting for many years.

I no longer do squats as my knees were starting to give me some ominous warning signs from years of heavy squatting - aches, clicks, etc.

I just to isolation stuff for legs now and keep the volume fairly low so I can ride or hike whenever I need to and not feel sore or sluggish.

I always found I could lift heavy and cycle a day or two later, so long as I kept the volume low. High volume was the problem - soreness made cycling a chore.

I still train hard on my upper body but I only lift twice a week now, normally a full body workout each time. I do a high rep day and a low rep day.

The only potential negative is that I'm very heavy for my height, largely due to muscularity. I'm under 5'7" and weigh 220lbs...

I'm not a racer so it don't matter if I take a while to winch myself up the hills.


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## 13MikeH (Dec 5, 2020)

I'm approaching 52 in a handful of weeks. I spent my high school and college days lifting very heavy for football and shot put and discus throws. After all of that came to an end, the lifting continued. I still teach health and fitness, I have trained some high-level professional athletes along the way as well as helping out local high school programs volunteering in their training. I love lifting and the challenge. What I've learned is, lifting is eternal. My 80-year-old dad still hits the gym hard and it's the reason he's still going strong, no pun intended. I adapted, and actually still use the same powerlifting routines I used in college. I just listen to the body, I lift lighter weights, and when something is sore, irritated, or causing complications I change up the routine or use a different exercise group until it heals. 
Running, and more specifically riding helps all of it. They all fit hand in hand. The lifting makes for more pedal power, the running enhances the endurance, and the cycling loosens the muscles and lengthens the joints...making for better lifting.


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## 13MikeH (Dec 5, 2020)

I have a son who is now a college athlete. In the training through summer we found an article on German volume training and shifted gears. The basics were 10 sets of 10 with body parts grouped. It was a great program and helped me a lot not only in strength gains but healing some nagging old man injuries. Opening your mind to CrossFit, volume training, etc helps a lot


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We did a 3km warm up run, set up the aluminum festivus pole, performed feats of strength and afterwards enjoyed a delicious festivus nut-meatless loaf (vegan) for dinner. Festivus for the rest of us is the time to air the grievances and unravel a couple of workout miracles


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

For 2021 my goal is to be more consistent with my functional training and core workout. I’m passionate about cycling and being blessed to live next to my local trails and having perfect Southern California weather it’s hard to resist going out for a ride instead of training in my garage gym.


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## slowrider (May 15, 2004)

56 years old, I've been weight training since the age of 12 and biking longer than that, reading too many articles and trying so many variables. What rings true in my experience for strength is that you have to challenge yourself. You have to change your workouts. Above all you should use the correct technique. 
As with most things regarding fitness, your results may vary due to genetics, drive, ambition and resolve. And that's fine. Most importantly do something. I know that I'm preaching to the quire here but far too many of us eat too much(still do that), eat poorly(I do that too) and don't get enough exercise (I'm borderline there). Effort is important in all of the above and I hope you all join me in improving in all these areas. Perfection is un-achievable, improvement is easy, ad a rep a day or a pound of resistance a day, or add speed and or distance every day and improvement will come, along with a sense of accomplishment.


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## 13MikeH (Dec 5, 2020)

hardmtnbiker said:


> For 2021 my goal is to be more consistent with my functional training and core workout. I'm passionate about cycling and being blessed to live next to my local trails and having perfect Southern California weather it's hard to resist going out for a ride instead of training in my garage gym.


so as a 'lifer' here's a thought that may help with your goals. I am probably the opposite in all ways. I live in the gloomy at times midwest. I spend most of my days in my basement gym, and dabble in cycling when time and conditions permit. I've been at the bike a bit more. Perhaps the fix is schedule. I lift three days per week, and run/ride, three. One thing that may give you a little boost, set a schedule, on certain days, take a short ride and use that as a cardio warmup for your lifting. Get that fix, and the blood flowing, or, use the trails like a parkour...ride a mile, drop and do X pushups. another mile, 3x 1 minute planks, another mile, curl your bike or an object, add some dips, pull ups, etc. Plenty of options along the ride I am sure if you get creative. Assuming you are riding at a good cadence, leg work is likely not needed.


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## 13MikeH (Dec 5, 2020)

slowrider said:


> 56 years old, I've been weight training since the age of 12 and biking longer than that, reading too many articles and trying so many variables. What rings true in my experience for strength is that you have to challenge yourself. You have to change your workouts. Above all you should use the correct technique.
> As with most things regarding fitness, your results may vary due to genetics, drive, ambition and resolve. And that's fine. Most importantly do something. I know that I'm preaching to the quire here but far too many of us eat too much(still do that), eat poorly(I do that too) and don't get enough exercise (I'm borderline there). Effort is important in all of the above and I hope you all join me in improving in all these areas. Perfection is un-achievable, improvement is easy, ad a rep a day or a pound of resistance a day, or add speed and or distance every day and improvement will come, along with a sense of accomplishment.


amen to all of this. My biggest key is consistency and mindset. Once I get started, it's easier to maintain a good system. One that helps with the eating/junk, I read a lot about intermittent fasting or basically for me, having an 8 hour window for meals. One thing it did, it focused what I ate and how much I ate. I figured if I was buying in...go in. Eat better food choies. Meals became more important because it was what I needed to work out so I ate better. Consistent workout schedules helps a lot too. If I know I need to hit the gym after coming home from work I am more likely to do it, instead of finding multiple distractions.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is incredible! I love stories like this. We have a veteran on my unit who will be turning 108 in 2 weeks. He just started to need a wheelchair for mobility. He reads a newspaper every day and still has a wicked sense of humour. He wasn't a cyclist but rugby was his sport when her was "younger"

*105-Year-Old Cyclist Rides 14 Miles In An Hour En Route To A World Record*









Frenchman Robert Marchand set a new world record Wednesday when he cycled 22.547 kilometers (about 14 miles) in an hour - at the age of 105.

Wearing a purple and yellow cycling suit, pink helmet and yellow glasses, Marchand completed 92 laps at the Velodrome National, an indoor track near Paris that's used for elite cycling events. According to The Associated Press, he set a new record for the 105-plus age group and received a standing ovation from people in the crowd, who chanted "Robert, Robert" as he rolled to a stop.

Still, he said he could have done better.

"I did not see the sign warning me I had 10 minutes left," Marchand said, according to the AP. "Otherwise I would have gone faster, I would have posted a better time. I'm now waiting for a rival."

For comparison, the U.K.'s Bradley Wiggins rode 54.526 kilometers (about 34 miles) in 2015 and holds the record for the men's hour, the BBC reported.

"I am not here to be champion. I am here to prove that at 105 years old you can still ride a bike," Marchand said, per Eurosport.

His record-breaking ride Wednesday was incredible, but Marchand's entire life has been a series of singular events. The AP has this on his background:



> "Marchand, a former firefighter who was born in 1911 in the northern town of Amiens, has lived through two world wars. He led an eventful life that took him to Venezuela, where he worked as a truck driver near the end of the 1940s. He then moved to Canada and became a lumberjack for a while.
> "Back in France in the 1960s, Marchand made a living through various jobs that left him with no time to practice sports.
> "He finally took up his bike again when he was 68 years old and began a series of cycling feats.
> "The diminutive Marchand - he is 1.52 meters (5-foot) tall and weighs 52 kilograms (115 pounds) - rode from Bordeaux to Paris, and Paris to Roubaix several times. He also cycled to Moscow from Paris in 1992.
> "Ten years later, he set the record for someone over the age of 100 riding 100 kilometers (62 miles)."


So what's his secret? Marchand's coach and friend Gerard Mistler told the AP it's simple: He eats fruits and vegetables, doesn't smoke, drinks wine only on occasion, goes to bed at 9 p.m. and exercises every day.

Mistler, perhaps cognizant of the cloud of doubt that hovers over impressive cycling performances, told the news service: "If [he] had been doping, he would not be there anymore."

As if this story couldn't get any better, here's some amazing photos of the feat.


















105-Year-Old Cyclist Rides 14 Miles In An Hour En Route To A World Record


"I am not here to be champion. I am here to prove that at 105 years old you can still ride a bike," Frenchman Robert Marchand said.




www.npr.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This article is more related to overall fitness, but the principles are applicable for anyone wanting a boost, or are stuck at home. Most of my daily WODs are HIIT and this study supports what is already known about the benefits of high intensity interval training

*An 11-Minute Body-Weight Workout With Proven Fitness Benefits*

Five minutes of burpees, jump squats and other calisthenics significantly improve aerobic endurance, according to one of the first randomized, controlled trials to test the effects of brief body-weight workouts. The study's findings are predictable but reassuring, at a time when many of us are relying on short exercise sessions in our homes to gain or retain our fitness. They provide scientific assurance that these simple workouts will work, physiologically, and our burpees will not be in vain.

Last year, when the pandemic curtailed traditional gym hours and left many people hesitant to exercise outside on crowded sidewalks or paths, quite a few of us moved our workouts indoors, into our living rooms or basements, altering how we exercise. Some of us purchased stationary bicycles and started intense spin classes or turned to online personal trainers and yoga classes. But many of us started practicing some version of a body-weight routine, using calisthenics and other simple strength-training exercises that rely on our body weight to provide resistance.

Body-weight training has been a staple of exercise since almost time immemorial, of course. Usually organized as multiple, familiar calisthenics performed one after another, this type of exercise has gone by various names, from Swedish Exercises a century ago to the Royal Canadian Air Force's Five Basic Exercises (5BX) program in the 1960s, to today's Scientific 7-Minute Workout and its variations.

In general, one of the hallmarks of these programs is that you perform the exercises consecutively but not continuously; that is, you complete multiple repetitions of one exercise, pause and recover, then move on to the next. This approach makes the workouts a form of interval training, with bursts of intense exertion followed by brief periods of rest.

Traditional interval training has plenty of scientific backing, with piles of research showing that a few minutes - or even seconds - of strenuous intervals, repeated several times, can raise aerobic fitness substantially. But the exercise in these studies usually has involved stationary cycling or running.

Few experiments have examined the effects of brief body-weight workouts on endurance and strength, and those few had drawbacks. Most focused on people who already were fit, and almost none met the scientific gold standard of being randomized and including an inactive control group. Consequently, our faith in the benefits of short body-weight training may have been understandable, but evidence was lacking.

So, for the new study, which was published this month in the International Journal of Exercise Science, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., decided to develop and test a basic body-weight routine. They modeled their version on the well-known 5BX program, which once had been used to train members of the Canadian military in remote posts. But the researchers swapped out elements from the original, which had included exercises like old-fashioned situps that are not considered particularly good for the back or effective in building endurance.

They wound up with a program that alternated one minute of calisthenics, including modified burpees (omitting the push-ups that some enthusiasts tack onto the move) and running in place, with a minute of walking, also in place. The routine required no equipment, little space and a grand total of 11 minutes, including a minute for warming up and cooling down.

They then recruited 20 healthy but out-of-shape young men and women, measured their current fitness, leg power and handgrip strength and randomly assigned half to start practicing the new program three times a week, while the others continued with their normal lives, as a control.

The exercisers were asked to "challenge" themselves during the calisthenics, completing as many of each exercise as they could in a minute, before walking in place, and then moving to the next exercise.

After six weeks, all of the volunteers returned to the lab for follow-up testing. And, to no one's surprise, the exercisers were more fit, having upped their endurance by about 7 percent, on average. Their leg power also had grown slightly. The control group's fitness and strength remained unchanged.

"It was good to see our expectations confirmed," says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, who oversaw the new study and, with various collaborators, has published influential studies of intense interval training in the past.
"It seemed obvious" that this kind of training should be effective, he says. But "we now have evidence" that brief, basic body-weight training "can make a meaningful difference" in fitness, he says.

The study was small and quite short-term, though, and looked at the effects only among healthy young people who are capable of performing burpees and jump squats. "Some people may need to substitute" some of the exercises, Dr. Gibala says, especially anyone who has problems with joint pain or balance. (See the Standing 7-Minute Workout for examples of appropriate replacements, in that case.)

But whatever mix of calisthenics you settle on, "the key is to push yourself a bit" during each one-minute interval, he says.

Here is the full 11-minute workout used in the study, with video links of each exercise by Linda Archila, a researcher who led the experiment while a student at McMaster University.

1 minute of easy jumping jacks, to warm up
1 minute of modified burpees (without push-ups)
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of high-knee running in place
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of split squat jumps (starting and ending in the lunge position, while alternating which leg lands forward)
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of high-knee running in place
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of squat jumps
1 minute of walking in place, to cool down
sauce An 11-Minute Body-Weight Workout With Proven Fitness Benefits


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## andy f (Jan 13, 2004)

I subscribe to the Ryan Leech Connection and spend a couple of hours a week doing drills outside my house on lunch breaks from work. I've been re-doing the bunny hop course recently and two weeks ago decided to mix in a few sets of kettlebell swings to make the most of a limited break. I noticed an improvement in my bunny hops after the first set and have since been including 3-5 sets of swings into each practice session.


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

andy f said:


> I subscribe to the Ryan Leech Connection and spend a couple of hours a week doing drills outside my house on lunch breaks from work. I've been re-doing the bunny hop course recently and two weeks ago decided to mix in a few sets of kettlebell swings to make the most of a limited break. I noticed an improvement in my bunny hops after the first set and have since been including 3-5 sets of swings into each practice session.


Everything helps,I haven't done kettlebells in my training in a while but I should add them again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We do a 3 to 4km warm up run before our evening home gym workout. Last evening the snow plow guy gave us the thumbs up. Yesterday's strength workout was backsquats followed by a HIIT .


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

Says it all really...


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## SoDakSooner (Nov 23, 2005)

Just did one of my fav p90x workouts last night after a LOOOONNNGGG hiatus due to some tendonitis issues. Amazing how fast we lose it nowadays....lol. My upper body is way sore. It was a heavy pushup workout, embarrassingly, had to do most of them on my knees. Didn't even have pullups. UGGGHHH. Never going to let it go again. Have been riding a ton, but definitely need to work on the rest of it too.


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## edubfromktown (Sep 7, 2010)

My wife still works out with her trainer (virtually) 2x per week. I am lazy and just pedal for the most part. 

My low-profile jelly belly is telling me I need to start doing something more so going to break out my exercise ball and start doing a 20-30 minute thing a couple times per week.


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

SoDakSooner said:


> Just did one of my fav p90x workouts last night after a LOOOONNNGGG hiatus due to some tendonitis issues. Amazing how fast we lose it nowadays....lol. My upper body is way sore. It was a heavy pushup workout, embarrassingly, had to do most of them on my knees. Didn't even have pullups. UGGGHHH. Never going to let it go again. Have been riding a ton, but definitely need to work on the rest of it too.


I liked the P90X, some of the most inspirational fitness videos ever.
Never stop riding as your primary focus. I'm not a fan of intervals but smashing it up hills makes a short ride more of a work out.


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## SoDakSooner (Nov 23, 2005)

hardmtnbiker said:


> I liked the P90X, some of the most inspirational fitness videos ever.
> Never stop riding as your primary focus. I'm not a fan of intervals but smashing it up hills makes a short ride more of a work out.


10 years ago I was really into it. Friend of mine got me into it and was even in one of the infomercials. I was younger(obviously) but was much lighter and in better shape when I started. I am currently about 215 and got down to 165 doing it and about 3% bf. I was like a coiled spring...lol. Id do the workout and then go run 6 or 7 miles (or ride 10 to 15) after it was done. Alas, life has caught up, but working to get back.

I actually have started to get an affinity for long climbs over the last few years. Used to hate 'em but at least don't mind them now. I did The Mount Washington climb in 2019 (4700 feet in 7.5 miles) and we were supposed to do mount evans last summer (roadie stuff of course). I am slow but can generate some watts...lol, so I just keep churning. My goal is to get faster on the climbs to keep up with all my skinny buddies, but I do realize I need to get back after the upper body stuff too. I've been dealing with terrible tendonitis in my elbow the last year and just now feel like I can get back after some of that.

I love to ride and tolerate the other stuff. Don't think I'll ever give that up. Still trying to get 40 some miles (trainer and mtb) before sunday to start the year off with 200 miles. I also have a bunch of hunting/hiking prep I need to start here in a few months so that will take some time as well.


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## mtbbiker (Apr 8, 2004)

I'm 51yrs old and have been lifting weights since I was 14yrs old. Obviously I don't lift the same amount of weight as when I was younger: bench 340lbs, squat 450lbs. As I got into my forties, I realized I need to change so I don't hurt myself, no need to be that strong and pushing heavy weights. 

At 51, I'm happy with what I call the 225lb club, meaning being able to bench/squat/deadlift 225lbs for a rep of 10. Some weeks I go heavy, maybe up to 275lbs and other weeks I do alot of reps. Like others have said, every week I change it up and have be doing that for years. I hope to be able to stay in this 225lb club through my sixties but I imagine at some point I'll have to re-evaluate the 225lb club. 

With Covid and gyms closing down. I ended up buying a home gym. I've stayed away from a home gym my entire life, because I thought it would be hard to stay motivated to work out at home. I was wrong, turns out, for me it was way easier working out at the home gym and I rarely miss a workout!


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

SoDakSooner said:


> 10 years ago I was really into it. Friend of mine got me into it and was even in one of the infomercials. I was younger(obviously) but was much lighter and in better shape when I started. I am currently about 215 and got down to 165 doing it and about 3% bf. I was like a coiled spring...lol. Id do the workout and then go run 6 or 7 miles (or ride 10 to 15) after it was done. Alas, life has caught up, but working to get back.
> 
> I actually have started to get an affinity for long climbs over the last few years. Used to hate 'em but at least don't mind them now. I did The Mount Washington climb in 2019 (4700 feet in 7.5 miles) and we were supposed to do mount evans last summer (roadie stuff of course). I am slow but can generate some watts...lol, so I just keep churning. My goal is to get faster on the climbs to keep up with all my skinny buddies, but I do realize I need to get back after the upper body stuff too. I've been dealing with terrible tendonitis in my elbow the last year and just now feel like I can get back after some of that.
> 
> I love to ride and tolerate the other stuff. Don't think I'll ever give that up. Still trying to get 40 some miles (trainer and mtb) before sunday to start the year off with 200 miles. I also have a bunch of hunting/hiking prep I need to start here in a few months so that will take some time as well.


That's awesome and very inspirational! I started using a Polar HRM watch over 14 years ago. It was the S710 model and it would upload to my pc where I analyzed my rides on Polar Personal Training software. That was pre-Strava pre-Garmin and about the only other platform was Training Peaks that you would need to email them your files. I didn't go that route but have kept with using my Polar watches and Strava when that started. 
I started my year with my first 100 miler and plan to do that at least 1x a month. In addition I ride my local mountain trails daily, either 1000ft in 2.5miles or 2000ft in 6m. I've only missed 3 days of riding this year and trying to pick up my pace and see if I can get closer to my times from 10years ago.I also want to get some epic long climbs in and work up to a 10,000ft day.
Besides my Garmin Edge and Polar Vantage watch I've also considered a power meter to start analyzing my watts. Anything to keep me riding daily.


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## SoDakSooner (Nov 23, 2005)

hardmtnbiker said:


> That's awesome and very inspirational! I started using a Polar HRM watch over 14 years ago. It was the S710 model and it would upload to my pc where I analyzed my rides on Polar Personal Training software. That was pre-Strava pre-Garmin and about the only other platform was Training Peaks that you would need to email them your files. I didn't go that route but have kept with using my Polar watches and Strava when that started.
> I started my year with my first 100 miler and plan to do that at least 1x a month. In addition I ride my local mountain trails daily, either 1000ft in 2.5miles or 2000ft in 6m. I've only missed 3 days of riding this year and trying to pick up my pace and see if I can get closer to my times from 10years ago.I also want to get some epic long climbs in and work up to a 10,000ft day.
> Besides my Garmin Edge and Polar Vantage watch I've also considered a power meter to start analyzing my watts. Anything to keep me riding daily.


Nice job! Ive actually been tracking my weight and workouts on an excel spreadsheet since 2007. Still do in addition to logging on Strava and Garmin connect. Can't give it up. Kinda fun to go back and look at the old data and notes from some of those days.Ive been way heavier and way lighter since then. Kinda crazy. I wish I could ride (outside) every day, but have started using Zwift and we also have a Nordictrak S22i bike, so can take advantage of workouts and spin classes. I also do a virtual ride once a week on zwift with a buddy from Boston. We video chat and push each other pretty hard. He's a better climber and I push on the downhills. Really want a smart trainer to get actual watts(the S22i has a powermeter though) I hit 835 estimated for a few seconds last night, but my average is definitely increasing. Need to work on the endurance stuff. I am reasonably fast in the sprints for a fat guy and have several, what I call "fat guy KOM's" locally (over 200 lbs). I tell everyone I am the fastest old fat guy on a mountain bike in Tulsa....lol. I know that's not true but it's fun....and anything to keep me riding semi-daily. Just gotta throw in the strength workouts now. My new pull up bar gets here today so that will help.


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

mtbbiker said:


> I'm 51yrs old and have been lifting weights since I was 14yrs old. Obviously I don't lift the same amount of weight as when I was younger: bench 340lbs, squat 450lbs. As I got into my forties, I realized I need to change so I don't hurt myself, no need to be that strong and pushing heavy weights.
> 
> At 51, I'm happy with what I call the 225lb club, meaning being able to bench/squat/deadlift 225lbs for a rep of 10. Some weeks I go heavy, maybe up to 275lbs and other weeks I do alot of reps. Like others have said, every week I change it up and have be doing that for years. I hope to be able to stay in this 225lb club through my sixties but I imagine at some point I'll have to re-evaluate the 225lb club.
> 
> With Covid and gyms closing down. I ended up buying a home gym. I've stayed away from a home gym my entire life, because I thought it would be hard to stay motivated to work out at home. I was wrong, turns out, for me it was way easier working out at the home gym and I rarely miss a workout!





SoDakSooner said:


> Nice job! Ive actually been tracking my weight and workouts on an excel spreadsheet since 2007. Still do in addition to logging on Strava and Garmin connect. Can't give it up. Kinda fun to go back and look at the old data and notes from some of those days.Ive been way heavier and way lighter since then. Kinda crazy. I wish I could ride (outside) every day, but have started using Zwift and we also have a Nordictrak S22i bike, so can take advantage of workouts and spin classes. I also do a virtual ride once a week on zwift with a buddy from Boston. We video chat and push each other pretty hard. He's a better climber and I push on the downhills. Really want a smart trainer to get actual watts(the S22i has a powermeter though) I hit 835 estimated for a few seconds last night, but my average is definitely increasing. Need to work on the endurance stuff. I am reasonably fast in the sprints for a fat guy and have several, what I call "fat guy KOM's" locally (over 200 lbs). I tell everyone I am the fastest old fat guy on a mountain bike in Tulsa....lol. I know that's not true but it's fun....and anything to keep me riding semi-daily. Just gotta throw in the strength workouts now. My new pull up bar gets here today so that will help.


I would totally do indoor Zwift if I was stuck indoors. Cardio is so critical for overall fitness. I'm always looking at current and past data and had paper logs of my data pre Polar HRM watches. Fortunately I've been able to make time to consistently ride and do strength training so my waist has remained 32" and my weight stays below 160lbs. My issue at 50 is trying to hit some of my climbing PRs and for strength training, hitting my consistent pull up reps, push ups on the ball, squats, lunges and all the basic Olympic lifts. Obviously my strength is less but I still keep pushing the iron.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Can Exercise Make You More Creative?*

If you often exercise, there's a good chance you also tend to be more creative, according to an interesting new study of the links between physical activity and imagination. It finds that active people come up with more and better ideas during tests of their inventiveness than people who are relatively sedentary, and suggests that if we wish to be more innovative, we might also want to be movers and shakers.

Science already offers plenty of evidence that physical activity influences how we think. Many studies in people and animals show that our brains change in response to physical activity, in part because during exercise we marinate our brains with extra blood, oxygen and nutrients. In rodent studies, animals that regularly exercise produce far more new brain cells than their sedentary counterparts and perform better on thinking tests, even if they are elderly. In people, too, exercise tends to sharpen our abilities to reason and remember and buoys our moods.

But creativity is one of the most abstract of thinking skills and difficult to quantify, and its relationship with exercise has not been clear. A few past studies have found intriguing relationships between moving and originality. In one notable 2012 experiment, for instance, researchers asked some of their volunteers to move their arms loosely and fluidly through space, tracing the lines of a looping, curvy line-drawing the scientists had shown them, while another group arm-aped a straighter, more angular drawing. After each session, the researchers urged the volunteers to dream up novel, unexpected uses for an ordinary newspaper and found that those who had moved fluidly, almost as if they were dancing, came up with more original ideas than those whose movements had been rigid, straight and formalized.

Another, more conventional 2014 study of exercise and creativity likewise found that moving can spur innovation. In the main part of that multipart experiment, volunteers sat at a desk in a lackluster office space, trying to imagine new ways to use a button and otherwise engage their imaginations. They then completed a slightly different test of their creativity while walking on a treadmill in the same uninspiring room. Almost all of the participants spun out ideas that were more numerous and ingenious while walking than sitting.

But those and most other past studies of movement and creativity looked into the short-term effects of physical activity under tightly controlled conditions in labs or similar settings. They did not examine the potential linkages, if any, between everyday activities, like going for a walk, and the workings of our imaginations, or how being active could possibly affect creativity in the first place.

So, for the new study, which was published in Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Graz in Austria decided to track the normal activities of a group of average adults and also measure their creativity, to see whether and how the two might align.

The scientists wondered, too, about happiness. Some past research had speculated that good moods might be the intermediary linking activity and creativity. According to that idea, moving makes people happier, and their good cheer in turn makes them more creative; in that scenario, moving does not directly affect creative thinking.

To learn more, the researchers gathered 79 healthy adults, gave them activity trackers for five days and then asked them to visit the lab and let their imaginations soar, conceiving new uses for car tires and umbrellas and finishing partial drawings. The researchers then rated their output on its originality and other measures. The volunteers also completed standard questionnaires about their moods.

Finally, the scientists crosschecked the data, using a complex form of statistical analysis that incorporates findings from related, earlier research (to give the results more statistical heft) and weighs how much of a role a potential mediator plays. In this case, the researchers wondered, did being happy relate closely both to how much people moved and their creativity, meaning it linked the two?

The answer, the researchers concluded, was no. The most active of the volunteers proved to be also the most creative, especially if they often walked or otherwise exercised moderately. Active people also tended to be happy people, although their moods were highest if they engaged in relatively vigorous activities, like jogging or playing sports, rather than moderate ones.

But the correlations between activity, creativity and moods were slight. People could walk often and be quite creative but not especially happy, suggesting that it was not improved moods that most influenced creativity. It was moving.

The findings point to "an association between creativity and physical activity in everyday life," says Christian Rominger, a professor of psychology at the University of Graz and the study's lead author.

The study was associational, though, meaning it looked at a brief moment in people's lives. It did not involve a randomized experiment and cannot tell us if being more active directly causes us to be more creative, only that activity and creativity are linked. It also does not explain how exercise and other activities might shape creativity, if not by raising moods, or show whether a brisk walk now helps us better finish a newspaper column or some other creative venture later. But the results do intimate that active imaginations start with active lives.









Can Exercise Make You More Creative? (Published 2021)


To spur innovation and ideas, try taking a walk.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Caturday


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## Pines (Feb 13, 2021)

The absolute best, simplest and most effective routine I follow:

Full-body routine every 3rd day (72h rest): 1. Chin-up 2. Row. 3. Bench press 4. Overhead press 5. Squat 6. Calf raise. 7. Biceps 8. Triceps
After a warm-up set, just one 8-12 rep set to failure. Clean form. When I'm able to do +12 reps, I increase weight.
If I want to focus on something - say overhead press - I do 2 sets of that exercise for 2-3 weeks, with the 1st set a fixed 6 reps and the 2nd set to failure.

That's it, takes 30-40 mins. And it really works. Nutrition-wise, I've cut carbs a bit and I eat at least one whey-100 shake a day, and one omega-3 tablet.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## quite.right (Sep 29, 2016)

I guess my Yoga teacher is able to do this. I will ask her.


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## Dave Mac (Jan 9, 2017)

has anybody seen good results with increasing speed by doing strength training for the legs??


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## quite.right (Sep 29, 2016)

The time under tension will decrease. Do plyometrics or better all kind of squats with 2-0-2-0. There are a lot of studies about t.u.t. and intervals. Fiddling with time of intervals is unnecessary.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Intense Strength Training Does Not Ease Knee Pain, Study Finds*
_Millions of patients with knee osteoarthritis are told to exercise. A new study casts doubt on what sort of exercise is helpful.








_

The idea made so much sense that it was rarely questioned: exercise to strengthen muscles around the knee helps patients with osteoarthritis, making it easier and less painful to move the inflamed joint.

Nearly 40 percent of Americans over age 65 have knee osteoarthritis, and tens of millions of patients have been instructed to do these exercises. Indeed, the American College of Rheumatology and the Arthritis Foundation routinely advise strength training to improve symptoms.

Stephen Messier, a professor of biomechanics at Wake Forest University, believed in the guidance. But he decided to put the prescription to the test in a rigorous 18-month clinical trial involving 377 participants. The verdict appeared in a study published this week in JAMA: Strength training did not seem to help knee pain.

One group lifted heavy weights three times a week, while another group tried moderate strength training. A third group was counseled on "healthy living" and given instructions on foot care, nutrition, managing medications and better sleep practices.

Dr. Messier had expected that the group performing the heavy lifting would fare best and that the participants who received only counseling would see no improvement in knee pain. But the outcomes were the same in all three groups. Everyone reported slightly less pain, including those who had received only counseling.

You might expect some easing in pain in the patients who exercised. But why would those who didn't exercise also report an improvement? "It's an interesting dilemma we've been put in," Dr. Messier said.

A simple placebo effect might explain why they felt better, he said. Or it could be something scientists call a regression to the mean: Arthritis symptoms tend to surge and subside, and people tend to seek out treatments when the pain is at its peak. When it declines, as it would have anyway, they ascribe the improvement to the treatment.

"The natural history of osteoarthritis of the knee includes waxing and waning of symptoms," said Dr. Adolph Yates, vice chair of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who was not associated with the study. "It is what makes studying osteoarthritis of the knee interventions difficult."

Dr. David Felson, a professor of medicine at Boston University, argued that the study did not find strength training was useless. But instead, the trial showed that very aggressive strength training was not helpful and might actually be harmful, he said, especially if the arthritic knees are bowed inward or outward, as is common.

Strong muscles can act like a vise, putting pressure on tiny areas of the knee that bear most of the load when we're walking. When Dr. Felson scrutinized the study's data, he saw signs that the high-intensity group experienced slightly more pain and worse functioning.

Patients tend to resist advice to exercise at all, said Dr. Robert Marx, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City: "They want a reason not to exercise, asking: 'Will it make my arthritis better? Will it make my X-rays better?'"

He tells them that the answer to their questions is no, but that exercise stabilizes the joints. Although it is not as effective against pain as anti-inflammatory drugs, "it is one piece of arthritis treatment."

For Dr. Messier, who has been researching arthritis and exercise for over 30 years, the new findings are a bit of a departure. His first study, published in 1997 in JAMA, found that exercise groups had less pain in the end than the control group, but that was not really because the participants improved. It was because those in the control group got worse.

He also noticed that half of the participants in his study were overweight or obese. "What if we added weight loss to exercise?" he asked.

He tried that in another study, which was published in JAMA in 2013, that showed that a combination of weight loss and exercise decreased pain to a greater extent than either alone.

But he had long wondered whether the intensity of strength training mattered. In previous studies, participants had used weights that fell far short of what they could actually lift; the trials lasted just six to 24 weeks, and patients showed only modest improvements in pain and functioning.

Despite the new, unexpected results, Dr. Messier still urges patients to exercise, saying it can stave off an inevitable decline in muscle strength and mobility. But now it seems clear there is no particular advantage to strength training with heavy weights instead of a moderate-intensity routine with more repetitions and lighter weights.

Arthritis, he noted, is a chronic degenerative disease of the entire joint. "There are a lot of things going on," Dr. Messier said. "It's not just degradation of the cartilage."

But, he added, he believes the best non-pharmaceutical intervention for knee arthritis pain is a 10 percent weight loss and moderate exercise.

Dr. Messier is now planning that his next study will combine weight loss with exercise in people at risk for knee osteoarthritis, in the hopes of preventing the onset of this disabling disease.









Intense Strength Training Does Not Ease Knee Pain, Study Finds (Published 2021)


Millions of patients with knee osteoarthritis are told to exercise. A new study casts doubt on what sort of exercise is helpful.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A good minimalist workout using dumbbells or kettlebells that was presented for mtb


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## DrDon (Sep 25, 2004)

People encouraged me to do yoga, which I hate. It is a good way of conditioning obviously. I actually went back to weight lifting which helped much with chronic pain. I'm not in my glory days when I could squat over 600lb, but I cycle through the weight machines with minimal time between sets. Instead of yoga, I'm going to try single speeding 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

DrDon said:


> ...Instead of yoga, I'm going to try single speeding


I hate exercising or training.

That's why I ride a singlespeed so I don't need to do the stuff I hate.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forever young
I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, and ever

*How Exercise Enhances Aging Brains*
_Sedentary, older adults who took aerobic dance classes twice a week showed improvements in brain areas critical for memory and thinking._

Exercise can change how crucial portions of our brain communicate as we age, improving aspects of thinking and remembering, according to a fascinating new study of aging brains and aerobic workouts. The study, which involved older African-Americans, finds that unconnected portions of the brain's memory center start interacting in complex and healthier new ways after regular exercise, sharpening memory function.

The findings expand our understanding of how moving molds thinking and also underscore the importance of staying active, whatever our age.

The idea that physical activity improves brain health is well established by now. Experiments involving animals and people show exercise increases neurons in the hippocampus, which is essential for memory creation and storage, while also improving thinking skills. In older people, regular physical activity helps slow the usual loss of brain volume, which may help to prevent age-related memory loss and possibly lower the risk of dementia.

There have been hints, too, that exercise can alter how far-flung parts of the brain talk among themselves. In a 2016 M.R.I. study, for instance, researchers found that disparate parts of the brain light up at the same time among collegiate runners but less so among sedentary students. This paired brain activity is believed to be a form of communication, allowing parts of the brain to work together and improve thinking skills, despite not sharing a physical connection. In the runners, the synchronized portions related to attention, decision making and working memory, suggesting that running and fitness might have contributed to keener minds.

But those students were young and healthy, facing scant imminent threat of memory loss. Little was known yet about whether and how exercise might alter the communications systems of creakier, older brains and what effects, if any, the rewiring would have on thinking.

So, for the new study, which was published in January in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Mark Gluck, a professor of neuroscience at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., and his colleagues decided to see what happened inside the brains and minds of much older people if they began to work out.

In particular, he wondered about their medial temporal lobes. This portion of the brain contains the hippocampus and is the core of our memory center. Unfortunately, its inner workings often begin to sputter with age, leading to declines in thinking and memory. But Dr. Gluck suspected that exercise might alter that trajectory.

Helpfully, as the director of the Aging & Brain Health Alliance at Rutgers, he already was leading an ongoing exercise experiment. Working with local churches and community centers, he and his collaborators previously had recruited sedentary, older African-American men and women from the Newark area. The volunteers, most of them in their 60s, visited Dr. Gluck's lab for checks of their health and fitness, along with cognitive testing. A few also agreed to have their brain activity scanned.

Some then started working out, while others opted to be a sedentary control group. All shared similar fitness and memory function at the start. The exercise group attended hourlong aerobic dance classes twice a week at a church or community center for 20 weeks.

Now, Dr. Gluck and his research associate Neha Sinha, along with other colleagues, invited 34 of those volunteers who had completed an earlier brain scan to return for another. Seventeen of them had been exercising in the meantime; the rest had not. The groups also repeated the cognitive tests.

Then the scientists started comparing and quickly noticed subtle differences in how the exercisers' brains operated. Their scans showed more-synchronized activity throughout their medial temporal lobes than among the sedentary group, and this activity was more dynamic. Portions of the exercisers' lobes would light up together and then, within seconds, realign and light up with other sections of the lobe. Such promiscuous synchronizing indicates a kind of youthful flexibility in the brain, Dr. Gluck says, as if the circuits were smoothly trading dance partners at a ball. The exercisers' brains would "flexibly rearrange their connections," he says, in a way that the sedentary group's brains could not.

Just as important, those changes played out in people's thinking and memories. The exercisers performed better than before on a test of their ability to learn and retain information and apply it logically in new situations. This kind of agile thinking involves the medial temporal lobe, Dr. Gluck says, and tends to decline with age. But the older exercisers scored higher than at the start, and those whose brains displayed the most new interconnections now outperformed the rest.

This study involved older African-Americans, though, a group that is underrepresented in health research but may not be representative of all aging people. Still, even with that caveat, "it seems that neural flexibility" gained by exercising a few times a week "leads directly to memory flexibility," Dr. Gluck says.









How Exercise Enhances Aging Brains (Published 2021)


Sedentary, older adults who took aerobic dance classes twice a week showed improvements in brain areas critical for memory and thinking.




www.nytimes.com


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## mtbbiker (Apr 8, 2004)

I've had a Gym membership since age of 15, until Covid hit. Then my gym would open and close. When it was open, the word got out and tons of people would show up!

Never really entertained a home gym until Covid hit and I'm finding out I actually love working out from home. I've got an amazing girl friend and we workout together at 5am, Mon thru Fri! We rarely miss a workout!

Here's my home gym: 

































Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## quite.right (Sep 29, 2016)

@mtbbiker - nice garage gym!

Built a foldable rack by myself last year and can not be happier. A cable pull will follow. 
Home gym is the best decision in these times.
As a mountain biker and trail runner I don't need this huge amount of special machines in the gym. And I don't miss the crowd.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

@mtbbiker I like your plate holder. I need a system like that!

@quite.right We've been doing daily home gym workouts since the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020) and I agree with your points. The basement gym has it's limitations but we've been modifying our prescribed workouts. We are planning to move to a new place this summer and will be converting a large garage into a workout space. It has higher ceilings which is a huge potential to install a pull up bar, rings, and we'll be able to do box jumps and wallballs again


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is It Safe to Go Back to Group Exercise Class at the Gym?*

Last summer, a 37-year-old fitness instructor in Hawaii taught a spin class to 10 people. He was perched on a bike in the front of the room, facing his students as he shouted instructions and encouragement. The doors and windows were closed, but three large floor fans created a breeze to keep everyone cool. As a precaution against Covid-19, all the bikes were spaced at least six feet apart. (At the time, the gym didn't require people to wear masks.)
But just four hours after class, the instructor began feeling fatigued. By the morning he had chills, body aches, a cough and other respiratory symptoms. Soon, he tested positive for the coronavirus, and eventually, _everyone_ who attended his class that day tested positive, too.

The outbreak didn't stop there, though. A 46-year-old fitness instructor who attended the spin class went on to infect another 11 people during personal training sessions and kickboxing classes over the next few days, before falling ill himself and landing in intensive care.

The case of the Hawaii spin instructor was alarming because of the efficiency with which the virus left his respiratory tract and swirled around the enclosed classroom, reaching every person in the room. Among epidemiologists, that's known as a 100 percent attack rate, and it's a lesson in why group fitness classes, which often encourage high-energy huffing and puffing in poorly ventilated classrooms, present such a daunting challenge to infection control.

At the same time, most public health experts agree that the drop in physical activity and weight gain that many people experienced during a year of pandemic living presents another set of risks to human health, and that communities need to find a balance between infection control and allowing people to return to their favorite fitness activities. 
In the United States, gyms and fitness programs have reopened in some capacity in every state, allowing an estimated 73 million eager members to return to exercise. For the first time in more than a year, indoor group fitness classes were allowed to resume in New York City as of Monday, albeit at 33 percent capacity, and face coverings will be required.

The good news is that it's possible to lower the risk of group fitness classes by improving ventilation, limiting class size, wearing a mask and increasing physical distance between participants.

Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech and one of the world's leading experts on viral transmission, is an avid exerciser herself and longed to return to her CrossFit sessions as the pandemic wore on. She worked with the owner of the gym, examining building plans and calculating potential class size and ventilation patterns in the facility.
Dr. Marr said the challenge with group fitness classes is that the participants often are breathing heavily. During a workout, people exhale and inhale at far higher volumes than when at rest.

"If someone is there who happens to be infected, they are releasing more virus into the air," Dr. Marr said. "And the people around them are breathing heavily too, so they're taking more in. You get this multiplicative factor. You're breathing four times as hard, and the person who is sick is breathing four times as hard, so you're breathing in 16 times more than you would under nonexercise conditions."

Because of the potential for heavy breathing, Dr. Marr suggested increasing the physical distance between participants at the workout space to 10 feet rather than the standard recommendation of six feet. To achieve that level of spacing, it required limiting the class size at Dr. Marr's workouts to just 10 people.

The facility took additional measures to minimize the chances of infection.

The solution was to open multiple garage-style doors, even in the middle of the Virginia winter. To make sure the ventilation was adequate, the gym acquired a carbon dioxide monitor to measure the buildup of carbon dioxide in a room. Because humans exhale carbon dioxide, its level can be an indicator of how well a room is ventilated.
Under everyday conditions, such as while shopping at a supermarket, an indoor carbon dioxide reading of 800 parts per million suggests that ventilation levels are adequate to reduce the risk of breathing in other people's exhaled germs. But given the heavy breathing that occurs during a workout, Dr. Marr advised trying to keep indoor carbon dioxide levels even lower, to around 500 parts per million, and to increase ventilation if the number begins to creep toward 600.

Wearing a mask during exercise is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but Dr. Marr noted that with heavy breathing, mask material can quickly get moist and lose its effectiveness. "The level of protection provided by masks is so variable that we cannot rely on them alone," she said.

So far, the strategy seems to be working. Dr. Marr said her gym hasn't experienced any coronavirus outbreaks, even though her state doesn't require gym goers to wear masks while exercising. "We figured out if we kept all the doors open it should be pretty low risk," she said. "But it was cold!"

There was one instructor who contracted the virus from somewhere outside the facility, but the well-ventilated room and rules about physical distancing appear to have protected 50 people who were exposed to him during several different classes.

While Dr. Marr's gym is just a single case study, it shows that group fitness classes can continue safely during the pandemic, provided the facility focuses on ventilation and enforces distancing precautions and capacity limits. (Dr. Marr notes that CrossFit Inc. invited her to join its medical advisory board in December, and she helped craft a set of safety recommendations.)

We asked Dr. Marr and other experts to answer questions about how participants can decide whether their fitness class is safe to attend. Here's what they had to say.

*Does the type of exercise in the classroom make a difference?*

Yes. While Covid can spread in any type of indoor class, risk is likely to go up as exercise intensity increases because breathing rates increase.

The volume of air someone breathes in and out every minute is called the "minute ventilation rate," said Dr. Michael Koehle, the director of the Environmental Physiology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and an expert on respiration during exercise. It naturally rises more during strenuous workouts, such as spin or dance classes, than in lighter workouts, such as yoga or Pilates.

"At low intensities - yoga, Pilates and some strength work - you can breathe more through your nose, which is a natural filter," said Dr. Koehle. "Another very important factor is that it is more comfortable to wear a mask during strength training and lower-intensity exercise than high-intensity exercise. People should still be wearing masks indoors."

This past August, an outbreak occurred among high-intensity exercisers at a fitness facility in Chicago. Everyone brought their own weights and mats, but not everyone wore masks. In that case, 55 out of 81 people (68 percent) who attended classes over an eight-day period at one facility came down with Covid-19. Early in the pandemic, 112 people in South Korea who took part in Zumba classes, or spent time with someone who did, were infected.

*How will I know if the room has adequate ventilation?*

While gyms and fitness classes are advised to meet certain ventilation standards, it's tough for the average person to know whether a building ventilation system is adequate for infection control. "High ceilings are good," said Dr. Marr. "If you can smell someone else, that's a bad sign."

Ideally, a group class should be held in a room with open windows and doors on opposite sides of the room to allow for cross ventilation. A classroom with only one entrance and no windows - a common situation in many gyms - probably does not have adequate ventilation to keep you safe. Adding several portable air cleaners to a space that lacks more doors or windows could help. "It would be much better if you can get cross ventilation - opening doors or windows on opposite sides," said Dr. Marr. "That's what we specified in my gym, at least two open on opposite sides."

*Do fans help?*

Overhead exhaust fans or window fans that pull air out of the room are fine. But avoid any class that uses fans to recirculate air and cool down the room. Fans that recirculate air in the room just increase the risk of viral spread.

*How far apart should I stand?*

While six feet of distancing is recommended by public health officials for most situations, Dr. Marr advises extending it to at least 10 feet - in front of you, to either side, and behind you - during exercise.
The rules vary by state. In Massachusetts, for instance, indoor classes must have enough room for people to stand 14 feet apart. If barriers between participants are installed, then six feet is considered adequate. South Carolina requires a 10-foot by 10-foot area (100 square feet) per person; New Jersey requires twice that. Montana has required fitness classes to take place outdoors, while South Dakota has no guidance. (You can find more details about different state requirements here.)

*How many people should be in the class?*

States have different rules for class size, with some limiting attendance to 25 percent to 40 percent of capacity, and others allowing no more than nine or 10 people per class. Dr. Marr notes that class size is best determined by how far apart people can stand. When people keep 10 feet of distance from one another on all sides, that often limits the class size to 10 people or fewer. If you can't achieve that much space between you and other participants, including the instructor, it's time to find a new class.

*Do I need to wear a mask?*

It's a good idea to wear a mask, and many states require them, but you can't rely on your mask to protect you entirely. Mask quality varies, and during exercise, masks get moist, reducing their filtering efficiency. And while many gyms require masks to enter, mask wearing often is not enforced or even required during exercise classes.
In the Chicago and Hawaii outbreaks, most people were not wearing masks. At the Hawaii gym, two participants wore masks during kickboxing sessions, but their infected instructor did not, and both became ill. The C.D.C. advises that "to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission in exercise facilities, employees and patrons should wear a mask, even during high-intensity activities."

*Is there a way to monitor the air in my fitness class?*

Not every facility will have a carbon dioxide monitor, but it's worth asking your facility if they have one in the group fitness room and whether you can check it. If the carbon dioxide levels are below 600 parts per million (the closer to 500 the better), it's a sign that the room ventilation is adequate for exercise. If the numbers start to increase, ask to open a window or door - or leave the class. When Dr. Marr was attending an indoor swimming pool, she noticed ventilation levels in the room were poor, so she left.

*Is there a way to know if my gym has made a commitment to Covid safety precautions?*

The International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, an industry group, has an initiative called the IHRSA Active & Safe Commitment to follow industry best practices to provide a safe environment. Facilities that sign the pledge promise to adhere to physical distancing and mitigation measures, safety protocols and contact tracing.
The IHRSA urges the gym to have a list of protocols on its website and at the facility. At the bare minimum, protocols should include ventilation and fresh air exchange, capacity limits, distancing protocols and a clear mask policy. "I would specifically ask about ventilation practices, if mask wearing at all times is mandatory, and if classes and equipment were to be spaced out to allow for appropriate social distancing," said Cedric Bryant, president and chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise.

*What if I've been vaccinated?*

Your risk for contracting coronavirus or developing serious illness drops dramatically if you've been vaccinated, but people who are vaccinated are still advised to take the same precautions as everyone else in public settings. And in most states, the people most likely to go to gyms or instruct a fitness class are younger and healthier, and therefore less likely to be among the first groups to be vaccinated. According to the IHRSA, 73 percent of gym and fitness class participants are 55 and younger.

*Does cleaning and disinfection make a difference?*

While everyone should wash their hands and wipe down gym equipment, patrons should not judge a gym solely on how often it promises to clean and sanitize an area. "We should still do what we did before, which is wipe down your machine when you're done," said Dr. Marr. "Maintaining a normal level of cleaning is appropriate. But any extra time and effort a gym has, put it toward cleaning the air."

Dr. Marr notes that proper ventilation, physical distancing and class size limits will have the biggest impact on your safety. She recently posted on Twitter that ventilation is so important, she even had a nightmare about it.
"I had my first Covid-19 related nightmare (that I remember)," Dr. Marr's tweet read. "I finished a hard, group workout in a gym. I looked around and panicked because I saw that all the doors were closed."









Is It Safe to Go Back to Group Exercise Class at the Gym? (Published 2021)


Indoor fitness classes, which often result in heavy breathing in poorly ventilated rooms, can be risky. Here’s a guide to help you decide if your gym is doing enough to prevent the spread of Covid-19.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A couple days early before Caturday


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Another good reason to exercise.

*Regular Exercise May Help Protect Against Severe Covid








*

_People who tended to be sedentary were far more likely to be hospitalized, and to die, from Covid than those who exercised regularly._

More exercise means less risk of developing severe Covid, according to a compelling new study of physical activity and coronavirus hospitalizations. The study, which involved almost 50,000 Californians who developed Covid, found that those who had been the most active before falling ill were the least likely to be hospitalized or die as a result of their illness.

The data were gathered before Covid vaccines became available and do not suggest that exercise can substitute in any way for immunization. But they do intimate that regular exercise - whether it's going for a swim, walk, run or bike ride - can substantially lower our chances of becoming seriously ill if we do become infected.

Scientists have known for some time that aerobically fit people are less likely to catch colds and other viral infections and recover more quickly than people who are out of shape, in part because exercise can amplify immune responses. Better fitness also heightens antibody responses to vaccines against influenza and other illnesses.

But infections with the novel coronavirus are so new that little has been known about whether, and how, physical activity and fitness might affect risks for becoming ill with Covid. A few recent studies, however, have seemed encouraging. In one, which was published in February in The International Journal of Obesity, people who could walk quickly, an accepted gauge of aerobic fitness, developed severe Covid at much lower rates than sluggish walkers, even if the quick striders had obesity, a known risk factor for severe disease. In another study of older adults in Europe, greater grip strength, an indicator of general muscle health, signaled lowered risks for Covid hospitalizations.
But those studies looked at indirect measures of people's aerobic or muscular fitness and not their actual, everyday exercise habits, so they cannot tell us if getting up and moving - or staying still - changes the calculus of Covid risks.

So, for the new study, which was published Tuesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers and physicians at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, the University of California, San Diego, and other institutions decided to compare information about how often people exercised with whether they wound up hospitalized this past year because of Covid.

The Kaiser Permanente health care system was well suited for this investigation, because, since 2009, it has included exercise as a "vital sign" during patient visits. In practice, this means doctors and nurses ask patients how many days each week they exercise, such as by walking briskly, and for how many minutes each time, then add that data to the patient's medical record.

Now, the researchers drew anonymized records for 48,440 adult men and women who used the Kaiser health care system, had their exercise habits checked at least three times in recent years and, in 2020, had been diagnosed with Covid-19. The researchers grouped the men and women by workout routines, with the least active group exercising for 10 minutes or less most weeks; the most active for at least 150 minutes a week; and the somewhat-active group occupying the territory in between.

The researchers gathered data, too, about each person's known risk factors for severe Covid, including their age, smoking habits, weight, and any history of cancer, diabetes, organ transplants, kidney problems and other serious, underlying conditions.

Then the researchers crosschecked numbers, with arresting results. People in the least-active group, who almost never exercised, wound up hospitalized because of Covid at twice the rate of people in the most-active group, and were subsequently about two-and-a-half times more likely to die. Even compared to people in the somewhat-active group, they were hospitalized about 20 percent more often and were about 30 percent more likely to die.

Of the other common risk factors for severe disease, only advanced age and organ transplants increased the likelihood of hospitalization and mortality from Covid more than being inactive, the scientists found.

"Being sedentary was the greatest risk factor" for severe illness, "unless someone was elderly or an organ recipient," says Dr. Robert Sallis, a family and sports medicine doctor at the Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center, who led the new study. And while "you can't do anything about those other risks," he says, "you can exercise."

Of course, this study, because it was observational, does not prove that exercise causes severe Covid risks to drop, but only that people who often exercise also are people with low risks of falling gravely ill. The study also did not delve into whether exercise reduces the risk of becoming infected with coronavirus in the first place.

But Dr. Sallis points out that the associations in the study were strong. "I think, based on this data," he says, "we can tell people that walking briskly for half an hour five times a week should help protect them against severe Covid-19."
A walk - or five - might be especially beneficial for people awaiting their first vaccine, he adds. "I would never suggest that someone who does regular exercise should consider not getting the vaccine. But until they can get it, I think regular exercise is the most important thing they can do to lessen their risk. And doing regular exercise will likely be protective against any new variants, or the next new virus out there."









Regular Exercise May Help Protect Against Severe Covid (Published 2021)


People who tended to be sedentary were far more likely to be hospitalized, and to die, from Covid than those who exercised regularly.




www.nytimes.com





*97% of people who died of COVID had one or more chronic diseases. 86% were obese. 92% were over 60 years old.*


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Are you looking for really, really short workout? Here are some 10min 7min, 4min, 10-20-30, HIIT workouts* (In minutes, high-intensity interval training (H.I.I.T.) will have you sweating, breathing hard and maximizing the health benefits of exercise without the time commitment. Best of all, it's scientifically proven to work).

*1) The 10-Minute Workout*
If you like to run, bike, row or swim - just a little bit - this workout is a great option for you.

*1.* Warm up for 2 minutes.

*2.* Pedal, run or swim all-out for 20 seconds.

*3.* Pedal, run or swim slow and easy for 2 minutes.

*4.* Pedal, run or swim all-out for 20 seconds.

*5.* Pedal, run or swim slow and easy for 2 minutes.

*6.* Pedal, run or swim all-out for 20 seconds.

*7.* Cool down for 3 minutes.

Do this three times a week, for a total of 30 minutes of weekly exercise.

*2) The 7-Minute Workout*
12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort - all of it based on science. (do each exercise for as many reps as possible AMRAP)

*1.* Jumping jacks
*2.* Wall sit
*3.* Push-ups
*4.* Abdominal crunches
*5.* Step-up onto a chair
*6.* Squats
*7.* Triceps dip on a chair
*8.* Plank
*9.* High knees, running in place
*10.* Alternating lunges
*11.* Push-ups with rotation
*12.* Side plank, each side

*3) The 4-Minute Workout*
If you don't really like doing push-ups or wall sits, you can still benefit from H.I.I.T. Try this 4-minute burst of fitness.

*1.* Warm up briefly.

*2.* Run, swim or bike intensely for four minutes.

*3.* Stop. Catch your breath.

Repeat three times a week.

*4) 10-20-30 Training*
This simple program will help you make the most of a short workout by improving heart health and endurance. Try it with your favorite cardiovascular activity.

*1.* Run (or bike or swim or row) lightly for 30 seconds.

*2.* Run moderately for 20 seconds.

*3.* Run at top speed for 10 seconds. Repeat the sequence 5 times, then rest for 2 minutes and repeat the sequence 5 times again. This routine takes 12 minutes to complete. If you are already in good shape, add another round of 5 repeating intervals. The next day, try a lighter exercise before trying 10-20-30 again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A little background information about HIIT

*What Is H.I.I.T?*
*Short Workouts 101*
High-intensity interval training - referred to as H.I.I.T. - is based on the idea that short bursts of strenuous exercise can have a big impact on the body. If moderate exercise - like a 20-minute jog - is good for your heart, lungs and metabolism, H.I.I.T. packs the benefits of that workout and more into a few minutes. It may sound too good to be true, but learning this exercise technique and adapting it to your life can mean saving hours at the gym. If you think you don't have time to exercise, H.I.I.T. may be the workout for you.You can try it with any aerobic activity you like. The principles of H.I.I.T. can be applied to running, biking, stair climbing, swimming, jumping rope, rowing, even hopping or skipping. (Yes, skipping!)The downside? Even though H.I.I.T. lasts only minutes, the workouts are tough, requiring you to push your body near its limit.
*How Intense Is High Intensity?*
High-intensity exercise is obviously not a casual stroll down the street, but it's not a run-till-your-lungs-pop explosion, either. Think breathless, not winded. Heart-pounding, not exploding. Legs pumping, but not uncontrolled. You don't need any fancy heart rate monitors to do these workouts. Use cues from your body as a guide. In the middle of a high-intensity workout you should be able to say single words, but not complete whole sentences. So, if you can keep chatting to your workout partner during this workout, pump it up a few notches.

*Keep It Interesting*
With the right set of music and a little creativity, you'll soon look forward to your new optimized workout.
*Get Started*
To benefit the most from really, really short workouts, you need to build the habit of doing them into your hectic life. Ideally, you'll complete the workout three times a week. The best way to build that habit is to start small and be willing to tweak your schedule where you can to accommodate your new workout.
*First set up a spot* in your house for your workout, equipped with whatever you need to get the job done: sneakers, a chair, a towel, etc. *Then* *slot your workout in before you would normally shower.* (You can even do it in the bathroom.) *Or* *wake up five minutes earlier* and do it first thing in the morning, so you can head off to work feeling accomplished. *Or* *do it during your lunch hour.* Run up your office's stairs or grab a private conference room for just a few minutes. *Or* *work it into your commute.* If you walk or bike to work, add some heavy intervals on the way home.

*Get a Boost From Music*
Creating a workout playlist of high-energy tunes you love will not make your workout feel easier, but it may cause you to exercise harder without even realizing it. Best of all, if you are doing a really short workout, you need only one or two great tunes to get you through. If you are willing to try something a bit different, make your own music as you exercise. Sing, hum, clap your hands, whatever you can do to jam along to your playlist. It may give you an extra boost to finish strong.Find a song or podcast that's the length of your really, really short workout. By the time the song is over, you're done.
*Try a New Activity*
The beauty of H.I.I.T. is that you can apply its principles to many different activities. Too hot to be outside? Try some H.I.I.T. in the pool. Spin away on a stationary bike when it's cold outside. If your knees hurt, try an intense workout on an elliptical machine. On vacation, find a corner of your hotel room for some jumping jacks or sprint around the cruise ship. The type of exercise doesn't matter, as long as you alternate really intense, all-out bursts of the exercise with less intense intervals.
*Run in Reverse*
If you have bad knees and think you can't run, try going in the opposite direction.Backward running works your muscles differently than forward running. It also tilts your body forward, taking the pressure off your knees. Even more, running backward burns extra calories and sharpens balance.
Now, it's hard to find a safe place to run backward for 45 minutes, but a how about really, really short backward run? That can happen on a local track, up and down a quiet street or back and forth along a quiet hallway.






Really, Really Short Workouts


Think you’re too busy to work out? We have the workout for you. In minutes, high-intensity interval training (H.I.I.T.) will have you sweating, breathing hard and maximizing the health benefits of exercise without the time commitment. Best of all, it’s scientifically proven to work.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sharing a handy link for calculating lifts and strength levels



https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards?fbclid=IwAR3ILTZo_H3oeq71_0yC7p0xzJ1zGNEq8pSEB0Mt-Cxf1dl7oFOq1rR39Ms#.YJ5Dab_IouY.mailto


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> Sharing a handy link for calculating lifts and strength levels
> 
> 
> 
> https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards?fbclid=IwAR3ILTZo_H3oeq71_0yC7p0xzJ1zGNEq8pSEB0Mt-Cxf1dl7oFOq1rR39Ms#.YJ5Dab_IouY.mailto


Cool link. Interesting numbers.

I have never done one max lift of anything. Not sure of the safety of a max lift. Though some of chart that is about the level of my last set. Novice to intermediate range for me it seems.


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## moab63 (Dec 29, 2003)

Dave Mac said:


> has anybody seen good results with increasing speed by doing strength training for the legs??


The most common issue, is how the lift is actually done. Most of the time like a bodybuilder, which is woefully wrong for most sports. If you execute the movement at the correct speed(fast) it will transfer to cycling. For master racers or riders in general, lifting is the best thing you can do. My lifting is way behind, this year for obvious reasons. I'm might buy weights, so I can start lifting at home. Mostly squats, deadlift and some other cheast/arm stuff.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

He also needs to work on those legs


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to bulk up your home gym*










Mark Andrew has always made fitness a priority.

"I'm not a workout nut, but I really have tried to focus on [fitness]," says Mr. Andrew, senior vice-president at Tapestry, the seniors' living division of Concert Properties Ltd. "I was told once that 'motion is lotion.' If you get up in the morning and you do a 45-minute spin class, you're going to feel better."

He was a regular at spin and other workout classes, but when the pandemic hit and gyms closed, the 65-year-old needed a new plan to keep moving.

Mr. Andrew lives with his wife in a two-bedroom condo in downtown Vancouver, where space is at a premium. He started doing a bit of sunrise yoga on their balcony, but felt that wasn't enough of a workout on its own, so he carved out a corner of the dining room and started investing in equipment: first a spin bike, then
mats, progressively heavier weights and even a small set of kettlebells.

Mr. Andrew is among a plethora of people investing in home workout equipment since the pandemic hit. A recent Business Research Company report estimates the global home fitness equipment market grew 40 per cent year-over-year in 2020 to US$9.49-billion - a massive spike driven largely by social distancing and stay-at-home measures. Exercise equipment and content company Peloton Interactive Inc. is one example, recently reporting revenue for its quarter ended March 31 rose 141 per cent year-over-year to US$1.26-billion.

While many fitness lovers (and even some haters) are expected to return to the gym when the pandemic passes, those who made big investments in workout equipment over the past year are expected to stick with it and maybe even add to their home set-ups.

That's definitely the case for Wes Ashton, director of growth strategy at Harbourfront Wealth Management in Vancouver, who bought a Peloton bike for his family in early January, 2020, just before the pandemic started - something he
was very happy about two months later when gyms shuttered and he had no choice but to work out at home.

Mr. Ashton admits he misses working out alongside his gym friends, but he still plans to use his Peloton after the pandemic.

"It's incredibly flexible," he says. "Having the ability to just walk down a couple flights of stairs, and you're on a bike for half an hour or 45 minutes [is] certainly appealing."









*Suggestions to pump up your home gym*
There are plenty of high-tech and high-end pieces of equipment and online subscriptions that people can splurge on for their home set-ups.

Personal trainer Aldo Frixione, co-owner of Toronto's Fit Squad Training, says his clients have been investing heavily in their home gyms over the past year, including in some intense pieces of equipment such as tractor tires and sledgehammers for strongman-style training.

"They just beat that thing up," he says. "Strongman-style training is sometimes very rewarding because there's something very primal about just using brute strength."

Strength training is important for all genders, especially as we get older, he continues. It can help protect the spine, slows bone loss and boosts muscle strength. But that doesn't mean someone starting to build a home gym from scratch needs a tractor tire of their own. Instead, Mr. Frixione recommends investing in the basics: weights, including kettlebells and dumbbells that range from five to 100 pounds, an
design aesthetic to what's usually a quite utilitarian space.)

Or, splash out on something super high-tech. A growing number of machines approximate the feeling of being in a class, including various brands of smart bikes, rowers, treadmills and mirrors that fitness buffs can use to stream aerobic classes or work with a personal trainer from home.

There's also a slew of new companies in this space that don't yet ship to Canada, including FightCamp, which allows users to learn how to box using an in-home boxing bag and smart boxing gloves, Tempo, an AI-enabled free weight machine, and Tonal, an AI-enabled resistance weight machine that's about the size of a TV and can offer 200 pounds of resistance.

Don't forget about creature comforts. A speaker system means you can work out to your favourite high-energy songs without worrying about your Air Pods falling out mid-lift, while high-quality mats, resistance bands and foam blocks are a must for post-exercise stretch sessions.

*How to stay motivated with at-home workouts*
But the most important thing, according to Mr. Frixione, is staying motivated. And for that, home gym users need to set goals around performance and skill - not appearance.

"You can wake up looking a little bit bloated, which might be a little bit discouraging. But there's something very rewarding that nobody can take away, and it's your ability to do stuff," he says.

Goals can be as obvious as increasing the number of pull-ups you can do or the amount of weight you can squat, or as subtle as improving your posture. The important thing, Mr. Frixione says, is to work toward something.

That's exactly what Mr. Ashton is doing. He's 46, years away from retirement, but he knows staying active now will pay off down the road. "I think maintaining your health is critical whether you're currently retired or approaching this stage of your life," he says. "Being pro-active and staying healthy is just as important as planning
for the next vacation. Retirement becomes pretty difficult without your health."

Mr. Andrew agrees: "We're all going to get older, but how we do it is a choice," he says.









How to bulk up your home gym


Canadians are expected to keep investing in their home set-ups post-pandemic




www.theglobeandmail.com


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## bjeast (Oct 29, 2017)

That last line in the article is great!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good inspiring article

*A new start after 60: 'I was sick, tired and had lost myself - until I began lifting weights at 71'*










Joan Macdonald has not always looked like a bodybuilder. At 71, she weighed 90kg/198lbs, and had rising blood pressure and kidney troubles. She was also on medication for cholesterol and acid reflux, and her doctor wanted to double the dose.

Her daughter, Michelle, expressed Macdonald's dilemma bluntly. "You're going to end up like your mother did in a nursing home!" she told Macdonald. "And people are going to have to look after you. Do you want that?"

"Of course I didn't want it," Macdonald says now. "I was sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Macdonald's thoughts swirled for two weeks. She thought: "I want to earn Michelle's respect. I mean, she loves me, but you can love a person without even liking them."

She left her home in Ontario, Canada, to join Michelle and her husband, both fitness coaches, in Tulum, Mexico. Macdonald learned to make protein shakes. She visited the gym. She followed Michelle's workout program, using the machines, then light weights - 2.5lb (1kg) - working up to heavier ones. She mimes raising a barbell and lowering it behind her head. She can do this with 25lb (11kg).

"Wow! Your back!" people in the gym told her. "It's so defined!" They took photos. "I'm going: 'Wooh! That looks pretty good! I've got some muscles here.'" Within nine months, she was off all medication.

"There is a misconception that people over 65 cannot produce hypertrophy [growth] of the muscle," says Mark Peterson, an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Michigan*. *"Muscle is a tissue that can adapt with stimulus." The key is to check with a doctor first, and start slowly.

On Instagram, Macdonald posts photos of herself in sports tops, or jumping waves in beachwear. She has 1.4m followers and a partnership with the retailer Women's Best. "I have a tendency to do things that anyone else would say: 'Oh my God! What's she doing now?'"

Macdonald celebrated her 75th birthday this year by zip lining. She has always liked a challenge, always liked "building something". In DIY projects, her husband is supervisor and Macdonald "dogsbody". But now, she says: "I'm building me instead."
Macdonald has lived a lot of her adult life in a medicated body with a variable weight. So why was she able to make the change at 71? "I think I'd met a new low in my life. I'd maybe touched bottom.

"I was busy with my family. You forget about yourself. I wish I'd known what I know now. I would have been a healthier me most of my life &#8230; You're fighting yourself really, because you're constantly in this yo-yo state."

She sounds as if she is holding back tears when she says: "I don't want to go back to what I was." She is "90% secure" that she won't. "My body is where it wants to be."

Advertisement

Of course, there is an emotional adjustment to fitting a new physical form. She is more outgoing, happier, less angry. "I still have to come to terms with myself, that I have changed that much. People say: 'Gotta learn to love yourself!' When you first start out, you go: 'What's there to love?' That's how I felt. But I can look in the mirror now and not turn my head."

Does Macdonald feel compassion for her old self? "Some," she says. "But it was unnecessary to go this whole route before I finally coined on to 'you can change'."

I can't help thinking that her desire for a transformation started long before she was 71. "In my teens, in high school, that's when I started to struggle with weight. I thought I was really dumpy and fat, and yet I knew I wore clothes smaller than some of my friends who put me down," she says.

Why did decades pass before she found what she needed to take her younger self in hand? "It took that many years to wake up," she says. "Fifty-five years!" But maybe there is equilibrium in the way she came to these changes late.

As a girl, she says, she had an uneasy body image "because my development was really early. I resented losing my childhood. At 10 years old, you don't want to not be a child any more."

As a mature woman, she is powering her own rejuvenation. "People need to know, especially women, that you are not finished at 40, definitely not finished at 50 or 60 or 70. You can go on and on until the day there is no more," she says. "And you should be able to do it with pizzazz."









A new start after 60: ‘I was sick, tired and had lost myself – until I began lifting weights at 71’


Joan Macdonald faced growing health problems before she began lifting weights, shattering preconceptions about what’s possible in your eighth decade




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Cross post from the Nutrition forum

*Why Masters Cyclists Need Strength Training*
There's a reason many cyclists don't make time for strength training - riding a bike is a lot more fun than pushing weights in a musty gym. However, strength training is a must if you want to continue to have fun riding and racing your bike for years to come.

Strength training can provide great performance benefits - it will make you faster in the short term, but it will also keep you fast for many years to come. In the world of masters racing, cyclists who remain youthful, vigorous, and healthy will continue to excel while many of their cohorts will start to slow down. The gym is, quite literally, a fountain of youth, and is a major key to success as a master's racer.

*Your Muscles and Aging*
Your muscles put watts into the pedals - if you lose muscle, you lose power. Unfortunately, chronic muscle loss due to aging (aka, sarcopenia) can begin as early as your 30s, though the rate at which this muscle loss occurs is highly dependent upon your lifestyle. Naturally, those who are physically inactive and have poor diets will lose their muscle much faster than a healthy cyclist.

However, cycling alone will not help you preserve all of your precious leg muscle. Strength training can help counteract muscle loss in the following ways:


Two important hormones that are key to maintaining youthfulness - growth hormone and testosterone - have actually been shown to decrease with chronic endurance training. These hormones are not only essential to building and maintaining muscle, but also enhance your ability to recover and adapt from training. While synthetic testosterone is on the banned substance list, you can legally enhance your testosterone levels by going to the gym!
Your explosive fast-twitch muscle fibers are the most susceptible to sarcopenia. In a short duration criterium or road race, as is common in masters racing, it's unlikely you will win without a good finishing kick. Strength training will help protect your race-winning muscles and give you the edge over your competition. 
It's commonly known that VO2max declines with aging. However, this decline is largely due to the loss of muscle mass that occurs with aging. With less active muscle to pedal your bike, your body will not consume as much oxygen to contract your muscles. Therefore, maintaining strong muscle mass can combat a decline in VO2max.
*Your Bones and Aging*
Throughout puberty and into adulthood, bone mass gradually increases until it reaches its peak in your 20s. Thereafter, you must do everything you can to keep what you've got. Age makes you susceptible to low bone density, which can predispose you to fractures caused by frail bones - a disease known as osteoporosis. Osteoporosis affects approximately one in three women and one in five men in the United States over the age of 50.

Much research has been dedicated to assessing bone mineral density in competitive cyclists. Research has conclusively shown that chronic cycling training without any supplemental exercise can predispose you to developing osteoporosis. There are several reasons for this:


You must place stress on your bones to stimulate growth. Cycling is a non-weight-bearing activity and will not stimulate bone growth. 
Cycling expends large amounts of energy. Combine that with a restrictive diet or inadvertent under-fueling (both common in cycling), and you've got the perfect recipe for a decline in bone mass.
Loss of calcium through frequent sweating also contributes to low bone density. 
These reasons, in addition to the high risk of falls inherent to cycling, create a perfect storm for bone fractures. While any sort of weight bearing activity, such as running, can stimulate bone growth, strength training will benefit your performance more than aerobic cross-training and it will also give you the bone-building benefits of other modes of activity.

*What to Do in the Gym*
If you're going to invest your time at the gym, you want to select exercises that will give you the greatest benefit for both your performance and your health in as little time as possible. Large muscle group exercises that work cycling-specific muscles are the way to go.

Large muscle group exercises will work as many muscles and bones as possible while also giving you the highest post-exercise hormonal response. Squats are the quintessential exercise for cyclists. They target the muscles you need for cycling and also place load on some of the most common areas for fractures.

You will also want to select exercises to strengthen your upper body too. Bench press, shoulder press, and rows are excellent time-efficient exercises that help prevent injury and target parts of the body at risk.

However, those who are inexperienced lifters must exercise great caution, as these exercises present a high risk of injury if not performed properly. You will still reap plenty of benefits from selecting safer exercises, such as lunges and leg presses.

Programming strength training into a cycling program can be challenging. Strength training must be done year-round in some form and if not properly periodized, it can interfere with your bike performance. Seek out professional guidance if you are unsure of where to start.









Why Masters Cyclists Need Strength Training | TrainingPeaks


Maintaining strong muscles and good bone density is a necessity for masters cyclists. Here’s why strength training is your key to a lifelong cycling career.




trainingpeaks.com


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

Great article and Training Peaks and CTS are my two favorite resources for this content. I’ve spent years riding a rigid hardtail Mtn bike on rough trails. I agree that cycling is non impact exercise and can lead to bone loss but Mtn biking does have an impact aspect. Not that I would ever consider this a replacement for weight resistance strength and explosive HIIT training. I do think a regular Mtn bike rider probably has better bone density than a purely road cyclist.


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## kosmo (Oct 27, 2004)

cyclelicious said:


> Cross post from the Nutrition forum
> 
> Squats are the quintessential exercise for cyclists. They target the muscles you need for cycling and also place load on some of the most common areas for fractures.


I get this, but also believe that it's good to work the muscles you _don't_ use much in cycling, to keep some body balance for lack of a better term.

Since 40, I've done a fairly rudimentary dumbell/core/pushup/squat workout at home, because that's about all the indoor gym time I can stomach.


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## rod9301 (Oct 30, 2004)

hardmtnbiker said:


> Great article and Training Peaks and CTS are my two favorite resources for this content. I've spent years riding a rigid hardtail Mtn bike on rough trails. I agree that cycling is non impact exercise and can lead to bone loss but Mtn biking does have an impact aspect. Not that I would ever consider this a replacement for weight resistance strength and explosive HIIT training. I do think a regular Mtn bike rider probably has better bone density than a purely road cyclist.


Im not sure there is much impact in mountain biking, sure more then road biking, but you still need to lift heavy for bone density

Sent from my Redmi Note 8 Pro using Tapatalk


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## kosmo (Oct 27, 2004)

rod9301 said:


> .... but you still need to lift heavy for bone density


Not so sure that truly "heavy" lifting is necessary.

From the NIH: Weight-bearing and resistance exercises are the best for your bones. Weight-bearing exercises force you to work against gravity. They include walking, hiking, jogging, climbing stairs, playing tennis, and dancing. Resistance exercises - such as lifting weights - can also strengthen bones. Other exercises such as swimming and bicycling can help build and maintain strong muscles and have excellent cardiovascular benefits, but they are not the best way to exercise your bones.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

I want to know the different results from squats to muscle exhaustion from 15 reps at lower weight versus 3 reps at max weight. Just messing around to see how it felt, I did 20lbs more in squats than I normally do for 3 reps. It felt damn heavy but fun. Felt my heart thumping from the strain.

Figure to mess around and try my warm up weight for three sets of 20 reps. Some people claim good gains from higher reps at lower and safer weights. Safer for old man bone joints.


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

rod9301 said:


> Im not sure there is much impact in mountain biking, sure more then road biking, but you still need to lift heavy for bone density
> 
> Sent from my Redmi Note 8 Pro using Tapatalk


I've done less weight and more reps, focusing on proper form and full ROM. I think after 40 we need to think about our supporting and connecting tendons. A large muscle group and the strength output must have the leverage of the tendons. Strength training with low reps and max lifts are for the younger guys in my opinion. Personally I always stay over 10-12 reps minimum.
I see many people at the gym going too heavy with improper form with partial ROM and I don't think it's good. Especially with squats or the leg press machine. 
I also feel explosive movements while keeping your core engagement is really important. I've never had back pain, knee, pain or any discomfort and I plan to keep it that way.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We regularly did home gym workouts a.k.a. "the basement sessions" (5d/w) since the start of the pandemic lockdown (March 2020) which helped us to maintain fitness during that period. Our move to a new town/city was an incentive to rejoin crossfit. Today, we attended Open Gym (no classes... independent workout) at Crossfit Orangeville to jumpstart a regular routine (first class starts tomorrow) For this initiation, we started with a 3km warmup run; followed by backsquats for strength and a conditioning circuit (3 rounds of 10 V-ups, 10 pushups and 2 pullups) We haven't done pullups in over 18 months but we did it! Looking forward to new goals and gains.


















3 sets of 2 pull ups. I had to kip for each one but got 'r done. We didnt have the ceiling height or rack to do pull up in our home gym. But doing 18 months of alternates/subs for pu's that seemed to help



















Working those abs!



























115lbs Back squat this set










Me: My butt will never touch the ground like yours Chris! 
Chris: Ankle mobility 
Me: Ok Thanks Coach


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## DrDon (Sep 25, 2004)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1941576


Where I grew up we called that "country strong". You see it replicated in the gym and field with repetitive, intense core strengthening exercises but not in the snow or 100+ heat. Those farm boy were tough on the field.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A couple of incredible performances by women runners in the Tokyo Olympic Marathon

1) Molly Seidel (American Bronze winner) 
*American Molly Seidel Overcomes Heat and Inexperience to Win Bronze in Women's Marathon







*

Running in her third 26.2-mile race ever, the 27-year-old delivered Team USA its first medal in the women's marathon since 2004

For nearly all of 26.2 sweltering miles in the women's Olympic marathon on Saturday, American Molly Seidel-who had never run a marathon before qualifying for this race in 2020-kept pace with Peres Jepchirchir and Brigid Kosgei, two world-record-holding runners from Kenya, the country that dominates this race.

What the 27-year-old from Wisconsin lacked in marathon experience, she made up for in determination. Seidel put herself in medal contention early, by attaching herself to the lead pack of about two dozen runners. She stuck with them even as the punishingly hot conditions in Sapporo-temperatures in excess of 80 degrees Fahrenheit with humidity to match-slowly melted the field as the Kenyans pushed the pace.

Seidel didn't just hang on. She led the race as late as mile 23 after holding an average pace of 5:39 per mile. The Kenyans opened up a 6-second gap with a little more than two miles to go and slowly pulled away down the final stretch, with Jepchirchir taking the gold in 2:27:20, followed by Kosgei 16 seconds after.

Seidel crossed the finish line 10 seconds later, at 2:27:46. She pumped her fists and cried out "YES!" as the first American woman to win a medal in the Olympic marathon since Deena Kastor in 2004.

Seidel's performance was even more remarkable for the trio of Kenyans she ran alongside for the first two hours. Kosgei, the silver medalist, holds the world record in the women's marathon. Jepchirchir has that distinction in the half marathon. Lonah Chemtai Salpeter, a Kenyan by birth who is representing Israel here after gaining citizenship in 2016, won the Tokyo Marathon in March 2020. She hung with the leaders through the first 20 miles before fading hard to finish more than 18 minutes behind them in 66th place.









American Molly Seidel Overcomes Heat and Inexperience to Win Bronze in Women’s Marathon


Running in her third 26.2-mile race ever, Molly Seidel delivered Team USA its first medal in the women’s marathon since 2004.




www.wsj.com





2) Malindi Elmore (41 yo Canadian runner finished 9th)

*Canada's Elmore finishes 9th in Olympic marathon, nearly 2 decades after last Games*









Nine years after leaving track and field behind, and 17 years since her last Olympic appearance, Canadian Malindi Elmore claimed a top-10 finish in the women's Olympic marathon.

The 41-year-old Kelowna, B.C., native overcame the scorching Sapporo heat to finish ninth with a time of 2:30:59 at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. It is the best Olympic marathon finish by a Canadian woman in a non-boycott Games.

Kenya's Peres Jepchirchir won her country's second straight Olympic gold in the event with a time of 2:27:20, while fellow Kenyan and world record holder Brigid Kosgei claimed silver (2:27:36).

American Molly Seidel, running in her third-ever marathon, took bronze at 2:27:46.
"I had given up any kind of Olympic aspirations, I never thought I'd be back to the Olympics," Elmore said, moments after finishing. "I was moving on with my life."

Returning Olympian Natasha Wodak, of Surrey, B.C., kept pace with Elmore for much of the race to finish 13th with a time of 2:31:41.

"I'm in so much of a better place mentally, physically, all around," Wodak said. "I came into this race with just my heart full of gratitude to be here, and you know, I'm 39 years old. I said after Rio, anything's icing on the cake. So today was a frickin' whole cake on top of the cake."

Elmore made her Olympic debut in 2004 in the 1,500m event, but she fell short of qualifying for the Games in 2008 and 2012 - leading her to walk away from the athletics world.

The mother of two ran in her first-ever marathon in 2019 after making her comeback.
"I loved it, and I did really well," said Elmore, whose time in that first attempt was just two minutes shy of the Olympic qualifying standard.

"I thought well, I should do another one and see if I could get standard. But I thought that was kind of hilarious really, to even be thinking that, trying to get to the Olympics."

In her second marathon early last year, she smashed the Canadian women's record with a time of 2:24:50 in the Houston Marathon - besting the mark by more than two minutes while earning an Olympic spot.

Japan's Honami Maeda led out of the gate and set the pace early on in Sapporo, but the chasing pack quickly began to close the gap.

Reigning world champion Ruth Chepng'etich of Kenya took the lead at the five kilometre mark with a time of 18:02, with Kosgei and Jepchirchir running alongside her among a large group. Kosgei set the women's marathon world record at the Chicago Marathon in 2019 (2:14:04).

Running together, Wodak and Elmore were just three and four seconds back of the lead, respectively.

Returning Olympian Lonah Chemtai Salpeter of Israel pushed ahead to keep pace near the front of the pack, right behind the Kenyan trio. The lead group began to diminish as the pace settled after 10km, and Elmore moved in line with the leaders following her strong start.
But Elmore began to fall back as the group continued to thin out, finding herself 15 seconds behind at the halfway mark - with Wodak five seconds behind Elmore.

Seidel and fellow American Sally Kipyego were among the pack at the front.

Chepng'etich finally fell off the group, and only nine runners remained in front as the race reached 30km with fatigue kicking in. Elmore and Wodak dug deep to power through and rejoin the group, but were behind by 51 seconds and 1:20, respectively.

Seidel charged to the head of the group as the only American in the lead pack. But the two remaining Kenyan runners, Kosgei and Jepchirchir pushed right back to equal the pace.

Salpeter and Bahrain's Eunice Chumba rounded out the leading group of five as they progressed past 35km, with the leading Kenyan duo holding a one-second lead over the other three (2:02:58). Elmore dropped back to 1:47 behind the leaders.

"The longer I could be patient, the better I would do," Elmore said. "I had hoped to pick it up in the last 10K. But really, it became a hold-on-and-not-fall-apart kind of last lap, because I started to hurt a lot. And I took everything I could really the last 6, 7K to keep the momentum going forward."

Chumba fell off the pack, and it was just after the 37km mark that the Kenyans finally made their move to separate with a commanding lead.
Salpeter hit the wall, stopping entirely at the 38km mark to leave Seidel in bronze position. Seidel did everything she could to rejoin the leaders, while Elmore battled past several runners on the final stretch to enter the top-10.

"I went from feeling great - I had just received news that I was 40 seconds from 10th place - and suddenly, I was just like, 'Wooh!' It hit me really hard, I just felt like I was going to stop. And I felt like throwing up. So, I took a gel and some water and dumped a bottle on my head and just tried to get ahead of things a bit," Elmore said.

"From there on in it was just like really trying to just stay in the moment. I knew that everyone is hurting at this point. So, if I'm moving forward towards the finish line and not falling apart, then I'm actually probably making good progress."

Jepchirchir pushed ahead at the 40km mark to leave Kosgei behind her in silver position, and her lead continued to grow as she secured the win on the final kilometre.

"It feels good. I'm so, so happy because we win as Kenya, first and second," Jepchirchir said. "I thank my god so much. I'm happy for my family. I'm happy for my country, Kenya."



https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/trackandfield/olympic-marathon-malindi-elmore-tokyo-2020-1.6133147


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

Great article.I watched the race and really felt for competitors in that heat ans humidity. Also: didn't you mean to put this in the Running thread?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

ddoh said:


> Great article.I watched the race and really felt for competitors in that heat ans humidity. Also: didn't you mean to put this in the Running thread?


I found the article inspiring for us Masters athletes. It is running related but I think non runners would appreciate the strength and stamina of these incredible athletes


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to change your fitness routine to stay strong and mobile as you age*

It's obvious that the appropriate fitness regime for an average 20-year-old may not suit the average 60-year-old. Many have vague ideas about shifts from hockey to golf or from CrossFit to aquafit, but can we be more specific? How should our approach to fitness change as we age?

Dr. Stuart McGill is professor _emeritus_ in Spine Biomechanics at the University of Waterloo and founder of Backfitpro Inc.. He's both a researcher and clinician, and he's worked with everyone from desk workers to elite athletes to help them live and perform without pain. Now in his 60's, with hip replacement, McGill is focusing more and more on adjusting fitness regimens to enhance function in an older body. We asked him to explain how the demands and capacities of our bodies change as we age, and to take us through the seven-day training cycle that he uses to stay strong and mobile into his later years.

*Tuning your body to meet the demands of your lifestyle*
According to McGill, the key to designing a fitness regime is to first understand the specific demands of a person's job and lifestyle, then measure the person's ability to meet the demands. A training approach should be designed to develop the capabilities that the individual needs but currently doesn't have.

Demands, of course, vary with each individual. Playing squash, working at a desk, or being a firefighter all call for different forms of physical fitness, and individual training should reflect that. McGill is blunt about this: "Many people have back pain because they are an office worker training like an NHL hockey player, when they should be focusing on addressing the physical stresses from prolonged sitting, then build fitness for resilience."

He says that most often they're either overtrained or undertrained. And the reality is that physical capabilities change with age as do the specific risks. As such, he recommends we change our training accordingly. "Fitness programming is like tuning a vehicle. Tune the body to efficiently meet a specific demand," says McGill. He adds that it's essential to "work within your capacity, and increase your health and injury resilience without crossing a tipping point that causes injury."

*Risk of falling*
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, falling is the leading cause of injury-related hospitalizations among seniors in Canada. Therefore, says McGill, one of the key physical demands for aging people is "to maintain the ability to recover from a stumble." He takes a very practical view of the problem. "When you're stumbling, your job is to get your foot out in front of you. To arrest your fall, it has to be ahead of your centre of mass. It's pure mechanics." Older people fall more easily because they have lost the hip muscle power to get their foot out in front of them, together with the mobility in the hip that allows them to do it easily.

With this in mind, McGill has tuned his fitness regime to this new demand. "Hip power and agility have become a much more important part of fitness for me. I used to squat and deadlift, now I'm more interested in quickstep dances and other footwork exercises." He's also added elements of grip-strength training for when he needs to quickly grab a tree branch or stair rail when he stumbles.

Despite the increased risk of falling that comes with age, McGill does not think that fitness for seniors is just training to avoid falls. But developing our capacities to recover from falls can help us avoid injury, which is essential for enjoying other activities. In McGill's case, this means cross-country skiing, splitting firewood, swimming, and hiking in the bush.

*The seven-day training cycle *
Even though every individual has particular training needs based on ability and lifestyle demands, McGill has devised a seven-day training cycle which provides an overall structure for staying fit into old age, and which can be adjusted according to individual preference. It's very simple and consists of:
Strength training: two days
Mobility training: two days
"Something else": two days
Rest: one day
The two strength and mobility days should not be performed consecutively.
_Strength training: Grip, hips, and patterns_

After 40, says McGill, people tend to lose muscle mass and strength. "I can't strength train and recover like I used to, but I have to maintain some strength." Therefore he's shifted his strength training from heavy lifting and bodybuilding to lighter pattern-based training. This means choosing exercises based on common functional patterns such as pushing, pulling, lunging, lifting, lowering, and carrying. For example, to train his pull strength, he adopted a TRX strap pull. For pushing, instead of hitting the bench press, he'll do some standing press exercises.

Instead of splitting up the week's strength work into different body parts, McGill recommends working through the whole body on each strength day. He also advises focusing on specific kinds of strength that will help meet your demands (such as recovering from falls). This means working on his grip strength (he holds an iron bar and waves it in a figure-eight in front of him) and hip flexion strength (using hip flexion exercises on a roman chair).
_Mobility_: _Unsticking what's stuck_

"Mobility didn't matter very much to me when I was younger. I had it. But now things are getting stuck." As we age, we tend to get stiffer, particularly in ball and socket joints such as the hip and shoulder. Decreased thoracic mobility is also common, leading to more slouched posture. McGill says that this means that it's important for older people to focus more on maintaining their mobility.

Mobility work should focus on your own particular creaks and stiff spots. Pay attention to how you feel, and when something starts getting stuck, find some mobility exercises that use your full range of motion, says McGill. For him, that means just a few deep squats with no weight, as well as thoracic extension exercises to combat the tendency to slouch. If you have pain radiating down from your neck or lower back, he says you might benefit from "nerve flossing" mobility techniques, which he describes in his book _Back Mechanic_.

_"Something Else"_
In addition to strength and mobility training, McGill prescribes two days per week of "something else". Follow your own tastes here; the point is to enjoy yourself. For McGill, "it changes with the season. I might ride a bike, go for a swim, or go for a cross-country ski. Something to get the old ticker pumping."

However, "cardio" isn't one of McGill's favourite words. "Yes, cardiovascular exercise is the intent, but 'cardio' makes me think of indoor treadmills and exercise bikes, which I absolutely abhor. Life is too short to be a rat in a wheel." Instead, McGill recommends activities that incorporate a greater variety of movement. Because falling is a bigger risk, it's also important to "create a balanced environment so people who are getting older can keep challenging and testing their balance." Hiking works. McGill also said that Tai Chi is a great exercise for older people that builds strength, mobility and balance.

_Recovery_: _More exercise isn't better_
Young bodies recover quickly. A twenty-year-old may experience a day of soreness before recovering, stronger than before. This process slows down as we age, and McGill says we should take that into account.
Older people should stop exercising before they get sore, says McGill, because that usually means they'll need an extra day to recover. "It's better to have two moderately easy days of activity than one hard day and then two days off." He also recommends dividing physical tasks into manageable intervals. Instead of spending eight exhausting hours raking leaves at once, McGill divides the job into four intervals of two hours.

Because older bodies take longer to recover, he says the one "day of rest" in the seven-day cycle is non-negotiable.



https://www.cbc.ca/life/wellness/how-to-change-your-fitness-routine-to-stay-strong-and-mobile-as-you-age-1.5471940?fbclid=IwAR3aeNzJMTL_tUixAJuTDNUW7FjhQd5AlAD4hxpVOWm09FjMpDwMp5GRw2k


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Masters Cyclists Need Strength Training*

There's a reason many cyclists don't make time for strength training - riding a bike is a lot more fun than pushing weights in a musty gym. However, strength training is a must if you want to continue to have fun riding and racing your bike for years to come.

Strength training can provide great performance benefits - it will make you faster in the short term, but it will also keep you fast for many years to come. In the world of masters racing, cyclists who remain youthful, vigorous, and healthy will continue to excel while many of their cohorts will start to slow down. The gym is, quite literally, a fountain of youth, and is a major key to success as a master's racer.

*Your Muscles and Aging*
Your muscles put watts into the pedals - if you lose muscle, you lose power. Unfortunately, chronic muscle loss due to aging (aka, sarcopenia) can begin as early as your 30s, though the rate at which this muscle loss occurs is highly dependent upon your lifestyle. Naturally, those who are physically inactive and have poor diets will lose their muscle much faster than a healthy cyclist.

However, cycling alone will not help you preserve all of your precious leg muscle. Strength training can help counteract muscle loss in the following ways:


Two important hormones that are key to maintaining youthfulness - growth hormone and testosterone - have actually been shown to decrease with chronic endurance training. These hormones are not only essential to building and maintaining muscle, but also enhance your ability to recover and adapt from training. While synthetic testosterone is on the banned substance list, you can legally enhance your testosterone levels by going to the gym!
Your explosive fast-twitch muscle fibers are the most susceptible to sarcopenia. In a short duration criterium or road race, as is common in masters racing, it's unlikely you will win without a good finishing kick. Strength training will help protect your race-winning muscles and give you the edge over your competition. 
It's commonly known that VO2max declines with aging. However, this decline is largely due to the loss of muscle mass that occurs with aging. With less active muscle to pedal your bike, your body will not consume as much oxygen to contract your muscles. Therefore, maintaining strong muscle mass can combat a decline in VO2max.
*Your Bones and Aging*
Throughout puberty and into adulthood, bone mass gradually increases until it reaches its peak in your 20s. Thereafter, you must do everything you can to keep what you've got. Age makes you susceptible to low bone density, which can predispose you to fractures caused by frail bones - a disease known as osteoporosis. Osteoporosis affects approximately one in three women and one in five men in the United States over the age of 50.

Much research has been dedicated to assessing bone mineral density in competitive cyclists. Research has conclusively shown that chronic cycling training without any supplemental exercise can predispose you to developing osteoporosis. There are several reasons for this:


You must place stress on your bones to stimulate growth. Cycling is a non-weight-bearing activity and will not stimulate bone growth. 
Cycling expends large amounts of energy. Combine that with a restrictive diet or inadvertent under-fueling (both common in cycling), and you've got the perfect recipe for a decline in bone mass.
Loss of calcium through frequent sweating also contributes to low bone density. 
These reasons, in addition to the high risk of falls inherent to cycling, create a perfect storm for bone fractures. While any sort of weight bearing activity, such as running, can stimulate bone growth, strength training will benefit your performance more than aerobic cross-training and it will also give you the bone-building benefits of other modes of activity.

*What to Do in the Gym*
If you're going to invest your time at the gym, you want to select exercises that will give you the greatest benefit for both your performance and your health in as little time as possible. Large muscle group exercises that work cycling-specific muscles are the way to go.

Large muscle group exercises will work as many muscles and bones as possible while also giving you the highest post-exercise hormonal response. Squats are the quintessential exercise for cyclists. They target the muscles you need for cycling and also place load on some of the most common areas for fractures.

You will also want to select exercises to strengthen your upper body too. Bench press, shoulder press, and rows are excellent time-efficient exercises that help prevent injury and target parts of the body at risk.

However, those who are inexperienced lifters must exercise great caution, as these exercises present a high risk of injury if not performed properly. You will still reap plenty of benefits from selecting safer exercises, such as lunges and leg presses.

Programming strength training into a cycling program can be challenging. Strength training must be done year-round in some form and if not properly periodized, it can interfere with your bike performance. Seek out professional guidance if you are unsure of where to start.









Why Masters Cyclists Need Strength Training | TrainingPeaks


Maintaining strong muscles and good bone density is a necessity for masters cyclists. Here’s why strength training is your key to a lifelong cycling career.




trainingpeaks.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Exercise May Help Keep Our Memory Sharp*

An intriguing new study shows how exercise may bolster brain health. The study was in mice, but it found that a hormone produced by muscles during exercise can cross into the brain and enhance the health and function of neurons, improving thinking and memory in both healthy animals and those with a rodent version of Alzheimer's disease. Earlier research shows that people produce the same hormone during exercise, and together the findings suggest that moving could alter the trajectory of memory loss in aging and dementia.

We have plenty of evidence already that exercise is good for the brain. Studies in both people and animals show that exercise prompts the creation of new neurons in the brain's memory center and then helps those new cells survive, mature and integrate into the brain's neural network, where they can aid in thinking and remembering. Large-scale epidemiological studies also indicate that active people tend to be far less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia than people who rarely exercise.

But how does working out affect the inner workings of our brains at a molecular level? Scientists have speculated that exercise might directly change the biochemical environment inside the brain, without involving muscles. Alternatively, the muscles and other tissues might release substances during physical activity that travel to the brain and jump-start processes there, leading to the subsequent improvements in brain health. But in that case, the substances would have to be able to pass through the protective and mostly impermeable blood-brain barrier that separates our brains from the rest of our bodies.

Those tangled issues were of particular interest a decade ago to a large group of scientists at Harvard Medical School and other institutions. In 2012, some of these researchers, led by Bruce M. Spiegelman, the Stanley J. Korsmeyer Professor of Cell Biology and Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, identified a previously unknown hormone produced in the muscles of lab rodents and people during exercise and then released into the bloodstream. They named the new hormone irisin, after the messenger god Iris in Greek mythology.

Tracking the flight of irisin in the blood, they found it often homed in on fat tissue, where it was sucked up by fat cells, setting off a cascade of biochemical reactions that contributed toward turning ordinary white fat into brown. Brown fat is much more metabolically active than the far more common white type. It burns large numbers of calories. So irisin, by helping to create brown fat, helps amp up our metabolism.

But Dr. Spiegelman and his colleagues suspected irisin might also play a role in brain health. A 2019 study by other researchers had shown that irisin is produced in the brains of mice after exercise. That earlier research had also detected the hormone in most of the human brains donated to a large brain bank - unless the donors had died of Alzheimer's disease, in which case their brains contained virtually no irisin.

That study strongly suggested that irisin lowers the risks of dementia. And in the new study, which was published last week in Nature Metabolism, Dr. Spiegelman and his collaborators, including Christiane D. Wrann, an assistant professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a senior author of the new study, set out to quantify how.

They began by breeding mice congenitally unable to produce irisin, and then allowing those and other normal, adult mice to run on wheels for a few days, something the animals seem to relish doing. This form of exercise usually lifts subsequent performance on rodent tests of memory and learning, which happened among the normal runners. But the animals unable to make irisin showed few cognitive improvements, prompting the researchers to conclude that irisin is critical for exercise to enhance thinking.

They then looked more closely inside the brains of running mice with and without the ability to make irisin. All contained more newborn neurons than the brains of sedentary mice. But in the animals without irisin, those new brain cells appeared odd. They had fewer synapses, the junctions where brain cells send and receive signals, and dendrites, the snaky tendrils that allow neurons to connect into the neural communications system. These newly formed neurons would not easily integrate into the brain's existing network, the researchers concluded

But when the scientists used chemicals to increase irisin levels in the blood of animals unable to make their own, the situation in their brains changed notably. Young mice, elderly animals and even those with advanced cases of rodent Alzheimer's disease began performing better on tests of their memory and ability to learn. The researchers also found signs of reduced inflammation in the brains of the animals with dementia, which matters, since neuroinflammation is thought to hasten the progression of memory loss.

Importantly, they also confirmed that irisin flows to and crosses the blood-brain barrier. After the researchers injected the hormone into the bloodstreams of the genetically modified mice, it showed up in their brains, although their brains could not have produced it.

Taken as a whole, these new experiments strongly suggest that irisin is a key element in "linking exercise to cognition," Dr. Spiegelman said.

It also might someday be developed as a drug. He said that he and his collaborators, hope eventually to test whether pharmaceutical versions of irisin could slow cognitive decline or even raise thinking skills in people with Alzheimer's.

This was a mouse study, though, and much research still needs to be done to establish whether our brains react like rodents' to irisin. It's also unknown how much or what types of exercise might best amplify our irisin levels. But even now, Dr. Wrann says, the study reinforces the idea that exercise can be "one of the most important regulators" of brain health.









How Exercise May Help Keep Our Memory Sharp


Irisin, a hormone produced by muscles during exercise, can enter the brain and improve cognition, a mouse study suggests.




www.nytimes.com





*



Exercise hormone irisin is a critical regulator of cognitive function

Click to expand...

*


> *Abstract*
> Identifying secreted mediators that drive the cognitive benefits of exercise holds great promise for the treatment of cognitive decline in ageing or Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we show that irisin, the cleaved and circulating form of the exercise-induced membrane protein FNDC5, is sufficient to confer the benefits of exercise on cognitive function. Genetic deletion of _Fndc5_/irisin (global _Fndc5_ knock-out (KO) mice; F5KO) impairs cognitive function in exercise, ageing and AD. Diminished pattern separation in F5KO mice can be rescued by delivering irisin directly into the dentate gyrus, suggesting that irisin is the active moiety. In F5KO mice, adult-born neurons in the dentate gyrus are morphologically, transcriptionally and functionally abnormal. Importantly, elevation of circulating irisin levels by peripheral delivery of irisin via adeno-associated viral overexpression in the liver results in enrichment of central irisin and is sufficient to improve both the cognitive deficit and neuropathology in AD mouse models. Irisin is a crucial regulator of the cognitive benefits of exercise and is a potential therapeutic agent for treating cognitive disorders including AD.











Exercise hormone irisin is a critical regulator of cognitive function - Nature Metabolism


Irisin is shown to mediate beneficial effects on cognitive function associated with exercise and to improve cognitive function in mouse models of Alzheimerâ€™s disease, probably through its direct action in the brain.




www.nature.com


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

If you’re 50+, look into X3 Bar by Dr John Jaquish. Amazing system that will give fantastic results without a gym and is about as safe injury wise as you can get. Been doing it for a while and beats anything I’ve ever done before.


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## D. Inoobinati (Aug 28, 2020)

*Member has removed content due to fundamental disagreement with this site owner's views favoring expanded access for electric mountain bikes (eMtb) on multiuse singletrack in public lands.*


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

X3 Bar Elite Variable Resistance Training System


The X3 is a revolutionary strength training system, offering a research-validated resistance band bar workout to provide greater force for greater gains.




www.jaquishbiomedical.com





If you have Facebook they have an excellent group there. "X3 bar users group". Lots of testimonial posts with before and after pics and a lot of good info on fasting, OMAD, carnivore eating. I'm down 50 lbs.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

X3 Bar reminds me of putting chains on the barbell during bench press to up the resistance as you end the press. Lots of rubber band type exercise gear out there.


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

Yes but better as it’s a constant resistance. Dr Jaquish has written several books on it. Pretty ground breaking plus it’s hard to hurt yourself using it unlike free weights.


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

Brules said:


> Yes but better as it's a constant resistance. Dr Jaquish has written several books on it. Pretty ground breaking plus it's hard to hurt yourself using it unlike free weights.


$450 seems a little pricey


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

No gym membership, no time to travel to gym, no gas needed and workouts take about 25 min max and it will destroy you lol. First workout is a giant slice of humble pie lol. Kicks my butt every day.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

A bunch of marketing . . . you sell Great supplements, you sell great tools and tons of Lies
all the time
here is the new the best,,, wait tomorrow their will be the best the new ...


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

LoL. It really isn't but do your own research. I did and I'm sold.


33red said:


> A bunch of marketing . . . you sell Great supplements, you sell great tools and tons of Lies
> all the time
> here is the new the best,,, wait tomorrow their will be the best the new ...


As a follow up, I know it goes way against the grain of traditional work out thinking, but it really does work and you really can't I injure yourself which was the biggest draw for me plus the 20 min workouts. This is Daniel, he's one of the FB group members and he trains people worldwide using X3 - this is his personal success but there is literally hundreds of posts in that group showing similar success. Don't just discount it because it is new and something you have never seen before or tried. I can guarantee 1 workout with X3 would destroy anyone in 20 minutes no matter how much of a gym rat you are. Like literally put you flat in your back - I can't move destroy from just 4 exercises to failure. It's shocking and humbling. When I first got mine I was super skeptical- until I did first workout. I puked, and couldn't get up for 10 minutes I was so burned lol.

If anyone is looking for something different, hates going to gym, is time limited, doesn't have a gym, wants to be able to travel with it, doesn't want to get HURT - this may be for you. It may NOT, but I can promise it works and will blow your mind as it breaks the traditional paradigm of 3 sets of 10-15 workout that we all know.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

If you like drugs i do not so we differ.
It is easy to see who is clean.
I saw a boxer years ago at a gym, i knew.
It took years, he lost his belt, he was caught.
I focus on health and happiness.
No drug for me.


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

Love it, you instantly assume drugs. LoL.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

I've heard, and it makes sense, find the exercise you like and then do the **** out of it. So if you enjoy the X3 Bar, go for it. Whatever works to get you exercising (resistance training) is good.

I thought I'd like kettle bells more but so far they are,... meh. Gimmick?


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

Kettle bells work but man they are hard. Need serious grip strength! Onnit has a bunch of great kettle bell exercises if you haven’t seen them FYI!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yes, you can keep getting stronger as the years go by. But it's not going to happen by accident. Here are the priorities to guide you, from a strength coach who's still moving big weights while pushing 60.
1. Never Lift Through Pain. Ever.
2. Train What's Not Injured
3. Train Your Most Problematic Exercises Last, Not First
4. Increase Your Reps
5. Pull Back After A PR
6. Find Your Own "Big Lifts"
7. Take Pride In More Than PRs. Yes, you can keep getting stronger as the years go by. But it's not going to happen by accident. Here are the priorities to guide you, from a strength coach who's still moving big weights while pushing 60.

*How to Lift Heavy and Stay Healthy at 40, 50, and Beyond*
As I've gotten older, I've become known by some people as "that skinny old guy who can do 10 reps with your deadlift max." But while I chuckle at that characterization, what I'm most proud of (and grateful for) is what it means in action: I'm able to continue lifting pretty heavy weights as a soon-to-be 60-year-old lifter, without most of the aches and pains you might expect from that.

Sure, every so often my shoulders get cranky, and I've got a bit of calcium in my left elbow. But that's pretty much it. My hips, knees, and back continue to play along. And part of that is what you may call "luck," but a major part of it is making conscious choices to keep me out of pain.

These seven rules are how I got here-and how I plan to stay here as long as possible. No matter if you're 40, 50, 60 or just a younger person who wants to keep lifting at those ages, pay attention.

*1. Never Lift Through Pain. Ever.*
This is rule number one for all older lifters dealing with chronic injury issues. Pain is your body telling you how to resolve whatever injuries you have.

Acclaimed strength coach Mike Boyle advises: "Pain that dissipates during or after your warm-up is still pain." Now, I'm sure that on an intellectual level you already understand it, but perhaps you have a difficult time squelching your more primitive instincts to keep pushing despite the pain. Maybe you reason that you're just being "weak minded" and can pop an Ibuprofen to help you sleep that night.

If so, let me introduce you to a revolutionary technique devised by lower back pain expert Dr. Stuart McGill, who has resolved many cases of severe back pain with it. It's known as "virtual surgery", and here's how McGill performs it:

When a new patient comes in with lower back pain, McGill places his palm on top of the patient's head for a moment and declares "OK you've just had virtual back surgery. So what are you going to do for the next 6-8 weeks?" Puzzled, the patient guesses hesitantly, "Rest?" "Exactly!" McGill replies. And sure enough, many lower back pain sufferers (not all, mind you) experience complete relief from their pain.

If something hurts regularly, rest it! If over a period of a week or so, you don't see at least a gradual reduction of symptoms, get yourself checked out. But no, this doesn't mean you need to simply hang out on the couch.

*2. Train What's Not Injured*
Every injury is both a warning and a veiled opportunity. Here's what I mean: Recently, I was experiencing some elbow pain that meant I wasn't able to do any type of loaded elbow flexion without pain, including chin-ups or curls of any kind, for approximately 10 weeks. So, I rested my elbow.

However, I could work triceps with no issues at all. So that's what I did. Sure, I temporarily lost some strength in my pulls, but it came back soon enough after my layoff. And meanwhile, my pressing exercises got stronger. Adding a little size to my triceps even meant that my arms appeared bigger.

This is the definition of a silver lining. Shed your ego, do what you can, and embrace the long road.

*3. Train Your Most Problematic Exercises Last, Not First*
This is a "hack" that has worked for countless lifters, but if you want to be one of them, your ego will have to take another temporary hit (sense a theme here?).

Here's why: Most lifting-related orthopedic issues are related to the exercises you do first in your workout. The bench press is a common example of this. Guys will start their upper-body session with the bench, with the rationale that they "have the most energy" early in the workout. Then, after multiple sets of intense benching, they move on to lats, shoulders, arms, etc.

The predictable result is that they end up with a strong bench and chest, as well as cranky shoulders and elbows. Here's what happens if you turn that workout around:


By doing back, shoulder, and/or arm work first, your shoulders and elbows will be more thoroughly warmed up from less-irritating exercises before you start benching.
At the end of your workout, you'll be less likely to fall victim to "ego lifting" since your energy levels are lower at that point and your muscles are fatigue.
Will your bench press suffer when you do it last? Maybe for a while. But your newly strengthened delts and triceps will probably catch up and maintain (and sometimes improve) your bench, despite de-emphasizing it in your training. And benching is a lot more fun when it doesn't hurt, even if your numbers take a temporary dip.

*4. Increase Your Reps*
Throughout my lifting career, I've been torn between two somewhat conflicting goals: I want to be stronger, but also more muscular. Traditionally, these two goals suggest different methods: heavy weight and low reps for the former, more moderate weight and higher reps for the latter.

However, in recent years, I've discovered that you can in fact lift heavy weights and do higher reps. It simply requires using a different definition of "strength" beyond a 1RM or even a 5RM. If you can lift a weight for 10 reps that's heavier than what you could handle before, that also means you're getting stronger!

In my article "How I Got in the Best Shape of My Life at Age 55," I call skipping hard sets of 10 in my youth "my primary training regret." Nearly five years later, I still feel the same way. And after putting my training focus on higher-rep sets during that time, I've seen it pay off over and over again.

I'll be honest: My 1RM on the deadlift hasn't improved since I was 50. But I'm also pain-free, leaner, more muscular, and stronger in the higher rep brackets, despite being almost 60 years old. That's a payoff that's worth it for me.

*5. Pull Back After A PR*
Recently, I hit an all-time 10-rep deadlift PR with 420 pounds. Getting there required me to add a "consolidation cycle" in my programing, adding weights and volume and focusing on the lift. But when it happened, I'll admit, the PR still looked-and sounded-like a battle.

n the following weeks, I continued to push the numbers, trying my best to keep things clean. But, if and when things start to get ugly again, I'll revisit that consolidation cycle.

Touch a peak, then back off. Rinse and repeat.

*6. Find Your Own "Big Lifts"*
Many lifters, after seeing my videos on IG and elsewhere, write to tell me that they're inspired to start pushing their own deads to similar numbers. Reading these messages, I'm flattered, but also sometimes concerned. Not everyone can safely push deadlifts as hard as I do, and the same goes for other exercises.

You want to know why you've never seen a video of me doing crazy-heavy benches? Because I can't! Yes, I can bench safely, but I can't train the bench as aggressively as I can train pulls without my shoulder raising the white flag.

It can take a long time to find the "best exercises" for you, and the answer will vary widely among individuals. But you'll know when you've found one when you can do it with good technique on a fairly regular basis, with what feel like substantial loads, without nagging pain or injury. The deadlift might not be that lift for you, no matter how much you want it to be. But maybe the trap bar deadlift is. Maybe the Romanian deadlift is. Heck, maybe it's the belt squat.

That's one reason why my BodyFit Elite program Total-Body Strong has different versions of the major movement patterns in each workout: So you can have options, and different lifts to track as they progress.

If you can't ever seem to manage a certain exercise with acceptable form, or even if you can but you keep getting hurt, listen to your body, look for alternatives, and embrace them when you find them. Yes, it can take a while to find "your" big lift, but it's a search that you need to prioritize if you're going to make long-term progress
*7. Take Pride In More Than PRs*
My friend Bret Contreras, Ph.D., has an interesting observation: We injure ourselves most often on the exercises that we really care about. As Bret often jokes, nobody cares how much weight they can use on leg curls, low-cable rows, and calf raises. And nobody gets hurt on them.

The exercises that most guys do care about? Things like bench presses, deadlifts, and squats-the moves most responsible for most injuries. The issue isn't with the exercises, but how hard we push these movements, and how ego-invested we are in them.

If that sounds like you, hey, it's normal. But it's also a reason to be especially careful with the "Big 3" or any other exercises that permit especially heavy loads-such as the leg press. As you get older, I highly recommend you try whenever possible to get your gratification not simply from how strong you are, but also-and even more importantly-things like:


Being able to add muscle or lose fat
Feeling good, not crushed, after your workouts
Not injuring yourself, or being free of pain in general for extended period of time
Seeing your strength training carry over elsewhere in your life
We all know these are good things. But most of us aren't limited by how much we know, but rather how well we apply what know. Remember: There's nothing wrong with feeling good! The more years you have under your belt, the more that will make sense.









How to Lift Heavy and Stay Healthy at 40, 50, and Beyond


Yes, you can keep getting stronger as the years go by. But it's not going to happen by accident. Here are the priorities to guide you, from a strength coach who's still moving big weights while pushing 60.




www.bodybuilding.com


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## hardmtnbiker (Feb 22, 2005)

After my gym closed from Covid-19, I added to my my home gym equipment.I still haven’t gone back to the gym. I miss some of the machine, especially the leg press, knee ext and leg curls. I feel a basic movement routine with legs is very important. I can do squat, lunges and box steps at home and of course tons of cycling both mountain and road. 
The bottom line is do your weights and do your cardio. That bar with a thick band is good for resistant training and could replace the weight training. I wouldn’t spend $450 for that but that’s just because I like weights and basics, like pull ups, push up, chin ups, ball push ups and the wheel. I just started using bands and like those too. 
If you choose to purchase a gym membership or some fitness equipment, then buy it. Just use it and be consistent. Check your labs, get a physical exam, take your measurement and stay lean and fit. If your BMI is too high, your waist is too fat, your clothes are too tight then your going to have medical problems in your 60’s.


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## BRnPA (Oct 9, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> The one of the best ways of fighting the effects of aging is fitness - strength training being an important component.
> 
> Studies have shown that moderate body mass is strongly correlated to longevity as well as other benefits (improved bone health, lean muscle mass etc. )
> 
> ...











This 101-Year-Old Does Pushups Every Day, So What's Your Excuse?


John Nagy reveals how strength training has extended the quality and length of his life




www.menshealth.com




We could all strive to be this guy and his lifting buddies.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The New Science on How We Burn Calories*










It's simple, we are often told: All you have to do to maintain a healthy weight is ensure that the number of calories you ingest stays the same as the number of calories you expend. If you take in more calories, or energy, than you use, you gain weight; if the output is greater than the input, you lose it. But while we're often conscious of burning calories when we're working out, 55 to 70 percent of what we eat and drink actually goes toward fueling all the invisible chemical reactions that take place in our body to keep us alive. "We think about metabolism as just being about exercise, but it's so much more than that," says Herman Pontzer, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. "It's literally the running total of how busy your cells are throughout the day." Figuring out your total energy expenditure tells you how many calories you need to stay alive. But it also tells you "how the body is functioning," Pontzer says. "There is no more direct measure of that than energy expenditure."

Though scientists have been studying metabolism for at least a century, they have not been able to measure it precisely enough - in real-world conditions, in enough people, across a broad-enough age range - to see how it changes throughout the human life span. It is clear that the bigger someone is, the more cells they have, and thus the more total calories they burn per day. But it has been much harder to assess whether variables like age, sex, lifestyle and illness influence our rate of energy expenditure. This lack of data led to assumptions rooted in personal experience: for instance, that significant hormonal changes like those that take place during puberty and menopause cause our metabolism to speed up or slow down, prompting us to burn more or fewer calories per day; or that men have inherently faster metabolisms than women, because they seem able to shed pounds more easily; or that our energy expenditure slows in midlife, initiating gradual and inevitable weight gain. "I'm in my 40s; I feel different than I did in my 20s - I buy it, too," Pontzer says. "All that intuition was never backed up by data. It just seemed so sure."

Last month, however, a paper published in Science by Pontzer and more than 80 co-authors revealed that much of what we thought we knew about metabolism was wrong. Using previously collected data from more than 6,400 subjects who ranged in age from 8 days to 95 years, and adjusting for body size and the amount of fat and muscle present, they found that our metabolism generally goes through four distinct life phases. Newborns' metabolism resembles that of adults. Then, when they are about a month old, their metabolic rate starts rapidly increasing, until between 9 and 15 months, it is more than 50 percent higher than an adult's - the equivalent of a grown-up burning around 4,000 calories a day. (The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that, on average, adult women need between 1,600 and 2,400 calories a day and adult men between 2,000 and 3,000 calories.) At that point, between age 1 and 2, energy expenditure starts to decline and keeps falling until roughly age 20. From there, it holds steady for the next 40 years, even during pregnancy and menopause; you burn calories as efficiently at 55 as you do at 25. At around age 60, energy expenditure begins to drop again and continues to do so until the end of our lives. Men, the researchers observed, do not have innately faster metabolisms than women; rather, they tend to burn more calories per day for their size because they typically have a higher proportion of muscle, which uses more energy than fat does.









The study "addresses a really significant gap in our understanding of basic human physiology," says Richard Bribiescas, a professor of anthropology at Yale University. "It's really important not only for basic science but because metabolism - how we utilize energy in our body - is absolutely central to any understanding of disease or well-being."

Researchers have long been able to calculate how many total calories we burn by measuring how much carbon dioxide we emit as a byproduct. But usually subjects must be in a lab to undergo the necessary tests, so the results show only their metabolism at rest, at one moment in time. Not until the 1980s did a method to measure metabolism during daily life, called "doubly labeled water," start being used for people. Subjects are given water in which the hydrogen and oxygen elements are "labeled" by using isotopes. The difference in the number of neutrons in their nuclei allows them to be detected. After drinking it, the subjects resume regular activity and provide a few samples of urine (or blood or saliva) in a week. Energy expenditure is calculated by measuring the rate at which the participants eliminate the labeled hydrogen, which passes intact through the body, versus the labeled oxygen, some of which is exhaled as carbon dioxide, a waste product from our cells' transforming fuel into energy. The proportion of labeled oxygen that is missing lets researchers figure out how much carbon dioxide was emitted and thus the caloric expenditure.

Working with doubly labeled water is expensive. Only about nine labs in the world employ it regularly, says Jennifer Rood, associate executive director for cores and resources at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, which is affiliated with Louisiana State University, and an author of the Science paper. A single study done with doubly labeled water typically includes fewer than 100 people, not enough to see population-wide patterns. But in 2014, the labs that use it came up with the idea of creating a database to collate as many doubly labeled water measurements as possible from the past 40 years. The still-growing database, which underpins the Science paper, includes samples from dozens of countries and cultures, from foragers in Tanzania to commuters in Manhattan. "In terms of scale and scope, this is just unprecedented," says Rozalyn Anderson, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an author of a commentary published with the study.

The size and diversity of the sample enabled researchers to see a common pattern in how metabolism changes with age. But there was still tremendous variation in subjects' metabolic rates, highlighting the significant role that other factors, like genes and lifestyle, most likely play in determining why people of the same size with similar habits can have very different daily energy expenditures. Eventually, Pontzer says, mapping the universal features of human metabolism will narrow the possible reasons for those disparities.

Already, the paper raises a host of questions. For instance, how should children's substantially faster metabolisms, and older adults' slower ones, influence nutritional recommendations and drug dosages? And what is the link between the decline of metabolism around 60 and the corresponding increase in chronic disease? "There's got to be some switch that turns on in a 1-month-old that says, 'I have to ramp up energy expenditure really high,' and then something that says, 'Now I'm 60, I'm not going to be as efficient as I was,'" Rood says. "What are those switches? I think those are the keys to aging."

In fact, Anderson says, there are drugs already in use that influence metabolism in people and have been shown to increase life span in mice. Researchers have theorized that aging cells use less energy because they're doing less of the repair and maintenance needed to prevent illness. But, Bribiescas notes, simply ramping up the metabolic rate of older people is "not going to be a magic bullet for addressing a lot of disease" because of the stress it puts on other systems in the body: "If you add more energy, you may just cause things to fall apart even faster."

Knowing when metabolism naturally changes, though, should help researchers refine their concepts of health at every age. "It's kind of like looking at the caterpillar stage versus the butterfly stage," Bribiescas says. "What we're seeing here is, you're a completely different organism from when you're 5 years old to when you're 50." This contrasts with a tendency in science to consider all humans as "a generic blob of cells" that are fundamentally the same, he adds. "This particular study is going to draw greater awareness for understanding these important nuances."









The New Science on How We Burn Calories


How could that change our understanding about, for starters, chronic disease, aging and obesity?




www.nytimes.com






*How Old Is This Old House?*

*Thomas Mann on the Artist vs. the State*
A


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## Pepe Sylvia (Sep 17, 2021)

Exercises To Fix The Most Common Aches & Pains


Neck. Shoulders. Elbows. Wrists. Spine. Hips. Knees. Feet. Here are guides to fix aches and pains in these common problem areas, so you can get moving.




gmb.io


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## BRnPA (Oct 9, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> *The New Science on How We Burn Calories*
> 
> View attachment 1948775
> 
> ...


You had me at Thomas Mann!!


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## BRnPA (Oct 9, 2020)

I finally had a chance to do legs, back, and biceps today during lunch in my home gym (Elliptical, dumbbells and Universal machine) after riding for the last two weeks trails near my house with my new Giant Trance X. WOW! 15 minute warm-up on the Elliptical at settings higher then I've ever had them and didn't get winded; pull-ups felt great, and my legs were able to blast through more weight than I can remember in a long time. This stuff works!! Now I just need to convince the wife that I need to ride more...


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## Brian Mars (Sep 21, 2021)

BRnPA said:


> This 101-Year-Old Does Pushups Every Day, So What's Your Excuse?
> 
> 
> John Nagy reveals how strength training has extended the quality and length of his life
> ...


As I have aged into my mid 40's, running has been the best activity for me to do on a regular basis. It has helped with my cardio while biking, helped strengthen my legs so I don't gas out, and given me the sense of accomplishment so I have the mental toughness to finish my rides and push my rides further and harder. On the flip side, it has also allowed me to lose about 40 lbs over the past 4 years and for all the riders concerned with the weight of their bike, I can personally tell you that the weight of the rider is just as important(throw a 40 lb weight in your hydration pack and see how well you ride, I can pretty much guarantee that you will not be getting any KOM or QOM achievements).

I have 2 kids that are 5 and 6, and they both like to mountain bike as well as ride around our neighborhood. I look forward to riding into my 70's with them as they progress through the sport. I run so I am in better shape for biking with them and being able to keep up with them when they get just a little bit older. It definitely has helped.

For anyone looking to get into mountain biking, check out this blog post I wrote last year about being new to mountain biking and over 50 years old:
New to Mountain biking over 50 years old. If you have never ridden in the woods, I would highly recommend it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Caturday and happy lifting!


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> Happy Caturday and happy lifting!


In my day, there was a fantastic book about 101 uses for a cat. It focused on less lively cats. 

Time for kettle bell swings to work on my lower back.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

ZX11 said:


> In my day, there was a fantastic book about 101 uses for a cat. It focused on less lively cats.
> 
> Time for kettle bell swings to work on my lower back.
> View attachment 1949903


I like the poster! My cat's name is Rocket so I can relate!

I enjoy KB workouts... it's a very diverse and effective piece of equipment. I'm starting to use them more as an alternative to dumbbells.


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## Pepe Sylvia (Sep 17, 2021)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I plan to keep moving 


*How Much Exercise Do We Need to Live Longer?*



> Two studies suggest the sweet spot for longevity lies around 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps or about 30 to 45 minutes of exercise most days.


To increase our chances for a long life, we probably should take at least 7,000 steps a day or play sports such as tennis, cycling, swimming, jogging or badminton for more than 2.5 hours per week, according to two, large-scale new studies of the relationship between physical activity and longevity. The two studies, which, together, followed more than 10,000 men and women for decades, show that the right types and amounts of physical activity reduce the risk of premature death by as much as 70 percent.

But they also suggest that there can be an upper limit to the longevity benefits of being active, and pushing beyond that ceiling is unlikely to add years to our life spans and, in extreme cases, might be detrimental.

Plenty of research already suggests that people who are active outlive those who seldom move. A 2018 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, concluded that about 10 percent of all deaths among Americans 40 to 70 years old are a result of too little exercise. A 2019 European study found that two decades of inactivity doubled Norwegian people’s risk of dying young.

But scientists have not yet pinned down precisely how much — or little — movement might be most strongly associated with greater longevity. Nor is it clear whether we can overdo exercise, potentially contributing to a shorter life.

Those issues lie at the heart of the two new studies, which look at the links between activity and longevity from distinct but intersecting angles. The first of the studies, published this month in JAMA Network Open, centered on steps. Most of us are familiar with daily step counts as an activity goal, since our phones, smart watches and other activity trackers typically prompt us to take a certain number of steps every day, often 10,000. But as I have written before, current science does not show that we require 10,000 steps for health or longevity.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the C.D.C. and other institutions wondered if, instead, smaller step totals might be related to longer lives. So, they turned to data gathered in recent years for a large, ongoing study of health and heart disease in middle-aged men and women. Most of the participants had joined the study about 10 years earlier, when they were in their 40s. At the time, they completed medical tests and wore an activity tracker to count their steps every day for a week.

Now, the researchers pulled records for 2,110 of the participants and checked their names against death registries. They found that 72 participants had passed away in the intervening decade, a relatively small number but not surprising given the people’s relative youth. But the scientists also noticed a strong association with step counts and mortality. Those men and women accumulating at least 7,000 daily steps when they joined the study were about 50 percent less likely to have died since than those who took fewer than 7,000 steps, and the mortality risks continued to drop as people’s step totals rose, reaching as high as 70 percent less chance of early death among those taking more than 9,000 steps.
But at 10,000 steps, the benefits leveled off. “There was a point of diminishing returns,” said Amanda Paluch, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the new study. People taking more than 10,000 steps per day, even plenty more, rarely outlived those taking at least 7,000.

Helpfully, the second study, which was published in August in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, settled on broadly similar activity levels as best bets for long life. This study involved data from the decades-long Copenhagen City Heart Study, which has recruited tens of thousands of Danish adults since the 1970s and asked them how many hours each week they play sports or exercise, including cycling (wildly popular in Copenhagen), tennis, jogging, swimming, handball, weight lifting, badminton, soccer and others.

The researchers focused on 8,697 of the study’s Danes, who had joined in the 1990s, noted their activity habits then and checked their names against death records. In the 25 years or so since most had joined, about half had passed away. But those who reported exercising, in some way, between 2.6 and 4.5 hours per week when they joined were 40 percent or so less likely to have died in the interim than less active people.

Translating those hours of exercise into step counts is not an exact science, but the researchers estimate that people exercising for 2.6 hours a week, or about 30 minutes most days, likely would accumulate around 7,000 to 8,000 steps most days, between their exercise and daily life, while those working out for 4.5 hours a week probably would be approaching the 10,000-steps threshold most days.

And at that point, as in the first study, benefits plateaued. But in this study, they then surprisingly declined among the relatively few people who worked out for 10 hours or more per week, or about 90 minutes or so most days.

“The very active group, people doing 10-plus hours of activity a week, lost about a third of the mortality benefits,” compared to people exercising for 2.6 to 4.5 hours a week, said Dr. James O’Keefe, a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and director of preventive cardiology at the St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, who was an author on the study.

Both studies are associational, though, meaning they show that physical activity is linked to life span but not that being more active directly causes life spans to lengthen.

Together, however, they provide useful takeaways for all of us hoping to live long and well:


Both studies pinpoint the sweet spot for activity and longevity at somewhere around 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps or about 30 to 45 minutes of exercise most days. Doing more may marginally improve your odds of a long life, Dr. O’Keefe said, but not by much, and doing far more might, at some point, be counterproductive.
Accumulate and measure your activities “in whatever way works for you,” said Dr. Paluch. “Step counting may work well for someone who does not have the time to fit in a longer bout of exercise. But if a single bout of exercise fits best with your lifestyle and motivations, that is great as well. The idea is just to move more.”









How Much Exercise Do We Need to Live Longer?


Two studies suggest the sweet spot for longevity lies around 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps or about 30 to 45 minutes of exercise most days.




www.nytimes.com


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> I plan to keep moving
> Both studies pinpoint the sweet spot for activity and longevity at somewhere around 7,000 to 8,000 daily steps or about 30 to 45 minutes of exercise most days. Doing more may marginally improve your odds of a long life, Dr. O’Keefe said, but not by much, and doing far more might, at some point, be counterproductive.
> 
> Accumulate and measure your activities “in whatever way works for you,” said Dr. Paluch. “Step counting may work well for someone who does not have the time to fit in a longer bout of exercise. But if a single bout of exercise fits best with your lifestyle and motivations, that is great as well. The idea is just to move more.”
> ...


Interesting data. This probably pertains more to folks who may otherwise be sedentary? I'm a fan of Friel's work, granted it's geared towards older athletes. He discusses three physical functions to target to maintain health over time; aerobic capacity workouts, sustained muscle strength and decreased body fat.


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## 33red (Jan 5, 2016)

Lots of people pretend to be experts but most forget to mention flexibility.


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

...and balance.


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## Pepe Sylvia (Sep 17, 2021)

33red said:


> Lots of people pretend to be experts but most forget to mention flexibility.


Mobility 


http://trainaggressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/The-Mobility-Monster-Manual-FINAL.pdf


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## Pepe Sylvia (Sep 17, 2021)

Hanging/brachiation is all the rage.
Max as always takes it next level


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## BRnPA (Oct 9, 2020)

Pepe Sylvia said:


> Hanging/brachiation is all the rage.
> Max as always takes it next level


Really like what he's saying. I think sometimes we focus too much on the weight training and not enough on body-weight movements and balance exercises. They aren't sexy, but are important.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Pepe Sylvia said:


> Mobility
> 
> 
> http://trainaggressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/The-Mobility-Monster-Manual-FINAL.pdf


Good stuff. I used to do a power performance class at the Y a few years back and a lot of these moves were incorporated.


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## Pepe Sylvia (Sep 17, 2021)

Crankout said:


> Good stuff. I used to do a power performance class at the Y a few years back and a lot of these moves were incorporated.









https://maxshank.com/thoracic-bridge-modifications/


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Pepe Sylvia said:


> https://maxshank.com/thoracic-bridge-modifications/


Ah...that is good! Some similarities to active yoga there.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

She set the bar very high for all of us.

*Woman who climbed El Capitan on her 70th birthday says you can do it too*










Dierdre Wolownick says it's never too late to start a new hobby. And she should know.

Wolownick started climbing at the age of 60 in an effort to be closer to her son, Alex Honnold, a world-famous climber and star of the documentary _Free Solo. _

Now, 10 years later, she's scaled the formidable El Capitan rock formation at California's Yosemite National Park for the second time, on her 70th birthday. 

"You have to think about where I was 10 years ago. I was lumpy. I was working all the time. I didn't have time for this. I didn't think I could do it," Wolownick told _As It Happens_ host Carol Off.

"But you never know until you go try. You know, it turns out that you could do anything you set your mind to if you just approach it by baby steps, you know, just backwards engineer what you want to do."

Wolownick is believed to be the oldest woman to ever reach the summit of El Capitan. In doing so, she beat her own record, which she set on a climbing expedition there with her son when she was 66.

Gerry Bloch claimed the title of oldest person to climb El Capitan in 1999 at the age of 81. 

*Cake, champagne and one heck of a view *
On Sept. 23, Wolownick and 10 friends set out on a journey to scale El Capitan for her birthday.

The first time she climbed to the top four years ago, she and her son took a treacherous route known as "Lurking Fear." This time, she was a bit easier on herself, instead climbing the trail people generally use for descending. 

Still, she says the 6-hour ascension was equal parts brutal and beautiful.

"El Cap is a moving experience. Just going into Yosemite Valley is a heady thing. It's kind of like walking into an ancient cathedral," she said.

"For someone who is new to climbing like me — I've only been climbing for 10 years — it's scary.










But the pain and fear was worth it when they reached the top and took in the view.

"It's a multilayered kind of moment because I was so tired. I was exhausted physically. [But] I was so blown away mentally," she said. "Cerebrally? Emotionally? I'm not sure what the word is, but the views are amazing."

Wolownick says her ascent was made easier by the fact that four of her younger friends carried the equipment they needed to scale the mountain, camp overnight, and then climb back down.

"Unbeknown to me, one of them, Garet [McMackin], my main training partner … had carried up bottles of champagne and a little plastic flute glasses and even a little birthday cakes with candles," she said. 

"I was blown away. It was so nice of them."












Wolownick first learned to climb to be closer to her son, a world-famous climber and the first person to scale El Capitan without ropes or safety equipment in 2017. 

"He would talk and talk about where he'd gone, what they'd done, who he did it with, and I didn't know what he was talking about, which is not a good way to relate to anybody," she said. 

Sometimes he used so much climbing jargon, she says couldn't even understand what he was saying. So one day, she asked him to take her to a rock climbing gym. 

"I've taught languages, foreign languages, all my life, and I don't like not knowing what's going on around me. So I asked him to take me to just show me the vocabulary, show me how to put the harness on all that stuff," she said. 

"And I figured I would do a half a wall and I'd be happy and I'd go home a little more knowledgeable. But you know, that's not how it turned out."










Wolownick says if she went from a novice climber to a record-breaking climber in just four years, anyone can do just about anything they set their minds to. 

"I kind of have proven that. You know, at my age, to do El Cap is just not common," she said with a chuckle. "But anybody can do that by baby steps. I firmly believe this." 



https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.6235627/woman-who-climbed-el-capitan-on-her-70th-birthday-says-you-can-do-it-too-1.6235629?cmp=FB_Feed_CBCMain&fbclid=IwAR3hU8bUgId5RKwUA23oDyfprBn8lXAI1JdCrgttsVknfd8a6oMQkSrnP3A


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is interesting. Exercise is important and better than sitting on the couch. However, extra weight limits your energy and mobility and also shortens the number of years you can live independently. Losing fat and gaining muscle is a possible positive side effect. 

*Why Exercise Is More Important Than Weight Loss for a Longer Life*
For better health and a longer life span, exercise is more important than weight loss, especially if you are overweight or obese, according to an interesting new review of the relationships between fitness, weight, heart health and longevity. The study, which analyzed the results of hundreds of previous studies of weight loss and workouts in men and women, found that obese people typically lower their risks of heart disease and premature death far more by gaining fitness than by dropping weight or dieting.

The review adds to mounting evidence that most of us can be healthy at any weight, if we are also active enough.

I have written frequently in this column about the science of exercise and weight loss, much of which is, frankly, dispiriting, if your goal is to be thinner. This past research overwhelmingly shows that people who start to exercise rarely lose much, if any, weight, unless they also cut back substantially on food intake. Exercise simply burns too few calories, in general, to aid in weight reduction. We also tend to compensate for some portion of the meager caloric outlay from exercise by eating more afterward or moving less or unconsciously dialing back on our bodies’ metabolic operations to reduce overall daily energy expenditure, as I wrote about in last week’s column.

Glenn Gaesser, a professor of exercise physiology at Arizona State University in Phoenix, is well versed in the inadequacies of workouts for fat loss. For decades, he has been studying the effects of physical activity on people’s body compositions and metabolisms, as well as their endurance, with a particular focus on people who are obese. Much of his past research has underscored the futility of workouts for weight loss. In a 2015 experiment he oversaw, for instance, 81 sedentary, overweight women began a new routine of walking three times a week for 30 minutes. After 12 weeks, a few of them had shed some body fat, but 55 of them had gained weight. 

In other studies from Dr. Gaesser’s lab, though, overweight and obese people with significant health problems, including high blood pressure, poor cholesterol profiles or insulin resistance, a marker for Type 2 diabetes, showed considerable improvements in those conditions after they started exercising, whether they dropped any weight or not. Seeing these results, Dr. Gaesser began to wonder if fitness might enable overweight people to enjoy sound metabolic health, whatever their body mass numbers, and potentially live just as long as thinner people — or even longer, if the slender people happened to be out of shape.

So, for the new study, which was published this month in iScience, he and his colleague Siddhartha Angadi, a professor of education and kinesiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, began scouring research databases for past studies related to dieting, exercise, fitness, metabolic health and longevity. They were especially interested in meta-analyses, which pool and 
analyze data from multiple past studies, allowing researchers to look at results from far more people than in most individual studies of weight loss or exercise, which tend to be small-scale.


They wound up with more than 200 relevant meta-analyses and individual studies. Then they set out to see what all of this research, involving tens of thousands of men and women, most of them obese, indicated about the relative benefits of losing weight or getting fit for improving metabolisms and longevity. In effect, they asked whether someone who is heavy gets more health bang from losing weight or getting up and moving.

The contest, they found, was not close. “Compared head-to-head, the magnitude of benefit was far greater from improving fitness than from losing weight,” Dr. Gaesser said.

As a whole, the studies they cite show that sedentary, obese men and women who begin to exercise and improve their fitness can lower their risk of premature death by as much as 30 percent or more, even if their weight does not budge. This improvement generally puts them at lower risk of early death than people who are considered to be of normal weight but out of shape Dr. Gaesser said. 

On the other hand, if heavy people lose weight by dieting (not illness), their statistical risk of dying young typically drops by about 16 percent, but not in all studies. Some of the research cited in the new review finds that weight loss among obese people does not decrease mortality risks at all.

The new review was not designed to determine precisely how exercise or weight loss affect longevity in people with obesity, though. But in many of the studies they looked at, Dr. Gaesser said, people who shed pounds by dieting regained them, then tried again, a yo-yo approach to weight loss that often contributes to metabolic problems like diabetes and high cholesterol and lower life expectancy.

On the other hand, exercise combats those same conditions, he said. It may also, unexpectedly, remake people’s fat stores. “People with obesity usually lose some visceral fat when they exercise,” he said, even if their overall weight loss is negligible. Visceral fat,

which collects deep inside our bodies, raises risks for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other conditions.

A few of the studies they cite find that exercise likewise alters molecular signaling inside other fat cells in ways that may improve insulin resistance, no matter how much weight someone carries. “It looks like exercise makes fat more fit,” Dr. Gaesser said.

The primary takeaway of the new review, he concluded, is that you do not need to lose weight to be healthy. “You will be better off, in terms of mortality risk, by increasing your physical activity and fitness than by intentionally losing weight,” he said.









Why Exercise Is More Important Than Weight Loss for a Longer Life


People typically lower their risks of heart disease and premature death far more by gaining fitness than by dropping weight.




www.nytimes.com


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## nOOky (May 13, 2008)

Here is some math I like to show people. To set the stage I tried to use an estimated average heart rate for a normal, non-exercising person of 72 bpm. Then I calculated a person that exercises 1 hour per day at an estimated 130 bpm, which results in a lower resting hr of about 60 bpm. Of course that is flawed, no one expects to exercise every day for an hour. However even a half hour a day can lower your resting hr, if anything assuming an hour a day skews the results for the exercising person's bpm higher.

But here are the results: average resting hr 72 bpm for an entire year, 3,784,320 beats. For someone exercising and lowering their resting hr, 3,306,900. Of course these numbers are estimates and don't take into account that people move and climb stairs and don't sit at their resting heart rate all day long. However there is no doubt that regular exercise reduces your resting heart rate, and this is an attempt to quantify it to normal folks to give them an idea of how exercise can keep you healthy longer.

The difference between those numbers is 477,420 beats a year, over a mere 30 years that is 14,322,600 fewer heart beats. If you believe like some people that the heart "only has a set number of beats before it wears out" lol that nets you an extra almost 5 years for your heart.


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

I like to think of the body like an engine. Run it sufficiently hard to clean out the sludge in the pipes and don't over-rev it for long.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Velobike said:


> I like to think of the body like an engine. Run it sufficiently hard to clean out the sludge in the pipes and don't over-rev it for long.


How long is too long, if you don't mind me asking?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Dave Mac (Jan 9, 2017)

those that do squats are you wearing a belt??


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

Crankout said:


> How long is too long, if you don't mind me asking?


When your vision starts to go to black and white and the black spots start crawling across your eyeballs is usually a good guide...


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

oops! double post


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Dave Mac said:


> those that do squats are you wearing a belt??


I tried a weight belt and noticed the difference. My lifts were getting heavier prior to the pandemic. In 2019 my deadlift PR was 225 lbs (I weigh 122lbs) which is almost 2 times my body weight and I contemplated getting a belt at that time. My crossfit coach let me borrow hers during a session. I believe it would have made a difference doing backsquats and front squats with a belt. Then the pandemic struck! We continued to train at home, working out daily although I kept my lifts quite moderate. Gyms have reopened and I started back at crossfit in August and my overall strength is increasing again

Long story short, I will get a belt when I get closer to my targets and feel I could lift more


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*An 11-Minute Body-Weight Workout With Proven Fitness Benefits*

Five minutes of burpees, jump squats and other calisthenics significantly improve aerobic endurance, according to one of the first randomized, controlled trials to test the effects of brief body-weight workouts. The study’s findings are predictable but reassuring, at a time when many of us are relying on short exercise sessions in our homes to gain or retain our fitness. They provide scientific assurance that these simple workouts will work, physiologically, and our burpees will not be in vain.

Last year, when the pandemic curtailed traditional gym hours and left many people hesitant to exercise outside on crowded sidewalks or paths, quite a few of us moved our workouts indoors, into our living rooms or basements, altering how we exercise. Some of us purchased stationary bicycles and started intense spin classes or turned to online personal trainers and yoga classes. But many of us started practicing some version of a body-weight routine, using calisthenics and other simple strength-training exercises that rely on our body weight to provide resistance.

Body-weight training has been a staple of exercise since almost time immemorial, of course. Usually organized as multiple, familiar calisthenics performed one after another, this type of exercise has gone by various names, from Swedish Exercises a century ago to the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Five Basic Exercises (5BX) program in the 1960s, to today’s Scientific 7-Minute Workout and its variations.

In general, one of the hallmarks of these programs is that you perform the exercises consecutively but not continuously; that is, you complete multiple repetitions of one exercise, pause and recover, then move on to the next. This approach makes the workouts a form of interval training, with bursts of intense exertion followed by brief periods of rest.

Traditional interval training has plenty of scientific backing, with piles of research showing that a few minutes — or even seconds — of strenuous intervals, repeated several times, can raise aerobic fitness substantially. But the exercise in these studies usually has involved stationary cycling or running.

Few experiments have examined the effects of brief body-weight workouts on endurance and strength, and those few had drawbacks. Most focused on people who already were fit, and almost none met the scientific gold standard of being randomized and including an inactive control group. Consequently, our faith in the benefits of short body-weight training may have been understandable, but evidence was lacking.

So, for the new study, which was published this month in the International Journal of Exercise Science, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., decided to develop and test a basic body-weight routine. They modeled their version on the well-known 5BX program, which once had been used to train members of the Canadian military in remote posts. But the researchers swapped out elements from the original, which had included exercises like old-fashioned situps that are not considered particularly good for the back or effective in building endurance.

They wound up with a program that alternated one minute of calisthenics, including modified burpees (omitting the push-ups that some enthusiasts tack onto the move) and running in place, with a minute of walking, also in place. The routine required no equipment, little space and a grand total of 11 minutes, including a minute for warming up and cooling down.

They then recruited 20 healthy but out-of-shape young men and women, measured their current fitness, leg power and handgrip strength and randomly assigned half to start practicing the new program three times a week, while the others continued with their normal lives, as a control.

The exercisers were asked to “challenge” themselves during the calisthenics, completing as many of each exercise as they could in a minute, before walking in place, and then moving to the next exercise.

After six weeks, all of the volunteers returned to the lab for follow-up testing. And, to no one’s surprise, the exercisers were more fit, having upped their endurance by about 7 percent, on average. Their leg power also had grown slightly. The control group’s fitness and strength remained unchanged.

“It was good to see our expectations confirmed,” says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, who oversaw the new study and, with various collaborators, has published influential studies of intense interval training in the past.

“It seemed obvious” that this kind of training should be effective, he says. But “we now have evidence” that brief, basic body-weight training “can make a meaningful difference” in fitness, he says.

The study was small and quite short-term, though, and looked at the effects only among healthy young people who are capable of performing burpees and jump squats. “Some people may need to substitute” some of the exercises, Dr. Gibala says, especially anyone who has problems with joint pain or balance. (See the Standing 7-Minute Workout for examples of appropriate replacements, in that case.)

But whatever mix of calisthenics you settle on, “the key is to push yourself a bit” during each one-minute interval, he says.
Here is the full 11-minute workout used in the study, with video links of each exercise by Linda Archila, a researcher who led the experiment while a student at McMaster University.

1 minute of easy jumping jacks, to warm up
1 minute of modified burpees (without push-ups)
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of high-knee running in place
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of split squat jumps (starting and ending in the lunge position, while alternating which leg lands forward)
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of high-knee running in place
1 minute of walking in place
1 minute of squat jumps
1 minute of walking in place, to cool down









An 11-Minute Body-Weight Workout With Proven Fitness Benefits (Published 2021)


Five minutes of burpees, jump squats and other calisthenics, alternating with rest, improved aerobic endurance in out-of-shape men and women.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The U.S. Army Is Replacing Its Fitness Test After 41 Years, Could You Pass The New Requirements?*

The current U.S. Army fitness test has been in place since 1980 and it’s both straightforward and easy. That 41-year-old test consists of two minutes of sit-ups, two minutes of pushups, and a 2-mile run.

Most of the people in my life could do that without training and I think everyone would expect that a member of the U.S. Army should be able to complete that test with ease.

Now the U.S. Army fitness test is going to be overhauled after 41-years and modernized. It will feature six exercises instead of 3, and it has a lot of people talking about whether or not they’d be able to complete the new requirements.

Here’s what the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT 3.0) will look like:


*Max Deadlift*: 3 reps, minimum weight of 140 pounds
*Standing Power Throw*: throw a 10-pound medicine ball overhead/backward, minimum of 4.5 meters (~15 feet)
*Hand Release Pushup*: Complete as many pushups as possible in 2 minutes, minimum of 10
*Sprint-Drag-Carry*: five 50-meter shuttles of ‘spring, sled drag, lateral, medicine ball carry, and sprint’ in 3 minutes
*Leg Tuck / Plank*: Hold a plan for as long as possible or complete as many leg tucks as possible. Minimum plank time of 2 minutes, 9 seconds
*2-Mile Run*: a 2-mile run on a flat course must be completed in under 21 minutes
This update to the U.S. Army’s fitness test that’s been in place since 1980 will 100% lead to a flurry of people attempting this workout at home. I’m confident I could do that with relative ease. The Plank would be miserable so I’d probably opt for the Leg Tuck but either is doable.


According to an article in _Bloomberg_, a 2020 report found an estimated 17% of the Army was classified as ‘obese’ and over 50% of soldiers suffered an injury in 2019. A more rigorous Army Combat Fitness Test will theoretically lower the risk of injury.

I can’t even imagine how much money was spent developing a new fitness test after 41 years when in the end someone was like ‘yup, let’s use these six extremely common exercises and we’re good.’









The U.S. Army Is Replacing Its Fitness Test After 41 Years, Could You Pass The New Requirements?


The U.S. Army is set to update its fitness test with new requirements and overhaul an outdated test that's been in place since 1980 The 1980 Army fitness




brobible.com


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## nOOky (May 13, 2008)

I have been out of the US Army since 1993, but I used to max out the tests in my youth. I recall a lot of the members were heavy even back then. I could still pass the tests with ease.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Off season workout training with Aaron Gwin






Workout recap: 

1. a) Single arm chest press b) single arm back row/pull.

2. a) Single arm shoulder press b) single arm pull down. 

3. a) Shoulder internal rotation b) shoulder external rotation 

4. a) Single leg hamstring curl b) single leg knee pull 

5. Split squats


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

4a: Hamstring curl?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Exercise Affects Metabolism and Weight Loss*
A new analysis of data from “The Biggest Loser” highlights the complex ways the body compensates when we drop pounds.











Many of us remember “The Biggest Loser,” the somewhat notorious reality television show that ran for more than a decade starting in 2004, in which contestants competed feverishly to drop massive amounts of weight over a short period of time. One of the biggest lessons of the show appeared to be that extreme exercise, along with draconian calorie restriction, would lead to enormous weight loss.

Media coverage of the contestants years later, though, seemed to tell a different story, of weight regain and slowed metabolisms and the futility of attempting long-term weight loss.

Now a new scientific analysis of the show and its aftermath, published last month in the journal Obesity, suggests many beliefs about “The Biggest Loser” may be misconceptions. The analysis tries to untangle what really happened to the contestants’ metabolisms and why some of them kept off weight better than others. It also looks into the complex role of exercise and whether staying physically active helped the contestants keep their weight under control for years, or not.

For those who may have forgotten, or tried to, “The Biggest Loser” ran on NBC to generally high ratings for more than a dozen seasons. Contestants competed to drop the most pounds using extreme calorie restriction and hours of daily strenuous exercise. “Winners” typically shed hundreds of pounds in a few months.

Such rapid and extreme weight loss caught the attention of Kevin Hall, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. An expert on metabolism, Dr. Hall knew that when people drop lots of weight in a short period of time, they typically send their resting metabolic rates — the baseline calories we burn every day just by being alive — into free-fall. A lower resting metabolic rate can mean we burn fewer calories over all.

This effect was believed to be caused, in part, by the loss of muscle during dieting. A relatively active tissue, muscle burns more calories than fat, and more muscle typically means elevated metabolic rates. So, Dr. Hall wondered, would the maniacal levels of exercise during “The Biggest Loser” help dieters hold onto muscle and keep their resting metabolism high, even as they cut calories?

Starting more than a decade ago, Dr. Hall and his colleagues began the first of a series of experiments to find out. In a study from 2014, they compared 13 men and women who had lost massive amounts of weight by cutting calories, thanks to gastric bypass surgery, and 13 contestants from “The Biggest Loser,” whose extreme weight loss involved exercise as well as dieting. As expected, the bypass group shed muscle, as well as fat, while “The Biggest Loser” contestants kept most of their muscle and primarily dropped fat. But everyone’s resting metabolic rate dropped, and to about the same extent, whether they remained well-muscled or not.
Dr. Hall said he and his colleagues were surprised by the results. And their confusion intensified when, for a 2016 study, they rechecked 14 of the same contestants six years after their competition, expecting their metabolisms to have rebounded by then. Most dieters’ resting metabolisms rise somewhat after they stop actively losing weight, and especially if they regain pounds. Larger people burn more baseline calories than people who are slighter. By this time, most of the contestants had regained weight. But their resting metabolisms remained stubbornly slow, burning an average of about 500 fewer daily calories than before they joined the show.
The next year, a follow-up study concluded physical activity had helped some contestants stave off weight gain. If they moved around or formally exercised for about 80 minutes most days, they added back fewer pounds than if they rarely worked out. But their exercise did not boost their resting metabolisms. The exercisers, in fact, showed the greatest relative declines in their resting metabolic rates.

Perplexed, Dr. Hall recently began to reconsider the “Biggest Loser” studies in light of an emerging concept about how human metabolism fundamentally works. This idea grew out of an influential 2012 study showing that highly active hunter gatherers in Tanzania burn about the same relative number of calories every day as the rest of us, even though they move around far more.

The scientists involved in that research postulated the tribespeople’s bodies must automatically be compensating for some of the calories they burned while hunting for food by decreasing other physiological activities, such as growth. (The tribespeople tended to be short.) In that way, the researchers felt, the hunters’ bodies could keep the overall number of calories they burned each day in check, no matter how many miles they jogged in search of tubers and game. The scientists called this idea the constrained total energy expenditure theory.

Aware of this research, Dr. Hall began to see potential parallels in “The Biggest Loser” results. So, for the new analysis, he looked back at his group’s data for hints about whether contestants’ metabolisms had behaved, in effect, like the metabolisms of the hunter gatherers. And he found clues in their resting metabolic rates. That number plummeted early in their “Biggest Loser” filming, he noted, when they slashed how much they ate, and their bodies, understandably, reduced the calories they burned to avoid starving.
But in later years, when contestants typically returned to eating as they had before, their metabolisms stayed depressed because, he concluded — and this was key — most of them still exercised. Counter-intuitively, he wrote in the new analysis, frequent physical activity seems to have prompted their bodies to hold resting metabolic rates low, so total daily energy expenditure could be constrained.

“It’s still just a hypothesis,” Dr. Hall said, “but it seems like what we’re observing” in the “Biggest Loser” data “is an example of the constrained energy model.”
So, what could this rethinking of “The Biggest Loser” story mean for the rest of us, if we hope to keep our weight under control? First and most fundamentally, it suggests that abrupt and colossal weight loss generally will backfire, since that strategy seems to send resting metabolic rates plunging more than would be expected, given people’s smaller body sizes. When people drop pounds gradually in weight-loss experiments, he pointed out, their metabolic changes tend to be less drastic.

Second and more befuddling, if you have lost substantial weight, “Biggest Loser” style, exercise likely will be both ally and underminer in your efforts to keep those pounds at bay. In Dr. Hall’s new interpretation of contestants’ long-term weight control, frequent exercise kept contestants’ resting metabolic rates low but also helped them stave off fat regain. In essence, the contestants who worked out the most wound up adding back the least weight, even though they also sported the slowest relative resting metabolisms.

Exactly how, then, exercise aided with their weight maintenance is not yet clear, Dr. Hall said. He suspects that exercise affected people’s appetites in ways that may have made them less prone to overeating, while also burning some extra calories. He hopes to develop future experiments to elucidate how exercise influences metabolisms, for better and worse, he said.

For now, though, the most reverberant lesson of “The Biggest Loser” may be that long-term weight loss, although daunting, is not unfeasible. Yes, most “Biggest Loser” contestants regained weight, Dr. Hall said, but not necessarily every pound they dropped. After six years, most still weighed about 12 percent less than before joining the show, a meaningful difference, and the most successful of the former contestants were those who still worked out.









How Exercise Affects Metabolism and Weight Loss


A new analysis of data from “The Biggest Loser” highlights the complex ways the body compensates when we drop pounds.




www.nytimes.com


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## Popopine (Dec 24, 2021)

My brother works as a palliative care professional and says the people that do the best - and sometimes turn around - are the ones with some meat on their bones. The ones with muscle weight.

And while all he does is lift heavy, I prefer a more varied approach to stay strong and flexible and agile. I feel like I’m always ‘in training’ doing ‘body maintenance’ so I can keep enjoying all the activities I love. Yes it can be painful and take a lot of time and work but I’ll be damned if I can’t surf and bike and play tennis and hit a heavy bag when I’m 80 ... now all I have to do is make it that far ... and maybe cut down in the cookies...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's never too late to set some goals, make some changes to find your happy place this year!


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> It's never too late to set some goals, make some changes to find your happy place this year!
> 
> View attachment 1963971


Ours is always crazy this time of year but the 'rona has other ideas. We keep going, though.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Our crossfit gym has reopened (1 month closed from latest lockdown)


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> Our crossfit gym has reopened (1 month closed from latest lockdown)


I figured the gym would be a mad house of people after the new year. That gym looks roomy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

ZX11 said:


> I figured the gym would be a mad house of people after the new year. That gym looks roomy.


The gym is roomy. Classes sizes are small due to capacity limits plus we do the late evening sessions. Morning classes are busier


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Everyday is leg day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

Yep. When I bought my bench and set of weights from Dick's, I figured there was a 75 percent chance it would wind up as a coat rack. Turns out I like the hobby and alone/zen time on the bench. I use it all the time. Now, two years later it is time for me to get one of those cage racks bolted to the floor before I hurt myself.

Less chance the cage will wind up as a clothes rack. Say 50 percent.


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## nOOky (May 13, 2008)

I have suspended all weight training until my cracked ribs heal. I tried last week as they felt better, all's I did was make them worse. There's too many people in the gym right now anyway.


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## Stonerider (Feb 25, 2008)

nOOky said:


> I have suspended all weight training until my cracked ribs heal. I tried last week as they felt better, all's I did was make them worse. There's too many people in the gym right now anyway.


It took about 5 weeks before I could bench press after cracking some ribs in a MTB crash.


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## redwarrior (Apr 12, 2007)

I've never done any strength training in my life & I'm 49. Last year I fought tooth & nail to lose weight to be faster on my bike. For whatever reason, I was unable to get anywhere close to where I wanted to be & was incredibly frustrated. I was riding a bunch including structured training, walking regularly & eating proportionally more fruits & veggies than I ever had all to no avail. I cut all that out toward the end of November last year & took a long time off the bike, ate less clean but not horribly & just relaxed. About a month ago, I started back up on the bike trainer doing endurance work a few times a week. At the same time, I started doing a few body weight exercises including squats, lunges & pushups. I've progressed to using a 15lb weight (yeah, I know, that's nothing) with lunges & squats. For the lunges, I hold it more or less at arms length out in front of me & with squats, I bring it down as low as I can, lift it up as I rise from the squat & toss it up in the air when it's almost at chest level, catch it & bring it down & repeat. I'm currently doing 5 sets of 20 squats like this, 5 sets of 10 lunges per leg totaling 20 for the set & 10 sets of 23 pushups. I do all of this in my office 3 days a week over the course of the morning. Doing just this light lifting has melted fat from my body. I'm just shocked at what's going on. Today I'm comfortably wearing pants I couldn't come close to shoehorning myself into all of last year. I've seen the lifting light! My plan is to keep doing what I'm doing for the next month or so gradually increasing the weight I'm using -probably going up to 25lbs next week. After that, I really need to hit my bike training hard as I've got a 100k race I decided to enter in the snglespeed class in mid July. I do plan to keep doing this work 2 days a week if I can tolerate it. Next offseason, I'm definitely finding a gym & planning to hit the weights hard!


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

redwarrior said:


> I've never done any strength training in my life & I'm 49. Last year I fought tooth & nail to lose weight to be faster on my bike. For whatever reason, I was unable to get anywhere close to where I wanted to be & was incredibly frustrated. I was riding a bunch including structured training, walking regularly & eating proportionally more fruits & veggies than I ever had all to no avail. I cut all that out toward the end of November last year & took a long time off the bike, ate less clean but not horribly & just relaxed. About a month ago, I started back up on the bike trainer doing endurance work a few times a week. At the same time, I started doing a few body weight exercises including squats, lunges & pushups. I've progressed to using a 15lb weight (yeah, I know, that's nothing) with lunges & squats. For the lunges, I hold it more or less at arms length out in front of me & with squats, I bring it down as low as I can, lift it up as I rise from the squat & toss it up in the air when it's almost at chest level, catch it & bring it down & repeat. I'm currently doing 5 sets of 20 squats like this, 5 sets of 10 lunges per leg totaling 20 for the set & 10 sets of 23 pushups. I do all of this in my office 3 days a week over the course of the morning. Doing just this light lifting has melted fat from my body. I'm just shocked at what's going on. Today I'm comfortably wearing pants I couldn't come close to shoehorning myself into all of last year. I've seen the lifting light! My plan is to keep doing what I'm doing for the next month or so gradually increasing the weight I'm using -probably going up to 25lbs next week. After that, I really need to hit my bike training hard as I've got a 100k race I decided to enter in the snglespeed class in mid July. I do plan to keep doing this work 2 days a week if I can tolerate it. Next offseason, I'm definitely finding a gym & planning to hit the weights hard!



Good to hear! I'm a big fan of weight training, with it being more emphasized now (2xweek) before the season and mileage starts to ramp back up. Come late spring through early fall, I'll hit the gym weekly for maintenance.


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## redwarrior (Apr 12, 2007)

Crankout said:


> Good to hear! I'm a big fan of weight training, with it being more emphasized now (2xweek) before the season and mileage starts to ramp back up. Come late spring through early fall, I'll hit the gym weekly for maintenance.


Thank you! I've got a lot of learning to do before I hit the gym, I want to have a plan in hand.

Question for you: do you find that 1 day a week is good maintenance during the riding season? Aside from being shocked at by my shrinking size, I'm surprised at how much work I seem to be doing. I'm definitely working glutes, quads & a bunch of other leg muscles I don't know the names of as well as core with the weight swing & toss then also chest & some arms with the pushups. I realize I'm not lifting "heavy" in any sense but it is definitely fatiguing me!


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

redwarrior said:


> Thank you! I've got a lot of learning to do before I hit the gym, I want to have a plan in hand.
> 
> Question for you: do you find that 1 day a week is good maintenance during the riding season? Aside from being shocked at by my shrinking size, I'm surprised at how much work I seem to be doing. I'm definitely working glutes, quads & a bunch of other leg muscles I don't know the names of as well as core with the weight swing & toss then also chest & some arms with the pushups. I realize I'm not lifting "heavy" in any sense but it is definitely fatiguing me!


 I think so. I don't want to load my legs up too much during the season; the biking and miles take over. And yes, it can be fatiguing!


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## redwarrior (Apr 12, 2007)

Crankout said:


> I think so. I don't want to load my legs up too much during the season; the biking and miles take over. And yes, it can be fatiguing!


Good to know, thank you!


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## Skispiggy (12 mo ago)

Hell yes. I've backed off over the last three months because I tore the meniscus in my knee. Twisted my torso at the top of stairs carrying a heavy load for a whole weekend.

But usually I spend ten minutes doing step ups with a 22kg back pack after my morning run.
Has helped everything. Quads, glutes. I gave them a three week rest after tearing my meniscus. But it wasn't enough, and tore it again.
It's been three months. I will start them again soon.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Scientists have found that switching from a life of inactivity to one involving 20 minutes of running, cycling or other ‘moderate to vigorous’ exercise a day, as late as 70, reduces the risk of heart attacks, coronary heart disease and heart failure by 52 per cent in men and 8 per cent in women.

*20 mins of daily exercise at 70 may best stave off major heart disease in late old age*
Any physical activity is better late than never but earlier in older age, better still

Twenty minutes of daily moderate to vigorous exercise in early old age (70-75) may best stave off major heart disease, including heart failure, in late old age (80+), suggests research published online in the journal _Heart_.

The findings reinforce the maxim of ‘better late than never,’ when it comes to exercise, but earlier on in older age is better still, concludes a linked editorial.

It’s no secret that physical activity is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and a longer life, irrespective of gender and ethnicity, with the benefits accruing in tandem with the effort expended.

But relatively few studies have looked exclusively at whether exercise in later life can help ward off heart disease and stroke in old age.

To plug this knowledge gap, the researchers drew on data from the Progetto Veneto Anziani (ProVA), a study of 3099 older Italians (65 and above). 

Initial assessments, including a detailed medical history, physical examination, scans, and a battery of blood tests were carried out between 1995 and 1997, with two further assessments 4 and 7 years later. 

At the start of the study, women were more likely than men to have 4+ coexisting conditions, with a higher prevalence of osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and chronic kidney disease; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diabetes were more common among the men.

Participants filled in questionnaires on their physical activity levels at each of the time points. Moderate physical activity included walking, bowls, and fishing, while vigorous physical activity included gardening, gym work-outs, cycling, dancing, and swimming. 

Those whose physical activity added up to 20 or more minutes a day were defined as active; those who clocked up less than this were defined as inactive. Men were more likely to be physically active than women.

Changes in physical activity patterns were defined as: stable-low (inactive-inactive); high-decreasing (active-inactive); low-increasing (inactive-active); and stable-high (active-active). 

Other potentially key background information on household income, educational attainment, number of household members, and smoking and drinking was also collected.

The health of all the participants was then tracked through linkage to hospital discharge records and death certification up to the end of December 2018. The final analysis included 2754 participants with complete data, of whom 1398 were women (60%).

During the monitoring period, 1037 new diagnoses of heart disease, heart failure, and stroke were made.

Increasing levels of physical activity as well as maintaining an active lifestyle over time were associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease and death in both men and women.

The largest reduction in risk was observed for new cases of coronary heart disease and heart failure in late old age. No significant association between physical activity and stroke was observed. 

Most of the participants had stable active physical activity patterns over time. Patterns of stable-high physical activity were associated with a significantly (52%) lower risk of cardiovascular disease among men compared with those with stable-low patterns.

The greatest benefits seemed to occur at the age of 70. Risk was only marginally lower at the age of 75, and no lower at the age of 80-85, suggesting that improving physical activity earlier in old age might have the most impact, say the researchers.

A J-shaped curve for exercise length was also observed, with the sharpest reduction in heart disease and heart failure associated with a period of between 20 and 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.

While the observed associations were strongest among men, the researchers emphasise: “Women doing more physical activity had consistently lower incidence rates of almost all cardiovascular outcomes despite the fact that the risk reduction did not reach statistical significance, but when considering overall mortality, risks were significantly reduced.”

This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause. The researchers acknowledge that the study relied on participant recall, that physical activity levels were subjectively assessed, and that no data were available on mid-life physical activity levels, all of which might have influenced cardiovascular risk profiles in late life.

Nevertheless, they conclude: “These results suggest that public health policies should be targeted at promoting or beginning physical activity in mid- and early late life, given a probable greater effectiveness in reducing cardiovascular risks.

“At least 20 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day should be recommended to achieve the greatest cardiovascular benefits.”

In a linked editorial, Drs Enrico Fabris and Gianfranco Sinagra of the University of Trieste, Italy, explain that physical activity helps to improve arterial blood flow and may reduce its stickiness and so the formation of blood clots.

“However, the detailed mechanisms by which [physical activity] can reduce the future risk of [cardiovascular disease] remain not fully understood,” they point out. 

“The favourable effect of [physical activity] may be simply explained by its capability of slowing down the atherosclerosis process through a better control of blood pressure, blood glucose level, and lipid profile.”

But the findings show: “that ‘movement is medicine’ also in late life. Even a small amount of [physical activity] may confer beneficial effects in older people, but if undertaken early rather than late,” they conclude. 

*JOURNAL*
Heart










20 mins of daily exercise at 70 may best stave off major heart disease in late old age


Twenty minutes of daily moderate to vigorous exercise in early old age (70-75) may best stave off major heart disease, including heart failure, in late old age (80+), suggests research published online in the journal Heart. The findings reinforce the maxim of ‘better late than never,’ when it...



www.eurekalert.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I registered for the CrossFit Open. This will be my 7th year










The CrossFit Open starts Thursday February 24, 2022. The last open I did was 2020... I completed the workouts just before the gym closed due to the pandemic. We did home gym workouts regularly for a 1.5 years without the 1:1 coaching , intensity and competiveness etc but the overall training helped. Long distance running (marathon training) , as well as mtn biking kept my cardio intact. We joined our local Crossfit box in August 2021. (the gym closed again twice since returning) I'm back to attending classes 6 days per week, working on my lifts, and progressions to build my strength and skills. I feel my mojo returning but my strength has diminished a little. Maybe it's just age 

Once again, I'm the "oldest" member in my gym that has registered. The spotlight is on younger athletes and that's ok. I'm happy doing what I'm doing

We had an awesome workout yesterday.










1) AMRAP 3 Minutes
500m/400m Row OR 1000m/800m Bike
Max Sit Ups
Rest 90 seconds
2) AMRAP 3 Minutes
500m/400m Row OR 1000m/800m Bike
Max Box Jump Overs (24/20)
Rest 90 seconds
3) AMRAP 3 Minutes
500m/400m Row OR 1000m/800m Bike
Max Hang Dumbbell Clean and Jerk (50/35)
Rest 90 seconds
*Alternate between Rower & Bike each round


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The importance of grip strength


















Grip strength may provide clues to heart health - Harvard Health


A strong or weak hand grip carries more than just social cues. It may also help measure an individual’s risk for having a heart attack or stroke, or dying from cardiovascular disease. As part...




www.health.harvard.edu














Grip Strength: An Indispensable Biomarker For Older Adults


Grip strength has been proposed as a biomarker. Supporting this proposition, evidence is provided herein that shows grip strength is largely consistent as an explanator of concurrent overall strength, upper limb function, bone mineral density, fractures, ...




www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Fitness trackers can reveal intimate details about your personal life*

The data captured by your FitBit or health monitoring app may be used for more than simply encouraging you to increase your step count.

Director Brett Gaylor travels to the outskirts of Paris where four young roommates try out fitness trackers for the first time and allow him to monitor their health data. He finds out much more about their lives than they were expecting — what time they go to bed, when they go to the convenience store for a late night snack, and who’s sleeping with whom.

But what happens when the data is obtained by third-party companies? Some health insurance companies and corporate “wellness” programs are asking clients to share health data obtained from fitness trackers. But that data could be used to make decisions about how much your health insurance should cost and whether or not they will insure you at all.

Watch the video below for the full story. (10 minutes)



https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1714869827626/





https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/fitness-trackers-can-reveal-intimate-details-about-your-personal-life


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## redwarrior (Apr 12, 2007)

So I picked up a variable weight kettlebell & am using it as I continue to do squats, lunges, etc. in my office throughout the day 3 times a week. Add 100 kettlebell swings per day making sure to keep good form with a deep hip hinge. Also added oblique lifts on each side along with some double fisted pulling lift things. The weight only goes up to 40lbs which I know isn't much but starting from zero, it's definitely having the desired effects. I'm seeing definition in my legs that was never there before which is super cool! I guess older dogs can learn new tricks, after all.


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

Link to the var weight kettle? I am looking into starting KB exercises as I hear they are fantastic for functional strength.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

Weights make good presents for my wife to get me for xmas, etc.. Like a kettle bell or a barbell plate. But it is funny that I have to go out to the truck to open the present. She's not carrying them into the house.

Thor's kettle bell would be cool. It runs 5lbs heavier than listed on the side.


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## redwarrior (Apr 12, 2007)

Brules said:


> Link to the var weight kettle? I am looking into starting KB exercises as I hear they are fantastic for functional strength.


Review of Bowflex Kettlebell


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I participated (Friday evening) in the CrossFit 22.1 Open. Tough workout! I did it prescribed (Rx), and did well representing the Masters +55 class. Many of the athletes were lightning fast initially then started taking breaks. My strategy was to keep it consistent and steady. The wall walks were no joke but I inched my way to the mark for each one and then blasted through the DB snatches and Box overs. I completed 8 rounds

AMRAP 15
3 Wall Walks
12 Alternating Dumbbell Snatches (50/35) Masters+ (35/20)
15 Box Jump Overs (Masters +55 step ups)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I sure hope so 

BTW What's heavy gardening???

*Muscle strengthening lowers risk of death from all causes, study shows*

Half an hour of muscle strengthening activity such as lifting weights, push-ups or heavy gardening each week could help reduce the risk of dying from any cause by as much as a fifth, according to a new global analysis of studies conducted over three decades.

Health guidelines recommend muscle strengthening activities, primarily because of the benefits for musculoskeletal health. Previous research has indicated a link to a lower risk of death, but until now experts did not know what the optimal “dose” might be.


To try to find out, researchers in Japan scoured databases for relevant studies that included adults without major health issues who had been monitored for at least two years. The final analysis included 16 studies, the earliest of which was published in 2012. Most were carried out in the US, with the rest from England, Scotland, Australia and Japan. The maximum monitoring period lasted 25 years.

The analysis found that 30 to 60 minutes of muscle strengthening activity every week is linked to a 10% to 20% lower risk of death from all causes, and from heart disease and cancer. The results were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The findings were independent of aerobic exercise. But the analysis pointed to a J-shaped curve for most outcomes, with no conclusive evidence that more than an hour a week of muscle strengthening reduced the risk any further.

UK physical activity guidelines say muscle strengthening activities can include carrying heavy shopping bags, yoga, pilates, tai chi, lifting weights, working with resistance bands, doing exercises that use your own body weight such as push-ups and sit-ups, heavy gardening such as digging and shovelling, wheeling a wheelchair or lifting and carrying children.

It is recommended adults do strengthening activities working all the major muscle groups at least two days a week as well as doing at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity each week. The researchers found people reap the most benefits when they regularly do both.

The analysis included studies with participant numbers varying from about 4,000 to 480,000, and ranged in age from 18 to 97. It showed that muscle strengthening was associated with a 10% to 17% lower risk of death from any cause, heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Researchers said the maximum risk reduction of between 10% and 20% was found at 30 to 60 minutes a week of muscle strengthening activities for death from any cause, heart disease and cancer. An L-shaped association was observed for diabetes, with a large risk reduction up to 60 minutes/week of muscle strengthening activities, after which there was a gradual tapering off.

Joint analysis of muscle strengthening and aerobic activities showed the reduction in risk of death from any cause, heart disease and cancer was even greater when these two types of activities were combined: 40%, 46%, and 28% lower, respectively.

The researchers acknowledged limitations to their findings, the main one of which was that data from only a few studies were pooled for each of the outcomes studied. “Given that the available data are limited, further studies – such as studies focusing on a more diverse population – are needed to increase the certainty of the evidence,” they concluded.










Muscle strengthening lowers risk of death from all causes, study shows


Half an hour a week of activities such as gardening, sit-ups or yoga a week could help reduce the risk of dying from any cause by a fifth




www.theguardian.com


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> I sure hope so
> 
> BTW What's heavy gardening???
> 
> ...


'Lifting and carrying children....'


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> ...BTW What's heavy gardening???...


It's when my wife buys an industrial sized bag of compost (112lb) and I have to carry it to the car, then lift it out and carry it to the back of the garden, Then 3 months later when it's now much heavier from being left in the rain, gets me to carry it to the front garden, then a month later shift it back...
She's got a black thumb in gardening I tell you.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

CrossFit Open 22.2 (Masters +55) tonight. The deadlifts and bar facing burpees was a deadly mix. There were alot of reps to accomplish in 10 mins. I did the competition as prescribed. I know it’s a cliché but it doesn't get easier, however I was steady and happily exceeded my goal.


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

Congrats!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Pull, jump, squat and push... simple movements packed into the final challenge for CrossFit 22.3. My goal was to do it Rx and make it through round 1. Instead, I made it to round 3! My doubleunders and thrusters were solid and I strung them together quickly (gotta toot my horn on something ) However, I had to dig (very) deep for every individual pull-up. My future game plan is to keep working on strength for pull ups.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

22.3 (for ages +55)
For Time (12 Minute Cap)
21 Jumping Pull-ups
42 Double unders
21 Thrusters (65/45)
18 Pull-ups
36 Double unders
18 Thrusters (85/55)
15 chest to bar pullups
30 Double unders
15 Thrusters (105/65)

The workout for ages 16-54

For time: 21 pull-ups 
42 double-unders 
21 thrusters (M95/F65) 
18 chest-to-bar pull-ups 
36 double-unders 
18 thrusters (115M/F75) 
15 bar muscle-ups 
30 double-unders 
15 thrusters (135M/F85) 

Time cap: 12 minutes

The weight is less for scaled and athletes can single skip


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Does My Body Feel Tight When I Wake Up?*
And what can I do to feel better?











If you regularly wake up with stiff muscles, creaky joints or the general feeling that your body simply isn’t as limber as it was when you went to bed, the first thing to know is that you are not alone. Waking up with a tight body is “almost a universal human experience,” said Maryclaire Capetta, a physical therapist and assistant professor in the department of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut. And, she added, it’s quite common for it to happen every day.

But while feeling stiff in the morning is normal and typically dissipates quickly, it’s also uncomfortable while it lasts. The good news, experts say, is that there are a few tricks you can use — when you feel stiff, and even before the feeling arises — to help you get relief, faster.

*Why you feel stiff*
Most of the time, that tight feeling when you wake up is a result of overnight changes to the lubrication in two different features of the body: the joints and the fascia.
The fascia is a complex group of connective tissues that surround and support the muscles, soft tissues, organs and bones. Think of fascia as a fibrous web that wraps around and through muscle tissue to give it structure and stability. It forms multiple layers, with a gel-like lubricant in between that allows the layers to slide and glide smoothly, and which helps you to feel loose and limber, said Dr. Antonio Stecco, a fascia researcher and professor of rehabilitation medicine at New York University.

In certain situations — like when your body temperature drops, when you’ve been still for an extended time, or when lactic acid builds up in the muscles and fascia during intense exercise — the lubricant becomes thicker and more viscous and the layers of fascia can’t glide as easily, leading to feelings of stiffness.

When you sleep, many of those thickening situations occur: you’re usually still for a long time (say, eight hours) and your body temperature tends to drop.
Your joints may also contribute to feeling stiff in the morning. In healthy joints, a thick fluid lubricates the space between the ends of your bones, which are capped with cartilage, to help them move freely and comfortably. Whenever you’re still for a long period of time (like when you’re sleeping), the cartilage sucks up the lubricant like a sponge, Dr. Capetta said, making your joints feel creaky.

*How to feel better*
The good news is that the remedy for stiffness in the morning — whether it’s caused by your fascia or your joints — is the same: movement.

While you’re still in bed and lying on your back, start by doing a full-body stretch, like a cat or dog does when they first wake up, by extending your legs and arms wide and in opposite directions. Then, try pointing and flexing your toes, or stretching just your arms and torso, mimicking the cliché “just woke up” stretch. To bring fluid back into your joints, try gently bending and unbending your knees and elbows, rolling your wrists and ankles or gently nodding your head from side to side.

If you still feel stiff once you’ve gotten out of bed, try marching in place, continuing to bend and re-bend any joints that feel stiff, Dr. Capetta said. If your back and the sides of your body feel tight, you could try a gentle stretch, like a loose forward hang toward your toes with slightly bent knees, or side bends and cat-cow yoga poses. Studies suggest that a regular yoga practice can be effective in reducing discomfort associated with joint and muscle stiffness and chronic back pain. Do whatever feels good. If you have a dog, taking it out first thing in the morning might get your body’s juices flowing and help you feel nimble more quickly. If it’s cold in the morning, try a hot shower.

While it’s healthy and normal to feel a little tight after a night of stillness, you might feel even more tight if your baseline flexibility is already limited. You can lessen this by staying limber and maintaining an active lifestyle in general. If you don’t already stretch regularly, adding even 15 minutes of stretching to your day may help you feel less stiff upon waking, Dr. Stecco said. If you sit in front of a computer for work, try moving around and changing positions throughout the day.

If you’re waking up frequently with a stiff neck and shoulders, you may want to re-evaluate the position you sleep in most often. If you’re a side sleeper, for example, your pillow should support your head so that your neck is in the same line as your spine. If you consistently wake up with a stiff lower back, you may also want to consider whether your mattress is the culprit. There isn’t one universal mattress type that will cure all tightness, but experts recommend different firmness levels depending on your needs.
If your joint stiffness lasts for longer than an hour after you’ve gotten out of bed and persists for weeks or even months, you should consult with a health care provider, Dr. Capetta said. Joint stiffness that lasts for an hour or longer could be an early indicator of arthritis. You should also see a doctor if you stretch regularly but still feel chronic tightness throughout the day.

Most of the time, morning tightness will naturally recede as you go about your morning. “But everyone has a different threshold for what is bothersome,” Dr. Capetta said. If it troubles you, some movement and stretching first thing in the morning may be enough “to reduce the time or to reduce the impact of this particular experience,” she said — whether it’s a universal one or not.









Why Does My Body Feel Tight When I Wake Up?


And what can I do to feel better?




www.nytimes.com


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## redwarrior (Apr 12, 2007)

Figured I'd post a follow up to the revelation that strength training helped me lose a bunch of weight, etc. Now that riding season is ramping up in New England, I've been out on the mtb as much as possible. It's hard to believe what a difference the light strength work I've done has made! I'm riding farther & longer than I could at my peak in most other seasons. I'm simply nowhere near as physically fatigued as I've been in previous years. I think the core work has more than anything. My posture on the bike is better & I think having that more solid foundation to push the pedals from is helping a lot. I've scaled back on squats & pushups but am doing kb swings, oblique lifts & lat rows for around 20 minutes, 4x per week, mon-thu. I do longer rides fri-sun so those days are all about the bike.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

redwarrior said:


> Figured I'd post a follow up to the revelation that strength training helped me lose a bunch of weight, etc. Now that riding season is ramping up in New England, I've been out on the mtb as much as possible. It's hard to believe what a difference the light strength work I've done has made! I'm riding farther & longer than I could at my peak in most other seasons. I'm simply nowhere near as physically fatigued as I've been in previous years. I think the core work has more than anything. My posture on the bike is better & I think having that more solid foundation to push the pedals from is helping a lot. I've scaled back on squats & pushups but am doing kb swings, oblique lifts & lat rows for around 20 minutes, 4x per week, mon-thu. I do longer rides fri-sun so those days are all about the bike.


Good to hear! We have a similar agenda in terms of mixing the riding with gym time.


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## redwarrior (Apr 12, 2007)

Crankout said:


> Good to hear! We have a similar agenda in terms of mixing the riding with gym time.


 Definitely! I should've started this more than a decade ago


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

redwarrior said:


> Definitely! I should've started this more than a decade ago


Ha! I decided to increase my gym time this past 'off-season' and began incorporating leg-specific lifts. In the past I figured that xc skiing and cycling class took care of my legs, but I changed it up finally.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*A Full-Body Strength Training Workout at Home*

Not long ago, I impulsively bought a set of mini exercise bands — thick rubber loops designed to engage your muscles as you stretch them. I was seduced by ads promising they could improve my posture, which is lousy after years of slumping over a computer. They claimed a handful of quick exercises would unhunch my shoulders while I “tone my muscles” and “sculpt my physique.”

Getting a full-body workout with a set of $20 elastic bands was enticing, since I lack the budget or space for fancy fitness equipment.
The benefits of resistance training — workouts that build strength and muscle — are well known. It reduces your risk of diabetes and heart disease. With more muscle, you burn more calories and are less prone to injury. It’s also been shown to strengthen bones and reduce age-related decline in muscle mass.

Could resistance bands, which are relatively cheap, portable and easy to use, be a worthwhile alternative to a gym membership?

*Bands build strength and endurance.*
The idea of stretchy workout bands is over 100 years old. Some are long, thin tubes; some, like mine, are thick, flat loops with colors designating resistance levels. And they’ve seen a recent resurgence during the pandemic home fitness boom.

Like weights, exercise bands put stress on the muscle, which over time makes the muscle adapt and get stronger. The farther you stretch the band, the greater the resistance.
There are some key differences though. Bands do not rely on gravity, so people cannot use momentum to jerk the weight into position, which can overload the joints and ultimately works less of the muscle, said David Behm, a professor and exercise scientist at Memorial University of Newfoundland’s School of Human Kinetics and Recreation. 

Bands also allow for movement on a number of different planes and axes, he said, whereas free weights limit you to mostly up-and-down movement.
Bands can engage the body’s major muscles just as well as weights, providing a full-body strength and endurance workout, said Todd Ellenbecker, a physical therapist at Rehab Plus Sports Therapy in Scottsdale, Ariz., and an author of the book “Strength Band Training.”

Research supports this. One study of middle-aged women compared 10 weeks of twice-weekly training sessions using elastic bands with a similar program that used weight machines. The women were tested for upper and lower body strength before and after the program, and results showed that muscle mass, strength and endurance improved at a similar rate in both groups. A systematic review of 18 studies also found no significant difference in muscle activation levels between those using elastic bands and those using free weights.

Dr. Ellenbecker said he works with athletes at all levels who exclusively use bands for resistance training, “and they are successful and injury-free.” But, as with any exercise, you need to be consistent with the exercise, he added. The American College of Sports Medicine guidelines call for strength training at least twice a week, with multiple exercises and multiple reps.
And don’t overdo it, he said. “People tend to gravitate toward bands that are way too strong, or they stretch them too far. It never hurts to start light and build yourself up.”

*A well-placed band can improve your form.*
Gerard Burley, founder and owner of a Washington D.C. gym called Sweat DC, said exercise bands may be the best option for people new to strength training and can help you master good technique. For example, a common problem when doing a squat is that the knees buckle in.

“The body’s lazy and likes to take the easiest way out,” said Mr. Burley, who goes by Coach G. A mini band around your legs just above the knees helps prevent this. While squatting, focus on pressing the knees outward to keep the band from slipping, while keeping the head and chest up.

Advanced athletes use them too. For example, tennis players will often anchor a band to a wall or pole and loop the other side around the throat of their racket to add resistance and improve the power of their forehand, backhand or serve, Dr. Behm said.

*Let them help you do a pull-up.*
Exercise bands also provide assistance with hard-to-master exercises like pull-ups, said Vanessa Liu, an online fitness trainer and nutritionist who uses them regularly with clients. In fact, certain bands are designed to loop around a pull-up bar for extra support.
But don’t get too reliant on them. “Eventually you’ll want to take off the band and do it yourself,” Ms. Liu said.

Use them to deepen stretches too. To stretch the hamstring, for example, lie on your back with the looped band around one foot and gently pull that leg toward you, keeping it as straight as you can.
*Target the back muscles for posture.*
Mobility in the body is what allows you to bend over and pick up a box or sit and stand with ease. As we get older, the connective tissues in our joints change, making us stiffer and less flexible.
“People do mobility exercises with bands to improve posture, reduce stiffness and move more freely and fully,” Ms. Liu said. She often works with clients who have developed stiffness in the shoulders and neck from sitting at a computer.

For posture, Dr. Ellenbecker recommends an exercise he calls an “external rotation with retraction,” which works the rotator cuff muscles in the shoulder and the rhomboids in the upper back. Grasp the band in front of you with both hands and your palms facing up. Slowly move your forearms horizontally outward like you’re feeling under a desk, while lifting your chest and squeezing your shoulder blades together. Return to the starting position and repeat.

*Watch your eyes.*
A word of caution: Bands can snap back into your face. Eye injuries have occurred this way.
To prevent this, be sure the band is securely attached to an anchor if the exercise calls for that, avoid pulling it directly toward the face or head and inspect it for nicks and tears before use. (You can purchase anchoring devices designed for use with bands. Securing a band by tying it around a stable object like a tree, table leg or post can work well too.)
But in most cases, a snapping band poses little risk of injury. In fact, if someone breaks a band in Mr. Burley’s classes, everyone cheers.
“It usually doesn’t hurt, so we’ll go, ‘Ooh, you popped it, you’re so strong!’” he said.
As for me, I’ve been doing daily strength training with my mini bands for a few weeks now, and while it’s hard to tell if my posture is improving, I do feel stronger and genuinely enjoy my workouts.

*A few exercises to get started …*
Here are five more exercises that could take the place of classic weight lifting exercises. With all of these workouts, aim for two to three sets, with eight to 12 repetitions (with good form) for each exercise, according to American College of Sports Medicine guidelines. If you have pain or past injuries, talk to your doctor before doing any new exercises.

*Glute bridge*
Loop mini band just above the knees. Lie on your back with feet flat, and knees bent and shoulder-width apart. Lift your hips while pushing the knees outward until your body forms a straight line from shoulders to knees, and then slowly return to starting position. Repeat. *Works the glutes and hamstrings.*

*Row*
Sit on the floor with legs extended, back straight. Loop the resistance band around the soles of your feet. Grip the band with your right hand, and pull it back toward your right hipbone, while squeezing the shoulder blades together and keeping your back straight. Return to starting position. Repeat on the other side. *Works upper back, middle back and biceps.*

*Monster walk*
Place the mini band around your thighs, above the knees. Bend hips and knees slightly. Keeping your head and chest up, take a step to one side while keeping the other leg pressed against the band. Keep moving sideways in one direction in a shuffling motion. Repeat the other direction. Maintain posture while stepping and keep the knees pushed apart. *Works glutes and quadriceps.*

*Deadlift*
This works best with a long looped band. Stand on the middle of the band with your feet hip-width apart. A loop of the band should be poking out from under the sides of each foot. Squat down and grab each loop. Start the movement by bending at the hips with your back flat and shoulders above your toes. Keeping your back flat, stand back up. As you stand, the resistance should increase. Return to the starting point by bending at the hips. *Works legs, glutes and core.*

*Lying chest press*
Lie flat on your back with a long band under the shoulder blades. Grasp the end of the bands and, with elbows bent and fists toward the ceiling, extend your arms fully, pushing upward as you stretch the band. The movement is similar to a chest press with dumbbells or a barbell. *Works biceps, triceps and chest.*









A Full-Body Strength Training Workout at Home


If you’re willing to be creative, a set of elastic bands can be as effective as a gym full of weights.




www.nytimes.com


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

Good warning on not aiming at the face or eyes. 

Plenty of humorous videos on youtube of failing while using a band. The one of the band (stretched from the pull up bar) slipping off the foot while helping a pull up and ending up across the crotch, brings tears to the eyes of everyone.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

ZX11 said:


> Good warning on not aiming at the face or eyes.
> 
> Plenty of humorous videos on youtube of failing while using a band. The one of the band (stretched from the pull up bar) slipping off the foot while helping a pull up and ending up across the crotch, brings tears to the eyes of everyone.


I've used resistance bands looped over the rack for assisted pullups. Yup! My foot slipped and I was snapped! I changed the band set up and haven't had that "problem" since 

Sharing this instructive video on pull up progressions using bands. I found the tips as really helpful


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

cyclelicious said:


> *A Full-Body Strength Training Workout at Home*
> 
> Not long ago, I impulsively bought a set of mini exercise bands — thick rubber loops designed to engage your muscles as you stretch them. I was seduced by ads promising they could improve my posture, which is lousy after years of slumping over a computer. They claimed a handful of quick exercises would unhunch my shoulders while I “tone my muscles” and “sculpt my physique.”
> 
> ...


Look into the X3 bar. It’s 100% resistance bands developed by a legit Dr (he also developed and patented Osteo Strong). It’s legit and the best band workout on the market and 100% based on actual science and physiology of the human body and how muscles work.


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## stripes (Sep 6, 2016)

Brules said:


> Look into the X3 bar. It’s 100% resistance bands developed by a legit Dr (he also developed and patented Osteo Strong). It’s legit and the best band workout on the market and 100% based on actual science and physiology of the human body and how muscles work.


Do you have a link to it? I’m looking for a way to do lat pulldowns at home, and it’s been a challenge to find something worthwhile.


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

Warning:
Q
1) it’s not cheap but it’s a whole system with bands specific to it
2) it’s designed for 4 movements a day. 2 up 2 down cadence to failure 1 rep.
3) go join their Facebook group and just observe. You’ll see literally hundreds of transformations use just the x3, just 4 exercises a day for 20 minutes. It seems too good to be true but it works. I have one and it will humble anyone no matter their physical strength.

Before Pooh Poohing it, dig into dr Js science behind it. He cites literally anything he says and can back it all up with studies etc.

I used to bench 415 and squat 550+ In HS - and this thing in 20 min destroys me like no other workout I’ve ever done. I can’t even use the black band yet lol let alone the 600lb orange monster elite band.

Look into it. I won’t go back. I have the carry case and take it when I travel. Hotel room workout has never been easier.

FB Group is: X3 Bar Users Group

Just lurk it and read old posts. It’s eye opening.


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## stripes (Sep 6, 2016)

Brules said:


> Warning:
> Q
> 1) it’s not cheap but it’s a whole system with bands specific to it
> 2) it’s designed for 4 movements a day. 2 up 2 down cadence to failure 1 rep.
> ...


No thanks. If there’s another way besides lurking a Facebook group, I’ll be interested.


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## Brules (Jul 10, 2021)

Haha here you go. He discusses a lot of the science behind it while showing how it works. That orange band he references is a 600lb band.

X3 Bar with Dr J


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

I stopped going to the gym during Covid. Back before covid I’d typically lift on the light side—always seemed to have some joint complaining. Inspired by Fast After Fifty and his other training books I’ve had for awhile, I decided to get serious about lifting for cycling. Over the winter I got a rack with cable attachment, bench, barbell, and some dumbbells. I didn’t get to the maximum strength benchmarks he recommends this first offseason, but I did make some good progress. I have transitioned to strength maintenance now that the training on the bike becomes the focus, and I’m also hitting some PT to try and clear up some nagging things. I’m convinced strength training is crucial for masters, and I can feel the difference on the bike. It leaned me up a bit, even as my weight stayed about the same.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

Dunnigan said:


> I stopped going to the gym during Covid. Back before covid I’d typically lift on the light side—always seemed to have some joint complaining. Inspired by Fast After Fifty and his other training books I’ve had for awhile, I decided to get serious about lifting for cycling.


How are the joints after getting back into lifting? Better? Worse?

Joints are my issue before getting into lifting. Elbows now have some issues where i have over stressed some small elbow muscles. Back hand movements on right arm are the big pain in that elbow. Knees feel better normally for me but they are noisy when squatting or dead lifts. Noise stays there for all reps but no pain. Bubbles releasing in knees?


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

ZX11 said:


> How are the joints after getting back into lifting? Better? Worse?
> 
> Joints are my issue before getting into lifting. Elbows now have some issues where i have over stressed some small elbow muscles. Back hand movements on right arm are the big pain in that elbow. Knees feel better normally for me but they are noisy when squatting or dead lifts. Noise stays there for all reps but no pain. Bubbles releasing in knees?


Joints (a wrist, a shoulder, and a knee) are better, but not 100%. I’ll take what I can get. I was surprised that back squats with free weights and good form have been better than leg presses with a machine. I started with just body weight and gradually increased with dumbbells and then the barbell. Another key to improvement this off-season has been seeing a sports medicine doc doing PT on the knee and legs. PT has been invaluable in identifying weaknesses, muscle imbalances, and flexibility needs, and targeting those for improvement. Shoulda done that years ago.


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## Hrodulf (12 mo ago)

Compound exercises for me 

Squats...
Bench press...
Military press...
Lat pulldown...

Topped off with some planking. That's what I do and that is what works for me.

I skip deadlifts b/c after my squats I'm typically done. Low number of reps, max weight.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

During the pandemic people were looking for alternatives to gyms, social connections through social media etc It was not my thing but I can see the appeal. Peloton and other companies like Zwift rode the pandemic wave but now that things are stabilizing people are going back to their old routines or moving on to new frontiers. Peloton is temporarily halting production of its connected fitness products as consumer demand wanes 


*Breaking Up With Peloton*
The stationary bike’s convenience made it a pandemic winner, but some former fans are done working out at home.










During the first two years of the pandemic, Kristi Falzon, who lives in Chicago, used her Peloton every day. “It was a godsend,” she said. She could exercise in her spare bedroom between Zoom meetings without worrying about other people’s germs.

But lately the spark has gone out. Last month, Ms. Falzon, 39, listed the stationary bike on Facebook Marketplace. She paid $2,650 for her Peloton and accessories, but after a month of waiting for buyers, she begrudgingly sold it for $1,100.

“I wanted to sell it before everybody else did,” she said. “The more we get back to civilization, the more people will start selling them.”

Peloton, once the darling of pandemic home workouts, has had a rough few months, losing $439 million and laying off 20 percent of its work force as exercisers return to the gym. Planet Fitness added 1.7 million new members in 2021 and opened 132 new locations, the company said. At Crunch, membership in the United States has “increased 34 percent since pre-Covid levels,” said Jim Rowley, the chief executive of Crunch Worldwide.

The biggest increase, Mr. Rowley said, has come in just the last month, as people return to group classes. At Kondition Fitness in Boulder, Colo., which offers spin and barre, the owner Emma Straight said business is up 30 percent since its lowest point in 2020.Whether it’s for camaraderie, motivation or just a change of scenery, some Peloton enthusiasts are starting to rethink it as their “ride or die” workout.

*People miss being around other people.*
A group workout class “provides three things that are really needed right now: connection, hope and empowerment,” said Kelly McGonigal, the author of “The Joy of Movement” and a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University.

When you move with other people, particularly in synchrony, “you feel a sense of belonging and connectedness,” Dr. McGonigal said. Some studies suggest that synchronous movement, like dancing, makes people feel more bonded than solo activity and that group fitness programs have more mental health benefits than individual ones. In a small 2013 study, synchronized rowers displayed a higher pain tolerance after the workout than those who rowed alone.

Since Oregon lifted its mask mandate in March, Danielle Massari, who owns the StarCycle spin studio in Portland, has seen “a steady 10 percent increase in riders every week,” many of whom told her they left a pandemic Peloton at home. It’s not just that you can work harder without a mask, said Dr. McGonigal; it’s also that we often take our cues from the emotions of those around us. It’s simply easier to bond with someone when you can see their face.

Molly Taylor, 31, started using her Peloton less as soon as the OrangeTheory Fitness near her Los Angeles home reopened. One of the biggest draws is the socialization, said Ms. Taylor, who is single and works from home. “Some days, it’s the only way I interact with other humans.”

*Easy access also means easy interruption.*
At the beginning of the pandemic, Paige Van Otten, a stay-at-home mother in Seattle, loved that she could sneak in a quick Peloton workout while her toddler napped.
“You think, ‘Oh, it’s so convenient, I can do it anytime,’” she said. “But really, I could only do it at nap time. I started to resent how limiting that felt.”
Last fall, when her daughter started preschool and her gym reopened, Ms. Van Otten, 34, went back to her gym and started a weight lifting program there. “I like it a lot better,” she said. “I feel like a true adult and not just a parent.”

Exercising outside your home can give you “a separate space, free of other responsibilities, where you spend time doing something that’s just for you,” said Pirkko Markula, a sociologist at the University of Alberta who studies the fitness industry.

The more you limit the likelihood of interruption, the more productive your workout will be, said Elizabeth Leonard, who teaches at the Barre3 studio in Brookline, Mass. When she’s tried to exercise in her living room, “I’ll get distracted, like, ‘wow, I can see underneath the couch, I need to vacuum,’” she said. “If you’re half thinking about something else, it’s much harder to focus.”

*There’s no replacement for a real-life instructor.*
Ms. Taylor said that she sometimes slacks off on her Peloton because “there’s nobody watching me do it.” She works harder in an OrangeTheory class because the coach will notice her phoning it in.

Despite the cultlike followings some Peloton instructors draw, they’re limited in the personal encouragement they can offer; the closest thing is a brief on-screen “shout-out” to a rider celebrating a milestone.

At an in-person spin class, a participant is more than just a user name, Ms. Massari said. “When we say, ‘go Kim! You’re looking great!’ we know exactly who Kim is, we know she’s getting married in three weeks.”

In Ms. Leonard’s barre classes, participants can wear an orange “consent band” on their wrist to indicate that they’re comfortable with her touching them to correct their form.
About 90 percent of people now wear them, she said, a “huge increase” from when the studio reopened last summer. “It’s like people are saying, ‘yes, get in my personal space, I want to feel connected, I want to feel supported.’”

*Gamification can be wearying.*
Steve Perkins, 71, bought a Peloton in December 2020 and rode it every day for six months. “I’m a stats guy,” he said. “I didn’t realize how hooked I’d get on the leaderboard.”
Some research shows that adding gamification to exercise can be hugely motivating. In a 2017 study, 200 adults tracked their steps for 12 weeks, with half the group competing against family members as they earned points and progressed through levels. Those playing the game nearly tripled the number of steps they normally took.

For some people, the competition — and the numerical proof of progress — may have been extra appealing during the pandemic, which has brought so much uncertainty, Dr. Markula said. “If you can put a number on it, maybe you can feel like you’ve achieved something.”

But it can be a relief to put that aside too. Mr. Perkins’s attempts to dominate the leaderboard came to a head when he “pushed it too hard” and injured himself. A few weeks ago, he decided to sell the bike and focus on how exercising made him feel, rather than how many competitors he could crush.

“I’m going back to walks with my dogs,” he said. “Good 71-year-old type stuff.”

*But Peloton still offers some advantages.*
Shibani Faehnle, 41, who lives in Cleveland, said she likes Peloton’s convenience, variety of programming and the fact that she can choose from a more diverse range of instructors than are available at the gyms in her neighborhood. Ms. Faehnle, who is Indian American, said, “I wish fitness studios would pay more attention to creating a diverse experience, because that would actually entice me back.”

Brienne Rosman, who lives in Dallas, said she’s found a vibrant community online in unofficial Peloton groups like the popular #hardCORE on the Floor, which has grown to 350,000 members. “I have no interest in going back to a gym,” said Ms. Rosman, 42. In February, she bought a Peloton treadmill too.
Still, until Peloton reopens its New York and London studios this summer, some devotees are choosing to return to in-person exercise elsewhere, and are finding it surprisingly emotional.

“We’ve seen some tears of joy,” Ms. Straight said. “A lot of people have told us they didn’t even realize what they were missing until they came back.”










Breaking Up With Peloton


The stationary bike’s convenience made it a pandemic winner, but some former fans are done working out at home.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*10 Myths that Keep You From Getting Fit After 50*


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to Master the Push-Up*
With proper technique, you can get the most out of this simple, yet powerful exercise.

Simple, strenuous and possible to do almost anywhere, push-ups are an almost universally known exercise and a mainstay of military, sport and fitness training regimens. Push-ups are a “basic, foundational movement,” said James Whitener III, a strength and conditioning coach at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida.
Because it requires a cognizance of the body’s position from head to toe, the exercise helps to develop something called kinesthetic awareness — an understanding of how one’s body moves through space. This awareness, in turn, can help exercisers develop a sense of their body’s ability and prepare them for “bigger, more complex movements,” like dead lifts or squats, he said.
But getting the most out of push-ups requires good technique. Here’s what you need to know.
*What makes push-ups great*
Push-ups hone your chest, shoulders and arms — particularly the deltoid, triceps and pectoral muscles — but they’re really a full body movement. “We think of it as an upper body exercise, but it’s also working the core muscles and building coordination as well,” Mr. Whitener said. Holding your body in a rigid plank position while executing a push-up activates your core muscles and can even require some work from your legs too.
“They’re very versatile, because they just target so many things at once,” said Tessia De Mattos, a physical therapist and strength, conditioning and performance rehabilitation coach at The Strength Athlete.

*How to do a push-up*
To start, get into a classic plank position with your palms on the ground, arms slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and your palms about even with your shoulders. Mastering regular planks is important, Dr. De Mattos said, because “if you can’t do a full plank with proper form, you’re going to have difficulty performing a full push-up.”








Step 1
Your body should form a straight line, with your legs fully extended behind you and your hips, knees and ankles aligned.
To ensure that you’re using good form, try filming yourself with a smartphone, advised Hampton Liu, a personal trainer, fitness influencer and founder of Hybrid Calisthenics. “You don’t have to show anyone your video! You can even delete it immediately afterward. It’s just for you.”
Two common mistakes, Dr. De Mattos said, are letting your belly sag or arching your lower back rather than keeping it aligned with the rest of your body.
*How many?*
How many repetitions you should do depends on your current ability and your objectives. For the average person who is trying to get healthier, fitter and stronger, the best approach is to aim for momentary failure — the point of fatigue where you can’t complete another rep with good form — rather than a specific number of repetitions, said Patroklos Androulakis-Korakakis, a researcher at Solent University in England and strength coach at StrongerByScience.com.

“By reaching momentary failure, or at least getting very close to it, people can ensure that they’re getting a sufficient enough stimulus for strength and hypertrophy adaptations,” he said.
If you can’t do more than a handful of repetitions before reaching this point, you can try some of the easier variations below. As you progress, you can switch back to standard push-ups and then move on to more difficult variations to increase the difficulty as you get stronger, Dr. Androulakis-Korakakis said.
*To make the push-up easier …*
“There’s no reason to be ashamed if you can’t do a push-up. Fitness is a journey and we all start somewhere,” Mr. Liu said in a video about push-ups. If you can’t yet do a push-up, “you can build up,” he added.









*Wall push-up*
If you’re just starting out, Mr. Liu suggested trying wall push-ups. Stand facing a wall at arm’s length, and place your hands about shoulder-width apart against it. Lean in until your face almost touches the wall, then push back to your starting position. Do as many reps as you can, and when this gets easy, you can progress to a kneeling push-up.

*Kneeling push-up*
If you can’t quite do a standard push-up yet, you can give yourself a bit of a boost by initiating the movement from a kneeling position, which reduces the amount of load you’re putting on your arms, shoulders and chest, Dr. De Mattos said.

*To make the push-up harder …*
As you become more proficient at doing push-ups, you’ll need to do more of them to reach the point of momentary failure. Performing exercises to this point can maximize motor unit and muscle fiber recruitment, Dr. Androulakis-Korakakis said, which in turn will stimulate adaptations and make you stronger. “Reaching momentary failure is a great way to ensure people are getting the most out of each set.” Here are some ways to get you there.

*Raised leg push-up*
Once you become adept at standard push-ups, you can increase the difficulty by starting the push-up movement with your feet elevated above you, Mr. Liu said. Starting with a few books on the ground underneath your feet should provide some noticeable difference, he said. From there, you can try a short stool (maybe a foot off the ground) and then work up to a chair or even a railing.


*Narrow (or diamond) push-up*
These are a more difficult push-up variation that you do by holding your hands together with your thumbs and forefingers touching in a way that creates a diamond-shaped hole where your hands come together. You can work your way up to these by simply moving your hands a little closer together until that becomes easy, then moving them closer and closer until eventually they finally touch, Mr. Liu said.

*Weighted push-up*
When you can do sets of 10 push-ups easily, you can turn up the difficulty by placing a small weight plate on your back to increase the weight you’re pushing. If you’re doing these at home and don’t have weights, you can throw a few heavy books in a backpack and use that as a weight, Dr. De Mattos said. The extra weight shouldn’t be so much that you can’t do more than a couple, but should be enough to get you to the point of momentary failure in about ten reps or less.

*One armed push-up*
These require excellent core strength to keep your body in position as you push up with a single arm, Mr. Liu said. “It’s a great core exercise.” The trick here is to use your legs and core to keep your body stable as you push up with a single arm. Spreading your feet further apart can help you stabilize yourself as you go.
There are lots of ways to do push-ups, Mr. Liu said. “Find one you can do, and work it.” As you get stronger you can progress to a harder version.










How to Master the Push-Up


With proper technique, you can get the most out of this simple, yet powerful exercise.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I completed "Murph" 1mile run (1.6km); 100 pull ups; 200 pushups; 300 squats; 1 mile run. Started off in the drizzle; ended in the mist 

I had to do it without the weighted vest (there weren't enough to go around) but I finished with a good time 41:46 (time cap was 60min) I was the oldest female doing the comp.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is B.M.I. a Scam?*

There are few single measures in health care that seem to carry as much weight as body mass index, or B.M.I. We encounter it not just at doctor’s offices, but with online calculators and smart scales, at gyms and even when determining eligibility for the Covid vaccine.
Its formula is simple: Take your weight (in kilograms), and divide by the square of your height (in meters). The result, which slots you into one of four main categories, is meant to describe your body in a single word or two: underweight (B.M.I. less than 18.5), normal weight (18.5 to 24.9), overweight (25.0 to 29.9) or obese (30 or greater).
Many feel judged by these categories, given that only about a quarter of adults in the United States can call themselves “normal” on the B.M.I. scale. But after talking with an epidemiologist, two obesity medicine physicians, a health psychologist and a sociologist, none claimed that B.M.I. was a very useful measure of a person’s health. And, in fact, some said they would indeed call it a scam.

*How is B.M.I. useful?*
Introduced in the 1830s by a Belgian statistician who wanted to quantitatively describe the “average man,” the calculation was named the body mass index and popularized in the 1970s by the Minnesota physiologist Ancel Keys. At the time, Dr. Keys was irritated that life insurance companies were estimating people’s body fat — and hence, their risk of dying — by comparing their weights with the average weights of others of the same height, age and gender. In a 1972 study of more than 7,000 healthy, mostly middle-aged men, Dr. Keys and his colleagues showed that the body mass index was a more accurate — and far simpler — predictor of body fat than the methods used by the insurance industry.

“It is a very useful tool in epidemiologic research,” said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Research has shown that across large groups of people, higher B.M.I. is generally associated with greater risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer, she said. On average, people with a higher body mass index have more body fat, so it can be useful for tracking rates of obesity, which have nearly tripled globally over the last several decades. It also has a “J-shaped” relationship with mortality; very low and very high B.M.I.s are associated with greater risk of dying sooner, whereas the “normal” to “overweight” range is associated with lower mortality risk.
As Dr. Keys found, B.M.I. is also easy and inexpensive to measure, which is why it is still used in research studies and doctor’s offices today.

*Does it accurately describe individual health?*
For all its utility as a research tool, though, body mass index is “fairly useless when looking at the individual,” said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa.
B.M.I. can’t tell, for instance, what percentage of a person’s weight is from their fat, muscle or bone. This explains why muscular athletes often have high B.M.I.s despite having little body fat. And as people age, it’s common to lose muscle and bone mass but gain abdominal fat, a change in body composition that would be concerning for health but might go unnoticed if it didn’t change a person’s B.M.I., Dr. Manson said.
The measure also does a poor job of predicting a person’s metabolic health. In a 2016 study of more than 40,000 adults in the United States, researchers compared people’s B.M.I.s with more specific measurements of their health, like their insulin resistance, markers of inflammation and blood pressure, triglyceride, cholesterol and glucose levels. Nearly half of those classified as overweight and about a quarter of those classified as obese were metabolically healthy by these measures. On the other hand, 31 percent of those with a “normal” body mass index were metabolically unhealthy.

B.M.I. can “label a huge swath of our population as somehow aberrant because of their weight, even if they’re perfectly healthy,” said A. Janet Tomiyama, lead author of the study and an associate professor of health psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Another problem with B.M.I. is that it was developed and validated mostly in white men, said Sabrina Strings, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. But body composition and its relationship with health can vary depending on your gender, race and ethnicity. “Women and people of color are largely not represented in many of these data,” Dr. Strings said. “Nevertheless, they’re being used to create a universal standard.”

*Can B.M.I. be harmful?*
It can be if it’s used to set arbitrary goal posts for body size. Dr. Rekha Kumar, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College, said that some patients who have lost weight and reached what she sees as their “healthy, happy weight,” but who still have a high B.M.I., may feel that they have to unnecessarily or unrealistically drop more pounds to be considered normal on the scale.
It can also be harmful if a doctor assumes that a person with a normal body mass index is healthy, and doesn’t probe them about potentially unhealthy habits they may have, like following a poor diet or not getting enough physical activity, Dr. Freedhoff said. And if the doctors of patients with higher B.M.I.s focus on weight alone as the cause of any health issues they may have, the doctors may miss more important diagnoses and risk stigmatizing patients.
There is plenty of evidence that weight stigma is harmful, Dr. Tomiyama said. Research has shown that anti-fat bias is common among medical doctors, which can result in lower quality care and cause patients to avoid or delay medical attention. People who have felt discriminated against because of heavier weight are also about 2.5 times more likely to have mood or anxiety disorders, and are more likely to gain weight and have a shorter life expectancy.
“You can see a situation where this hyper focus on body mass index, and that there are allowable and unallowable B.M.I.s, could be highly stigmatizing,” Dr. Tomiyama said. “And that stigma in turn could ironically be driving future increases in weight.”

This burden may fall disproportionately on Black Americans, Dr. Strings said, who as a group tend to have higher B.M.I.s than white Americans — especially among Black women. Yet evidence suggests that having a higher B.M.I. is not as clearly linked to earlier death in Black Americans. If doctors only focus on body mass index, Dr. Strings said, they may be more likely to blame their patients’ health issues on their B.M.I. or counsel their Black patients to lose weight.
In her own research, Dr. Strings has traced the origins of fat phobia in the Western world to the time of slavery, when Black women were “deemed to be excessively corpulent,” she said, as a way of positioning them as inferior to white women.
Dr. Strings argued that focusing on body mass index as a measure of health only distracts from the more important work of addressing the structural factors that lead to poor health, like “poverty, racism, lack of access to healthy fruits and vegetables” and environmental toxins, she said. “But instead, we just keep wanting to vilify fat people.”

*If B.M.I. isn’t important to monitor for health, what is?*
If you’re concerned about your weight, a more direct and relevant way to gauge potentially unhealthy body fat is to measure your waist circumference, Dr. Manson said. This estimates abdominal fat, which lies deep within the abdomen and accumulates around vital organs. In excess, it can increase the risk of certain obesity-related conditions like Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. It is also more harmful than subcutaneous fat — the soft fat you can pinch with your fingers that lies in a layer just beneath the skin.
But in Dr. Freedhoff’s weight management clinic, he and his team don’t set patient goals around B.M.I., weight or waist circumference at all. “We discuss something we call ‘best weight,’ which is whatever weight a person reaches when they’re living the healthiest life they can actually enjoy,” he said. If a patient’s weight is negatively affecting their health or quality of life, Dr. Freedhoff and his colleagues will explore weight loss strategies including lifestyle changes, medication or, in some cases, surgery. But if it’s not, Dr. Freedhoff tells patients that they may already be at their healthy weight, regardless of their B.M.I.
Rather than focusing on body size as a gauge of health, Dr. Tomiyama said that your blood glucose, triglyceride and blood pressure results can be better windows into your well-being. How you _feel_ in your body is important, too, she said. “Can you go up a flight of stairs and feel good about how you feel after that? How are you able to live your life in the body that you have?” she said.
If you’re seeking better health, prioritize behaviors that are more within your control than your body mass index, Dr. Tomiyama said, like “better sleep, more exercise, getting a handle on stress and eating more fruits and vegetables.”









Is B.M.I. a Scam? (Published 2021)


It can be a helpful health measure for large groups of people, but it won’t tell you much about yourself.




www.nytimes.com


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## Lenny7 (Sep 1, 2008)

Gotta listen to you body. Was in the gym 4-5 day a week for years. About 2 years ago I felt a slight pain in my inner elbow., but kept lifting and trying to work around it. Fast forward 2 years and I have chronic golfers elbow and partially torn UCL tendon in my elbow. Find out next week if I'm having surgery. Tried everything else.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

Lenny7 said:


> Gotta listen to you body. Was in the gym 4-5 day a week for years. About 2 years ago I felt a slight pain in my inner elbow., but kept lifting and trying to work around it. Fast forward 2 years and I have chronic golfers elbow and partially torn UCL tendon in my elbow. Find out next week if I'm having surgery. Tried everything else.


Ouch, chronic. Good luck with the repairs.

I had golfer's elbow on my left arm. Couldn't curl weight palm up. Had to do hammer curls (hold it vertical) or slightly backhanded. Looking at my right arm, I decided mid curl to rotate to back hand a bit, to match the left side, and had immediate pain. So that is tennis elbow on the right arm, now. Left is good these days and I am nursing the right arm which is getting better. It is the tiny muscles for me that control my hand tilt under load. Maybe I need more warm up? Wrist braces?


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

A few months ago I had what I believe to be something akin to Tennis Elbow, so I had to ease up on the weight loads. It seems to have subsided on it's own, but it was relatively painful.


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## Stonerider (Feb 25, 2008)

My "tennis elbow" comes and goes. I wish I knew how to treat it holistically.


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## GlazedHam (Jan 14, 2004)

Stonerider said:


> My "tennis elbow" comes and goes. I wish I knew how to treat it holistically.


I had tennis elbow for a half dozen or so years. I basically just ignored it as best as possible ...I have not taken any "western" pain relievers, anti-inflamitories or any medicine at all for about 20 years. I recently got tired of all the pains of being old and started do more yoga, massage, meditation and other recovery techniques including diet. N=1 study, but a massage gun really, really help the elbo.


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## ddoh (Jan 11, 2017)

I've had success with CBD lotion.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

Go talk to the doc and figure out what it really is if the pain is long term. A sports specialist, perhaps. Tendon, muscle (re-injuring it), cartilage, etc. Mine was muscle obviously as it is healing kinda fast, since March. Backhand motion issues.


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## Emtboldguy (10 mo ago)

For tendon injuries do negatives. Use a dumbbell with light weight, use good hand to help with concentric lift, let affected arm do the ecentric. Three sets high reps twice a day followed by day of rest. Do it for a month and avoid anything that twinges the tendon (other than the negatives obviously). When healed strengthen muscles in affected area so you aren't lifting carrying playing with tendon alone. That's how you got here.


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## BansheeRune (Nov 27, 2011)

The trouble with tendonitis is that when you start to feel better, you piss it off all over again cause of impatience! Get it healed up loooong before overuse. It takes time for tendons to heal, lotsa time.


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## 2sharp7 (Aug 29, 2013)

I've recently in the past few months, started weight lifting again. I weight train at about 5 days a week, with 2 of those days doing things like dead lifts, squats, front squats, cleans, leg press, leg curls, and lunges. YES I do believe it is helping me become a stronger rider!


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## rod9301 (Oct 30, 2004)

You should research wave shock therapy.

Really worked for me three times for tendon issues

Sent from my moto g 5G using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What Your Body Actually Needs During Different Types of Endurance Exercise*









Hydration is only one piece of the nutrition puzzle faced by endurance athletes, so at Precision Hydration we get a lot of questions about how to fuel activity as well as how to best stay hydrated. Here’s a fairly high-level overview of how to meet both your hydration and nutritional needs during endurance exercise. It’s based on a combination of recent peer-reviewed science (and a healthy dose of personal experience).

There are numerous subtleties that you can only ever figure out based on the individual nature of your own body and the situations you find yourself in. Hopefully this post will give you a good sense of the right direction in which to set off experimenting during training so you can be ready for your race-day and training nutrition and hydration needs.

*What Does Your Body Actually Need During Endurance Exercise?*
No matter what kind of activity you’re doing, whenever you’re exercising hard for several hours at a time your body loses water and sodium in sweat. It also burns calories, mostly in the form of carbohydrates stored in your muscles and liver.

_Water, salt and calories are therefore essentially the main “costs” of doing an endurance event._

The nuts and bolts of any sensible nutrition plan should therefore be largely based on replacing varying proportions of each of these three items to enable you to sustain your performance.

When it comes to fueling, I find it helpful to break activities down into three broad categories:


“Short” activities (less than roughly 90 minutes)
“Medium to Long” activities (roughly 90 minutes to four hours)
“Ultra” activities (four hours+)
Each of these categories demands a different approach when it comes to hydration and energy replenishment.

*Short Activities (90 Minutes or Less)*
*Before You Start*
Make sure you begin whatever you’re doing topped up with fluids, electrolytes and carbohydrates. Trying to make up for a deficit if you start a bit dehydrated or energy depleted by eating and drinking during the activity itself is definitely leaving it too late. You really cannot play catch up, especially with hydration, during heavy activity.

*While You’re Sweating*
If you start most shorter activities properly fueled and hydrated, there’s usually little to be gained from taking in large amounts of anything, be that water, electrolytes or calories during the activity itself.

Your body has what it needs to last this long in reserve (even at a relatively high intensity) and you can simply refuel and rehydrate afterward (ideally within 30 minutes of finishing) to replenish stores for next time.

This doesn’t mean you categorically shouldn’t consume anything during exercise lasting less than 90 minutes. You should absolutely still listen to your body and eat or drink if you feel you really need to (and it’s also a bright idea to eat and drink something if you’re training again very soon afterward so you don’t start the next bout of activity really depleted). However, it’s worth understanding that the impact the nutritional intake is going to have on your performance during the race or session itself is probably quite negligible.

A slight exception to this rule might be if you are competing at the elite end of the spectrum in very high intensity aerobic events. There is some evidence that ingesting small amounts of a carb-based drink (or even just rinsing it your mouth) can be beneficial to your performance under these circumstances.

Essentially the “mouth rinse effect” is thought to be because receptors in the mouth shout to the brain, “Sugar is coming!” (even if you just spit the drink out), and your brain then allows your body to work harder than it otherwise would, tricking you into putting out a stronger performance than might otherwise be possible. For a decent summary of the idea see this post from Asker Jeukendrup.

This, along with keeping topped up for subsequent sessions or events, is one of the reasons why we still sometimes recommend having a bottle of electrolyte drink available to sip during shorter events if convenient.

*Medium to Long Activities (about 90 minutes to 4 hours)*
It’s during medium-to-long sessions that fluid intake and carbohydrate fueling in particular start to have more of an impact on performance.

There’s a whole heap of research out there on the effects of carbohydrate ingestion on performance during longer periods of aerobic exercise. A 2013 paper called The use of carbohydrates during exercise as an ergogenic aid gives a decent overview if you want to dig into some of the technical details without doing your own PhD on the subject.

The bottom line from all that research is that the current consensus is that taking in around 60g of carbohydrate per hour is optimal for most endurance athletes doing two to four hour activities. Think more like 40g/hr if you’re a smaller person and not working at a high intensity, but maybe as high as 90g/hr if you’re bigger or going really hard. This carbohydrate can come from a range of sources including drinks, bars, gels and “real” foods (if their composition allows for easy consumption and digestion).

*Before You Start*
Again, it’s important to make sure you begin whatever you’re doing well hydrated and fueled. Trying to make up for a deficit is definitely leaving it too late.

*While You’re Sweating*
About 90 minutes to two hours is usually the threshold at which sweat losses can become significant, so fluid needs must be considered along with refueling at this point too.

If you’re using a hypotonic sports drink (i.e. a lower concentration than your blood) then, unlike isotonic drinks, they don’t deliver all of the carbs you’re likely to need during your activity (but they absorb faster and are better at achieving the specific goal of hydrating you).

_Your fueling and hydration intake need to be tweaked in proportion to one another based on sweat loss and fluid absorption._

Bear in mind that if you don’t decrease your calorie intake from solid or semi-solid foods at times when fluid intake is very high, it can be a recipe for GI distress. This is a major reason why traditional isotonic sports drinks (i.e. those with a lot of carbs, making them a similar concentration to your blood) can be very difficult to live with during longer and/or hotter events. That’s because your need for fluid starts to be proportionally greater than they can comfortably deliver via your water bottle without overdosing you on sugar.

In my own experience, using more highly processed “simple” sports nutrition products like gels or jelly chews along with carb-based hypotonic sports drinks tends to work best because they reduce the amount of effort your body needs to put into chewing them, digesting them and getting the sugars into your bloodstream.

These kind of events are also not quite long enough for you to get really sick of sweeter products and flavors, so it’s usually possible to get to the end without suffering the kind of nausea that so often occurs when you rely too heavily on sugar as your main source of calories during longer events.

How you get the majority of your carbs is up to you. Most energy gels contain about 20 to 25 grams of carbs per pack, and energy bars contain as much as 35 to 40 grams per serving.

If you prefer your carbs a bit more “old school,” then eight jelly beans contain 42g, so this could do the trick along side typical carb-based hypotonic sports drinks. Or, if you want to go 100 percent natural, you could go for about 1.5 bananas, as they tend to contain around 25 to 30g of carbs per fruit (although what you’d do the leftover half, I’m not exactly sure).

*“Ultra” Activities (4 hours+)*
*Before You Start*
As with shorter activities, it’s crucial to make sure you begin an ultra-distance event or session well hydrated and fueled. It’s part of the reason we make a big deal about preloading with higher sodium drinks before these events. If you try to make up for a deficit during the activity, you’re highly unlikely to perform at your best.

*While You’re Sweating*
The required rate of fluid and carbohydrate ingestion for ultras is not dramatically different to what you should be aiming for during medium to long events. You’re still limited by the absorption rates in the gut for carbs and fluids, so the ~60g/hr and ~1 liter/hour maximums still apply. However, there are some notable differences to how we’d generally advise approaching fueling for longer events.


Because you’re going to be out there for much longer, there’s a lot to be said for introducing more variety into your energy and fluid intake so that you don’t become sick of the taste of any one thing.
You’ll be going at a lower intensity than you would for shorter events, so chewing and digesting more “real” solid foods becomes a lot easier. This opens up a much wider range of possibilities for your race day menu. It also tends to keep your stomach a lot happier than asking it to process nothing but syrupy, sugary goo for hours on end.
Your sodium intake (along with appropriate amounts of fluid) become far more important during ultra distance events because the risk of hyponatremia increases along with total sweat losses. So, it’s more important than ever to be getting an appropriate level of electrolytes in with your drinks. Of course this is not likely to be a problem if you’re using the right strength electrolyte drink for you, but it’s definitely worth making sure you have a solid understanding of this. If you haven’t already, take our free Online Sweat Test if you want to make sure you’re getting this right.
Listening to your body becomes a critical component of staying properly fueled and hydrated during ultra-distance events. This is because the longer the event goes on, the harder it becomes to predict how your body’s internal chemistry is going to react to the pace, temperature, environment, foods and drinks thrown at it during a long day out.

As a result, you need to be well tuned in to the subtle signals your body uses to tell you when it’s getting out of whack and needs something specific to get it back on track. Look out for a craving for salty foods as this can be an early warning sign that you’re getting a bit low on sodium. If that is the case, eating something salty like salted nuts or pretzels can be a good idea to keep everything balanced.

Some examples of the foods and drinks I’ve successfully used for fueling during ultra endurance events include:


Boiled new potatoes with butter and salt (DW Canoe race) = ~5g carb per potato.
Mini croissant with cheese and ham (NZ Coast to Coast race) = ~ 15g carb each.
Pizza slices (TransAlpine trail run) = ~35g carb per slice.
Marzipan balls (DW Canoe race) = ~10g per ball.
Flat Coke (Most long races offer this in the later stages!) = ~ 52g carb per 500ml/16oz.
Malt loaf with butter (Many long bike training sessions) = ~15g carb per slice.
In most of these cases I used these “real food” alternatives in combination with plenty of the typical pre-packed sports nutrition products (and our drinks) to hit the kind of carb-per-hour figure I needed to achieve. I particularly like Totally Wonderfuel’s handmade energy balls. The fact that many of them are savory is no coincidence, as I’ve found that category of food to be really appealing when I am racing for more than about six hours. Not to mention the fact that I lose 1,842mg of sodium per liter—so I’m often partial to a bit of salt!

Fueling for ultra events always requires a lot of creative trial and error to figure out exactly what works for you. It’s such an important part of these events that it’s worth dedicating some time to getting things right.

When you start experimenting, make sure you’re staying close to the guidelines of ~60g of carbs per hour (across all of your foods and drinks), with enough fluid to stop you getting thirsty and a sufficient amount of sodium to offset what you’re losing in your sweat.

*A Note on the LCHF Approach*
As an aside—because it’s something we do get asked about a lot these days—the idea of fueling ultras on more fat-based foods (i.e. the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) approach) is definitely gaining more popularity at the moment. While it’s definitely way too early to write this off as a “fad,” it’s interesting to highlight the findings of a recent study into the competition-eating practices of a group of elite ultramarathon runners.

After analyzing the intakes of these guys before and during a race, they found that…


They tended to choose to eat around 70g of carbs per hour during their long races (with minimal protein and fat intake) on average.
Most (93 percent) of their calories came from pre-packaged sports nutrition products.
In the words of the researchers, “All of the athletes practiced fueling strategies that maximize CHO [Carbohydrate] intake and are congruent with contemporary evidence-based recommendations.”
Anyway, once you’ve tried some of this stuff out in the real world, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you’ve still got any specific questions. We’ll always do our best to get back to you with more nuanced answers. While we certainly don’t know it all, we’ve had a few successes and failures in this space as a team, so we should be able to draw on some relevant past experience in most cases, and might be able to help you dial-in your own hydration and fueling needs.

*References*
Cermak, N.M. & van Loon, L.J.C. (2013, November). The use of carbohydrates during exercise as an ergogenic aid. Retrieved from The use of carbohydrates during exercise as an ergogenic aid - PubMed

Stellingwerff, T. (2015, June 9). Competition Nutrition Practices of Elite Ultramarathon Runners. Retrieved from Competition Nutrition Practices of Elite Ultramarathon Runners - PubMed










What Your Body Actually Needs During Different Types of Endurance Exercise


A high-level view of what your body actually needs during various types of endurance exercise in order to meet both your hydration and nutritional needs.




www.trainingpeaks.com


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## DrDon (Sep 25, 2004)

Interesting read. Doesn’t apply to many individuals, including myself because we’re not achieving that level of aerobic activity. The sodium intake is very real in the Southwest, especially when it’s warm at 2+ hours. One thing I learned during my mini training for med support prior to the Marine Corp marathon was most individuals don’t require electrolyte support. The American diet is typically high in sodium. BUT, athletes who are participating in high aerobic activities, even when cooler do. We were busy that day treating heat exhaustion when the temp was in the 80s. Luckily no heat stroke. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## Weinerts (Feb 3, 2011)

Based on the Genre of this thread I made this tee shirt.
https://my-store-1ebc02.creator-spring.com/listing/lift-heavy-things-2022

Always lift - strength never hurts anything (other than the things you break trying to force them - like bolts, chains and spokes)

The profit on the shirts is .20 cents..


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## Bazzer69 (6 mo ago)

I am 77 and have become a fat bastard after. Being diagnosed with stage Iv prostrate cancer two years ago, mostly due to the hormone therapy I’m on and sitting around a lot. I’m now back on my bike and trying to lose 40lbs of excess fat. I didn’t want to go to a gym because of the Covid risk and I can’t afford a home gym or exercise equipment so I purchased a TRX suspension trainer, it ticks all the boxes for me and using one you can get all the static workout you need. 
Bazzer


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Balance training is an important but often-neglected skill, one that impacts both our longevity and our quality of life, beginning around age 40. It’s never too late to start working on it.

*Can You Pass the 10-Second Balance Test?*
This simple, often neglected skill can pay huge dividends later in life.










Len Kaplan began having difficulty walking in a straight line when he was in his 50s. Scoliosis combined with compressed discs in his back were causing his balance to deteriorate.
“Physical therapy, regular exercises, just wasn’t getting the job done. I needed something different,” Len, now 80, said.
Around that time Len and his wife, Ginny, took a cruise with twice-daily Tai Chi classes. Ginny, 77, said they loved Tai Chi — which consists of slow, controlled movements and deep breathing — so much they found a class in nearby Yorba Linda, Calif., when they returned home. The habit stuck.

Len and Ginny have now been taking Tai Chi and balance classes regularly for more than 15 years. Len is able to easily walk in a straight line and his balance has improved. Last September while visiting Greece, Len and Ginny decided to hike the nearly 100 steps to the top of the Acropolis. Up they went, over slippery, uneven steps with no hand rails. They made it to the top and were rewarded with ancient ruins and sweeping views of Athens below.

“At my age I know people who would go, ‘Oh no, I’ll stand at the bottom in the parking lot and take pictures, thank you,’” Ginny said, “but how fun is that?”
Balance training is an important but often-neglected skill, one that impacts both our longevity and our quality of life, beginning around age 40. A study in June by a Brazilian team found that 20 percent of the 1,700 older adults tested couldn’t balance on one leg for 10 seconds or more. And that inability to balance was associated with a twofold risk of death from any cause within 10 years.
If you have tried out the one-legged test (with a wall or chair nearby for safety) and didn’t pass, don’t panic. It’s never too late to start working on balance training, even if you _can_ pass the 10 second test, especially if you’re over age 50. This doesn’t have to mean handstands and acrobatics. In fact, you can start at home without any equipment.
*What the 10-Second Test Can (and Can’t) Tell Us*
Falls are the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide, yet doctors don’t have an easy way to check balance, like they do blood pressure or pulse. In this test, which can be done in less than a minute, the patient gets three attempts to do a 10-second one-legged stand on either leg.

“The idea here was just to come up with a really simple test that might be an indication of a person’s ability to balance,” said Dr. Jonathan Myers, a professor at Stanford University, researcher at the Palo Alto VA Health Care System and an author of the balance study. He said the inability to perform this task was powerfully predictive of mortality. In the study, one in five people could not manage it.

“With age, strength and balance tend to decrease and that can result in frailty. Frailty is a really big thing now that the population is aging,” Dr. Myers said.
Balance problems can be caused by a variety of factors, many of them age-related, said Dr. Lewis Lipsitz, a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the director of the Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife.

When your vision is affected by cataracts, or the nerve signals from your feet to your brain slow down, this makes it more difficult to balance. While it’s impossible to prevent all types of age-related decline, you can counteract the impact on your balance through specialized training and building strength.
“There’s a downward spiral of the people who don’t go out, who don’t walk, who don’t exercise, who don’t do balance training, and they become weaker and weaker. And muscle weakness is another important risk factor for falls,” he said.

Researchers have previously connected balance and strength with mortality, finding that the ability to rise from the floor to a standing position, balance on one leg for 30 seconds with one eye closed and even walk at a brisk pace are all tied to longevity.

But no test is perfect. Dan Layne, who runs the Center for Balance, where Len and Ginny study Tai Chi, said the Brazilian paper caused a stir in his classes, which include balance and fall prevention. Many of his students, whose ages range from 30 to 105, tried it and failed. They approached him, worried.

“I’ve got a lot of people that can’t balance for 10 seconds, but their balance control is fine. They’re not falling and they’re living long lives,” Mr. Layne said. Even if your vision is impaired, or your coordination is affected by arthritis, you can improve your balance — at any age.

“The body is very adaptive. And if one pathway doesn’t work to maintain your balance, by training other pathways in the body and the brain you can overcome some disabilities,” Dr. Lipsitz said.

*Balance-Enhancing Activities*
Balance training goes hand-in-hand with strength training. The stronger the muscles in your legs, glutes, feet and core, the better your balance. You can improve your balance by taking Tai Chi or yoga classes, but weight training, dancing, rock climbing or aerobics classes are also excellent ways to work on your balance skills.

“Really any type of exercise seems to help with balance and fall risk,” said Dr. Avril Mansfield, a senior scientist at KITE-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, who specializes in movement science.

But some forms of exercise are better than others. If your only movement is walking on a smooth surface, with no side-to-side movement, it’s not going to significantly improve your balance, said Dr. Rachael Seidler, a professor in the Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology at the University of Florida.
If you really want to improve your balance, Dr. Seidler said, you’ll get the most benefit focusing on several specific exercises.

*Training Your Balance at Home*
So how do you get started? Fortunately, most balance training doesn’t have to require any special equipment, and you can start at home. As with any new exercise program, be sure to talk to your physician first, and have a chair nearby to grab onto if you feel unsteady.

Try these five balance exercises two to three times a week, gradually increasing the difficulty as you feel comfortable and start to improve your strength.

*Single-leg stance*
Stand behind a chair, holding on with both hands. Lift one leg off the ground, bending the lifted knee toward your chest and stand on one leg for five seconds. Repeat five times, then do the same with your other leg. Too easy? Hold onto the chair with one hand, release both hands or try closing your eyes.

*Body-weight squats*
Stand with feet hip distance apart, toes forward. Bend your knees and lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the floor, keeping your weight in your heels. Extend your arms in front of you if you need help with balance, or squat lower if it’s too easy. Repeat 10 times. Hold a dumbbell to add to the difficulty.

*Bird dog*
Start on your hands and knees, back flat. Lift one leg straight behind you and lift the opposite arm straight in front, so you are balancing on one knee and one hand. Hold for five to 10 seconds, then repeat on the other side.

*Lateral leg lifts*
Stand behind a chair, holding on with both hands. Lift one leg to the side, trying to keep your body as still as possible. Repeat with the other leg, five times per side. Increase the intensity by holding the leg up longer or letting go of the chair.

*Tandem stance*
Stand up straight and put one foot directly in front of the other, with your heel touching your toe. Keep equal weight on both feet, knees slightly bent. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch feet, repeating three times. Close your eyes to make it more difficult.



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/well/move/balance-exercises.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20220818&instance_id=69622&nl=updates-from-the-newsroom&regi_id=78430320&segment_id=101723&te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

Balance practicing is always good. I get on my board at least a few times a week and practice single leg calf raises on walks with my wife. The last few years (before my injury in 2020) I was doing a lot more slow speed drills on my motorcycles.

FWIW, I can pass the one leg balance until my strength gives way (about 30-45 seconds or so) I just had my left knee replaced 7 weeks ago and right knee in January. 

Here is where I really struggle: Trying to do the same one leg balance with my eyes closed. I find it very hard to even get to 10 seconds.


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## FitmanNJ (May 23, 2011)

I've always enjoyed strength training, but admittedly, since I began mtb'ing about 10 years ago, I've been more sporadic. Early this year, I committed to broadening my fitness activities to address the imbalance. I've even bought some new home equipment to promote better adherence (very pleased with and motivated by the new acquisitions). So, I'm doing at least two fullbody strength training workouts (roughly every third day), two fatbike rides, and two "Zone 2" treadmill walks of 45-60 mins per week. Feels good!


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

I’m convinced strength training is essential for masters athletes. Cycling alone isn’t enough to keep age from making us weak and frail.


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

Dunnigan said:


> I’m convinced strength training is essential for masters athletes. Cycling alone isn’t enough to keep age from making us weak and frail.


I would agree with that to a point. Doing stupid strength training like knees past toes or on your toes in a squat or heavy weight training is a no joy as we get older. By heavy I mean lifting anything that requires a spotter or weight that you cannot safely ease onto the floor. 

It's sad to say I'm no longer (currently) able to do 4 minutes planks, pound out 4 sets of 10 pushups, or supersets of dumbbell curls. I'm slowly working my way back to a reasonable level of strength.

I'm doing a lot of 4lb-10lb medicine ball and sub 15lb dumbbell work. As per doctor no more deep pushups (to prevent shoulder damage). I'm able to do a set of 5 semi deep and 5 on knees semi deep. 

My injuries have left me permanently disabled and muscles debilitated. I figure as long as I keep moving I'm doing better than just sitting around all day.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

ballisticexchris said:


> I would agree with that to a point. Doing stupid strength training like knees past toes or on your toes in a squat or heavy weight training is a no joy as we get older. By heavy I mean lifting anything that requires a spotter or weight that you cannot safely ease onto the floor.
> 
> It's sad to say I'm no longer (currently) able to do 4 minutes planks, pound out 4 sets of 10 pushups, or supersets of dumbbell curls. I'm slowly working my way back to a reasonable level of strength.
> 
> ...


I agree. Gotta keep moving and doing what we can. Arnold’s workouts look very different in his 70s than they did in his 20s. He says he does machines now, not free weights, and much less volume.
For my cycling goals, and goals of not tottering about in my old age, I'm not lifting like "serious" lifters do (I never have)--I'm not going risk another injury trying to find my 1-rep maximums. I'll lift some all year, but less during racing season, and then in the off season I'll gradually move from low weight/high reps to higher weight/lower reps with compound movements and good form.


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## rmac (Oct 26, 2004)

ballisticexchris said:


> I would agree with that to a point. Doing stupid strength training like knees past toes or on your toes in a squat or heavy weight training is a no joy as we get older. By heavy I mean lifting anything that requires a spotter or weight that you cannot safely ease onto the floor.
> 
> It's sad to say I'm no longer (currently) able to do 4 minutes planks, pound out 4 sets of 10 pushups, or supersets of dumbbell curls. I'm slowly working my way back to a reasonable level of strength.
> 
> ...


There was a post earlier in this thread regarding using bands instead of weights, pros and cons etc. I bought a set and they have rekindled resistance training for me - something to consider.


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

rmac said:


> There was a post earlier in this thread regarding using bands instead of weights, pros and cons etc. I bought a set and they have rekindled resistance training for me - something to consider.


I'm already on that page. I used them all the time when I was working and also just before and right after my surgeries. Admittedly they have been setting and not being used as much currently. I also have a Swiss ball I use for bridges, ab work, light dumbbell presses flys, etc.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

I've been on a kettlebell swing kick lately. I keep one in my home office and bang out sets throughout the day in a "greasing the groove" style with no set being too hard and working to build up volume over the course of the day. I'm finding my posture feels better, a nagging knee pain is gone, my core feels tighter, my posterior chain feels like it is getting just the right amount of work. As the focus of my training has evolved from "get as fit as possible" to "get as strong as possible" to "look good and feel great" this just may be the perfect movement.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Keep moving!

*What Types of Exercise Reduce Dementia Risk?*


Experts had long believed that exercise could help protect against developing dementia. However, though they had observed a general pattern of reduced risk, studies on the subject had been small — and often conflicting — with little consensus on the type, frequency or intensity of exercise that might be best.
“There’s no real clear prescription that we can provide for physical activity,” said Dr. Joel Salinas, an assistant professor of neurology at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, who specializes in treating people with dementia.

But three major long-term studies released in recent months have attempted to characterize the types, intensities and durations of physical activity that confer the most overall protection against dementia. These studies, which followed thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of people for years at a time, confirm that regular physical activity, in many forms, plays a substantial role in decreasing the risk of developing dementia.

Vigorous exercise seems to be best, but even non-traditional exercise, such as doing household chores, can offer a significant benefit. And, surprisingly, it’s just as effective at reducing the risk in those with a family history of dementia.

*Many forms of exercise can stave off dementia.*

In the first study, published July 27 in the journal Neurology, researchers analyzed the health information of 501,376 participants who did not have dementia in a British database called UK Biobank to establish links between physical activity and the risk of developing the disease.

One of the main advantages of this database was that it had “very enriched data about the genetics” of the participants, said Dr. Huan Song, a researcher at West China Hospital, Sichuan University, who was one of the study’s authors. This included a risk profile of participants based on whether they had genetic variants known to be associated with dementia, or whether they had immediate family members with the condition.

At the beginning of the study, participants filled out detailed questionnaires about their participation in physical activities, such as playing sports, climbing stairs or walking, and whether they regularly walked or biked to work. They were also asked about various lifestyle factors, including how often they completed household chores.

One of the major constraints of previous studies was that “the definition of physical activity is quite weak,” Dr. Song said. “Some use the total amount, and some just focus on one mode of activity.” The British questionnaires offered specificity on exactly which activities participants were engaging in on a regular basis.

Participants were followed for 11 years, during which time 5,185 developed dementia. The study found that, in participants who engaged in regular, vigorous activity, such as playing sports or working out, the risk of developing dementia was reduced by 35 percent. Surprisingly, people who reported regularly completing household chores also experienced a significant benefit; they had a 21 percent lower risk.

“Some people work up quite a sweat when they are doing household chores,” said Dr. Sandra Weintraub, a neurologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not associated with this study. “It might be that if you do three hours of household chores, you are as good as if you did 30 minutes of aerobic exercise.”
For Dr. Salinas, who recommends that people aim for 150 minutes of moderate- to high-intensity exercise a week, the results strengthen the idea that regular moderate to vigorous exercise can promote brain health. Cultivating this habit of exercise “is likely to have a very profound synergistic effect,” he said. “You get a lot more bang for your buck in terms of helping to promote your own health through physical activity.”

Perhaps most encouragingly, the association between physical activity and a reduced risk of dementia extended to participants who had a family history of dementia.
“It’s very important to know that if you have a family history of dementia, you can use physical activity to reduce your risk,” Dr. Song said.

*Start by doing what you like best.*
The second paper, published last week in Neurology, compiled 38 studies to see which leisure activities were associated with a reduced risk of dementia. Altogether, the studies followed more than two million participants without dementia over at least three years, during which time 74,700 developed dementia.
After controlling for age, education and gender, the researchers found that participants who exercised regularly — defined as engaging in activities such as walking, running, swimming, dancing, participating in sports or working out at the gym — had a 17 percent lower risk of developing dementia compared with those who did not.

This meta-analysis shows that dementia prevention is not limited to one activity, or even one type of activity. Given the diversity of physical activities that participants engaged in, “we recommend to people to do the exercise that you like,” said Le Shi, a researcher at Peking University and one of the study’s authors.

When it comes to reaping the benefits of physical activity, it’s never too soon to start. In a third study published this month, researchers followed more than 1,200 children between 7 and 15 for more than 30 years. Those with higher levels of fitness as children had higher levels of cognitive functioning in midlife, suggesting that establishing a lifelong habit of physical activity could be beneficial for brain health.

Together, these studies suggest the ways we move our bodies on a daily basis could add up over time. They also solidify the notion that regular, lifelong physical activity, in all of its forms, goes a long way toward reducing the risk of dementia, even for people who are classified as high-risk.
“Your brain is part of your body and is going to benefit from anything you do that is good for your general health,” Dr. Weintraub said.




https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/well/move/exercise-dementia-risk.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20220902&instance_id=70737&nl=updates-from-the-newsroom&regi_id=78430320&segment_id=103033&te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*People Who Do Strength Training Live Longer — and Better








*


A consensus is building among experts that both strength training and cardio‌ are important for longevity. 

Regular physical activity has many known health benefits, one of which is that it might help you live longer. But what’s still being determined are the types and duration of exercise that offer the most protection.

In a new study published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers found that while doing either aerobic exercise or strength training was associated with a lower risk of dying during the study’s time frame, regularly doing both — one to three hours a week of aerobic exercise and one to two weekly strength training sessions — was associated with an even lower mortality risk.

Switching from a sedentary lifestyle to a workout schedule is comparable to “smoking versus not smoking,” said Carver Coleman, a data scientist and one of the authors of the study.

The paper is the latest evidence in a trend showing the importance of strength training in longevity and overall health.

“The study is exciting because it does support having a mix of both aerobic and strength training,” said Dr. Kenneth Koncilja, a gerontologist at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the study. “That is definitely something I talk with my patients about all the time.”

*Cardio plus strength training offers the most protection.*

For the study, researchers used National Health Interview Survey data, which followed 416,420 American adults recruited between 1997 and 2014. Participants filled out questionnaires detailing the types of physical activity they had been doing, which included specifying how much moderate or vigorous exercise, along with how many sessions of muscle-strengthening exercises they did in a week.

After adjusting for factors such as age, gender, income, education, marital status and whether they had chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease or cancer, researchers found that people who engaged in one hour of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity a week had a 15 percent lower mortality risk. Mortality risk was 27 percent lower for those who did three hours a week.

But those who also took part in one to two strength-training sessions per week had an even lower mortality risk — a full 40 percent lower than those who didn’t exercise at all. This was roughly the difference between a nonsmoker and someone with a half-a-pack-a-day habit.

*The link between strength training and longevity isn’t well understood.*

Experts say it has been difficult to study longevity and strength training because so few people do it regularly. Even in the recent study, just 24 percent of participants did regular strength training (as opposed to 63 percent who said they did aerobic workouts). “Even with huge cohorts like we had here, the numbers are still relatively small,” said Arden Pope, an economist at Brigham Young University and one of the authors of the paper.

However, research is starting to catch up. In a recent meta-analysis, published February, also in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers were able to quantify the effect of strength training on longevity outside of aerobic activity.

They found the largest reduction was associated with 30 to 60 minutes of strength training a week, with a 10 to 20 percent drop in the risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, as Haruki Momma, a sports scientist at Tohoku University and one of the authors of the study, points out, there needs to be more research done to find the optimal amount of strength training.

*Regular strength training is important for healthy aging.*

Even though more research is needed, experts generally agree that regular strength training can have important benefits for healthy aging, including maintaining a high quality of life.

“You will function at a much higher level, for longer, if you have good muscle strength,” said Dr. Bruce Moseley, an orthopedic surgeon at Baylor College of Medicine.
Muscle strength is required for a number of daily activities, such as getting out of a chair, opening a jar of pickles, carrying groceries into the house or doing yardwork. However, “we progressively lose muscle mass as we age,” said Monica Ciolino, a physical therapist at Washington University at St. Louis.

This muscle loss usually starts in a person’s 30s and progresses with age. However, “we can absolutely fend off the negative effects” with regular strength training, Dr. Ciolino said. And it’s never too late to start. Research shows even septuagenarians with mobility issues can benefit from a regular strength-training program.

Dr. Moseley suggests aiming for a consistent strength-training schedule and easing into it to avoid overuse injuries.
“Keep it at a light and easy level at first,” he said. “Once your body starts getting adjusted, then you can start increasing.”

If you are still uncertain about certain exercises, he recommends seeking out expert advice through an exercise class or consulting with a personal trainer. The important thing, he said, is to get to started and to make it a habit. Not only can this help you live longer, it will improve your quality of life.

“When I ask people, ‘What does successful aging mean to you?’ people say they want to be independent, they want to maintain their function and quality of life, they want to do the things that they want to do,” Dr. Koncilja said. “It’s not necessarily just living as long as possible.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/24/well/move/cardio-strength-training-benefits.html?campaign_id=35&emc=edit_ru_20220903&instance_id=71012&nl=running&regi_id=78430320&segment_id=103588&te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> *People Who Do Strength Training Live Longer — and Better
> 
> View attachment 1998626
> *


That ladies deadlift form looks great!! That dude attempting the plank..... Not so good. 

My planks are really bad. As little as 10 years ago I could knock out a 4 min plank before my body sagged to the ground. Just last week I was up to a solid minute and 15-20 seconds on the side planks.

My strength is not very good at all. I'm able to do only about 8 partial pushups (rotator cuff and bicep separation repair) and my dumbbell curls and shoulder presses are hovering with max weight of 10 lbs each arm. 3 sets of 10 starting with 2.5, 5, 7.5 then 10. I do this with various resistance band and ab work about 2 days a week and my bicycle 3 days a week. 

The 4lb and 10lb medicine ball gets work as well doing rainbow slams and twists along with static lunges and squats. Oh, I found out by accident the Swiss ball works fantastic for a bench to do dumbbell flys chest/shoulder presses. It also helps with form and balance.

The point I'm making is we have to start somewhere and keep moving. Being disabled limited mobility and in constant pain at 61 is no joke. I have body parts that are not functioning very well and never will. Just keep moving and doing something is my motto. 

I know there are a handful of guys and gals my age that are animals in the gym and on a bike. I want to give a shoutout to those of us that struggle just to get out of bed and get to the garage on the mat. Supine position stretches and exercises are my favorite these days!! LOL


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ It's better to start somewhere than not at all  

Building core strength, (as well as something as simple as grip strength), working on balance etc is all good as we age. 

Keep at it ballisticexchris! 

BTW that lady in the pic is me taken this week I think I was about to lift 205lb. My max is 230lb which I reached during the crossfit quarterfinals in April. I'm +60 too


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love this fun competition!
In all fairness the bodybuilder had a disadvantage on the bike Besides shakey technique: he wasn't clipped in and he was fumbling with gears etc. He was a good sport and i enjoyed the conversation

In a future comp I'd like to see a cyclist go up against a crossfit athlete or maybe a marathoner.


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

I would like to see those same guys on the Velodrome!! Now that would be something to see!! Velodrome racers are a whole different breed with unbelievable muscle mass in the legs!!


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## nOOky (May 13, 2008)

The big guy would probably do better mountain biking with a lot of short ups and downs, versus just a hill climb. The result is obvious from the competition, both train for different disciplines, and both are better at those. However everyone benefits from some sort of strength training as it relates to keeping stabilizer muscles and muscles not being used in balance to help prevent injury etc.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

Skinny climber guy says he can’t open jars. 😂

Such radically different goals and training regimens followed for years. Also, people respond differently to a given training plan, so at the higher levels you find people that naturally fit their sport well. It’s not possible for just anyone to duplicate another athlete’s ability. Skinny climber guy is probably not in danger of bulking up excessively and ruining his climbing edge with a strength focused lifting program. 

Bodybuilding is a beauty contest, so his strength isn’t even a direct goal of his training.


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## NC_Foothills_Rider (11 mo ago)

Most of us won't get 'big' from normal lifting any more than we would be competing with world cup XC racers from some casual spin bike or road bike sessions.

Everyone's genetic potential is different, in terms of their physical responses to weight training (IE hypertrophy) or endurance training.

I do strength training (Stronglift 5x5) for overall health, athleticism, flexibility, injury resistance, aesthetics, libido, and increased t. It just works. I do HIIT on an elliptical so I can ride my bike and have fun. 

I'm all about minimum effective dosage. Currently that's 2x per week.

I'm an ectomorph (meaning skinny with small bones). At 55 y/o, 6'3" and 190 I feel pretty good. When I weighed 230 I felt like **** and was inferior in just about every way to how I am now.

My end goal physique wise would be Brad Pitt in Fight Club. A sort of shoot for the stars but reach the moon type goal.

One thing I've learned from lots of learned types and from over 30 years of working out in various ways, is that* lean muscle mass is the fountain of youth*, and that *sarcopenia is death*.

Of all allergies, being allergic to discomfort may be the worst for long term health. Obviously if you're here you're on the right track.

Cheers.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to Avoid Hurting Yourself at the Gym*
Here are the four exercises you’re most at risk of doing wrong — and what can keep you safe.

Torn ligaments. Pulled muscles. Overuse injuries. With every new exercise routine comes a new risk of injury, whether it’s straining a muscle from lifting, developing knee pain from running, or tearing a tendon during calisthenics. With an estimated 8.6 million sports and recreation-related injuries each year in America, these fears are not unfounded.

However, before you let this fear keep you from starting a new exercise routine, the good news is that the majority of sports injuries are “overuse-related, rather than traumatic, meaning they typically don’t require surgery,” said Dr. Matthew Matava, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine physician at Washington University in St. Louis.

With the right precautions, you can develop a well-rounded exercise routine, one that maximizes the benefits while minimizing the risk of injury. To get a sense of the exercises that leave you especially vulnerable to injury, we turned to a mixture of sports doctors, physical therapists and athletic trainers to get their consensus on the most common mistakes people are making, and how to prevent them.

*Avoid rounding the back while deadlifting.*

Rounding or hunching the back is one of the most common mistakes people make during deadlifts.
Start each deadlift in a squatting position with a neutral spine, meaning the back is neither overarched nor rounded.










The deadlift — where a lifter starts in a squatting position, pulling a weighted bar up into an upright, locked position — is one of the most iconic lifts. However, its simplicity is deceiving. “Deadlift is one of the best tools, if done correctly, and one of the most dangerous things you can do if done wrong,” said Cameron Apt, an athletic trainer at the University of Rochester.

One of the major mistakes people make is rounding — or hunching — the back. The deadlift starts with the lifter in a squatting position, with a neutral spine, meaning the back is neither overarched nor rounded, from which they pull the weight up to their thigh. During this movement, even a slight rounding of the spine can put excess pressure on the muscles of the lower back, potentially throwing out the back or worse.

“It’s not even necessarily that people have bad form, it’s that people underestimate how much of a dynamic and hyper-focused exercise deadlifting is,” said Femi Betiku, a physical therapist at the New Jersey Center of Physical Therapy Riverdale. “They’re not paying attention for a split second, and then their back rounds a little bit, and then ‘BOOM!’”

For those who are less experienced, there are a number of alternative exercises that can offer similar benefits and put less strain on the lower back. This includes hex bar deadlifts, in which the wide hexagonal-shaped bar, which surrounds the lifter, reduces the amount of pressure on the lower back.

For those who want to deadlift, it’s essential to pay close attention to form. When working with beginners, Mr. Apt will often have clients practice the movement with no weights. “We’ll see people for weeks before we give them a weight to move with,” he said.

It’s also essential to listen to your body, and to adjust as needed, especially if fatigue is starting to affect your form. “There’s nothing wrong with pushing into the fatigue,” Dr. Betiku said. “It’s all about being aware that ‘I’m fatigued, I have to focus on my form 100 percent.’”

*Use proper bench press form to avoid shoulder or pectoral muscle injuries.*

Common bench press mistakes include hunching your shoulders and raising the bar over your head or neck, instead of over your chest.
To avoid injuries, make sure that your arms are shoulder-width apart, shoulder blades are pinched together and you’re lowering the bar to the middle of the chest.










When most people think of weight lifting, the first thing they might think of is the bench press, where a lifter lies on a bench, pressing the weight upward. The bench press is so iconic that comedians from Chris Farley to YouTube star Mike Tornabene have used it to poke fun at bodybuilders. But it can cause rotator cuff injuries if done incorrectly.

The rotator cuff is especially vulnerable because so many tendons, ligaments, blood vessels and nerves travel through a tight path, called the sub-acromial space, between the shoulder blade and humerus. “It’s this very small little space that is almost like a roadway,” said Lauren Shroyer, an athletic trainer with the American Council on Exercise, who specializes in chronic injuries.

A common mistake is hunching the shoulders upward, almost like slouching in a chair, which can put a huge amount of strain on this area. Ms. Shroyer said this can lead to impingement syndrome, a painful condition caused by the shoulder blade rubbing against the rotator cuff. The same can also happen if you raise the bar over your head, rather than your chest. To avoid this, she said, make sure that your arms are shoulder-width apart, the shoulder blades pinched together, with the bar being lowered to the middle of the chest.

Another common issue is lifting too much too quickly, which can lead to an acute injury, such as tearing the pectoral muscle. When this happens, the lifter will often feel a popping sensation, lose control of the weight, and now “one nipple is pointing one way and the other nipple is pointing the other way,” Dr. Matava said. “We’ll see that a lot,” he added, often in inexperienced lifters who try to lift more weight than they are ready for.

Pectoral muscle tears are excruciating and tend to happen as the weight is lowered to the chest. Although lowering a weight or your body may feel like the easier part of an exercise, it also creates a higher risk for injury because the muscles are both contracting and lengthening. This risk for injury is also heightened because lifters feel like the hardest part is done and are less focused, said Dr. Michael Maloney, a sports medicine doctor and orthopedic surgeon at the University of Rochester. Other examples of this kind of risky movement would be lowering the bar to the ground during a deadlift, walking or running down a hill, lowering your body during a pull-up, or returning your torso back to the ground during a sit up. To avoid this, work on maintaining focus through the entire exercise.

*Be mindful about how often you’re running.*

In his own clinical practice, Dr. Matava treats injuries from weight lifting and running most often. “Of the two, I probably see running the most,” he said. The bulk of these injuries are overuse related. “For running, it’s the rule of too’s,” Dr. Matava said. “Too many miles, too many hills, too little rest.”












Strength training can help you avoid running injuries. Single-leg squats (in this case, on top of a box) strengthen quads, hamstrings and glutes, while improving the proper alignment and motor control of your lower body. But be sure that your knee stays in line with your foot, and don’t overdo it.

One very common issue in runners is knee pain, specifically patellofemoral pain syndrome, often called “runner’s knee.” Runner’s knee is thought to be nerve irritation caused by a muscle imbalance between the quadriceps, hamstrings and hip muscles that mis-aligns the kneecap. To prevent it, build up your mileage gradually and incorporate regular strength training. The good news is that although runner’s knee is an issue, research shows that running may serve to strengthen the cartilage of the knees, with runners less likely to develop arthritis than their non-running peers.

For some people, it’s useful to warm up before running. The high knees exercise is an especially good warm-up for speed training. But even the best warm-up routine won’t protect you from runner’s knee if you try to run too far, too fast. Increase your mileage gradually, and take rest days

Another common overuse injury among runners is stress fractures. This often happens when a runner tries to add too many miles too quickly, without taking enough rest days. The impact of running causes microfractures in the bone, which, when given time to heal, lead to stronger bones. However, if a runner starts running more miles, without taking rest days, these microfractures build up to the point of injury.

Both of these injuries tend to happen because runners “did something out of the ordinary compared to what they were trained to do,” Dr. Matava said. Typically, he’ll see such stress fractures in people who either just started running, or who decide to quickly ramp up training. A good rule of thumb is to limit mileage increases to less than 10 percent a week.

*Use care and caution when doing dynamic movements, like squats or twists.*

Many meniscus tears can happen during dynamic movements, like this box jump. It might seem simple, but dynamic movements like this should be done carefully and with a clear understanding of good form











One of the most common acute, sports-related injuries is a meniscus tear, which at least 10 percent of people will experience during their lifetime. The menisci are discs of cartilage that act as shock absorbers, located on the ends of the thighbone and shinbone. Most tears are caused by degeneration of the cartilage, which makes it more susceptible to injury, and can happen during squatting or twisting motions, such as box jumps, weighted squats or during sports like tennis, soccer and basketball.

Meniscus tears often happen during very dynamic movements. The risk of injury increases when these movements are performed too fast, with too many pounds or without having practiced the movement enough. For example, with squats, if a person has “too much weight, and they go down too deep, the meniscus can tear,” Dr. Matava said.

As with other injuries, the risk increases toward the end of a workout, when fatigue starts to set in. Ms. Shroyer learned this lesson the hard way when she pushed herself too hard powerlifting. “I was getting tired, but I told myself, ‘you can do another set,’” she said. Instead, she tore the cartilage at the end of her femur, an injury that required surgery and six weeks of immobilization.

When it comes to making progress in the gym, there is a tension between pushing yourself to get better and pushing yourself toward an injury. Ms. Shroyer’s advice is to focus on the idea that “next week, I can do more, because I have allowed myself time to recover,” she said. When it comes to a workout routine, she recommends blending consistency with a gradual progression.

“I always encourage people to do something that they are confident in doing,” Ms. Shroyer said. “Take it slow but do it anyway. Exercise can put someone at risk of injury, but not exercising puts someone at risk of poor health.”












https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/12/well/move/exercise-injuries.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20220916&instance_id=72100&nl=updates-from-the-newsroom&regi_id=78430320&segment_id=107230&te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

Box jumps used to be my favorite!! I was an 18" max. Those can really get your heart pumping!! These days it's a lot of resistance bands. What you are saying is spot on to prevent injury. I applaud you for keeping your body in top shape.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

My garage gym has no mirror. But I feel that a mirror is essential to being sure your form isn't going to hell during max efforts. There will be a mirror when I get my new rack in the basement.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

Mirrors are great, for sure—I don’t have any.

That said, I won’t be attempting 1 rep maxes anymore. I count the risk reward ratio too unfavorable. My strength phase has 6-8 reps per set with good form. The weights are a means to an end, so I don’t directly care what numbers I’m lifting.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

I think Stalone ripped his pec doing a one ego rep. After seeing him talk about it, I only count sets. Building a shed/small building now in the heat and have lost 10lbs body weight that I didn't want to lose. I'm sure some of that is muscle and have seen my sets max out at reduced number or weight. Looking forward to gaining again (means to an end) with a new and safer rack from Rogue.

Only caring about sets did give me a bit of ego in my youth (35 age). I would do ten sets of eight increasing the weight from 135 warm up to 285lbs. Then one day I did sets in-between someone hogging the one squat rack. He shared so we alternated. Guy was cool and doing 10+ sets of 10 at 315lbs. Eight reps at 315 was my dream/goal weight. I offered to share my weight belt,...but he said the 315lbs wasn't enough to need it. Damn!

Part of the fun and joy of weight lifting.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

ZX11 said:


> I think Stalone ripped his pec doing a one ego rep. After seeing him talk about it, I only count sets. Building a shed/small building now in the heat and have lost 10lbs body weight that I didn't want to lose. I'm sure some of that is muscle and have seen my sets max out at reduced number or weight. Looking forward to gaining again (means to an end) with a new and safer rack from Rogue.
> 
> Only caring about sets did give me a bit of ego in my youth (35 age). I would do ten sets of eight increasing the weight from 135 warm up to 285lbs. Then one day I did sets in-between someone hogging the one squat rack. He shared so we alternated. Guy was cool and doing 10+ sets of 10 at 315lbs. Eight reps at 315 was my dream/goal weight. I offered to share my weight belt,...but he said the 315lbs wasn't enough to need it. Damn!
> 
> Part of the fun and joy of weight lifting.


There's always someone faster and stronger, amirite? It would be amazing to lift what I could when I was in high school, and that was just a skinny boy in a one-semester lifting class. I lift now because I want the strength to climb hills and be better resistant to injury in an accident. Plus just all around strength to take into my old age.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*There’s more to working out than just building muscle – it’s good for your brain, too*
Now that Canada’s all-too-brief beach season has drawn to a close once again, you may be tempted to push the dumbbells to the back of the closet – to forsake vanity, forget bulging muscles and focus instead on the whole-body aerobic fitness that’s so tightly linked to health and longevity.

But a recent study from researchers at McGill University, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, offers a new reason for continuing to work on building muscle: It’s good for your brain, not just your biceps. Greater muscle mass, the results suggest, helps ward off cognitive decline in older adults beyond what you’d expect based on their exercise levels alone.

The findings are drawn from more than 8,000 older adults in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, with an average age of 73. They underwent a series of baseline assessments that included an X-ray measurement of their muscle mass, a battery of 10 cognitive tests and questionnaires about their exercise habits and other health characteristics. The cognitive tests were repeated three years later.

At baseline, roughly a fifth of the subjects met predefined criteria for low muscle mass. Over the next three years, compared with those with normal muscle mass, these subjects had a sharper decline in reaction times and in executive function, the cognitive skills that enable you to plan, focus attention, and prioritize your actions.

Want strong muscles? Eat your leafy greens

On the surface, these results aren’t surprising. After all, points out Stéphanie Chevalier, a professor at McGill’s School of Human Nutrition and the study’s senior author, previous studies have found that low strength and lack of physical activity predict more rapid cognitive decline. But there’s a difference between using muscle and simply having it.

“The question we asked in our study is: When we account for strength and physical activity, does muscle mass have an independent predicting role on cognitive decline?” Dr. Chevalier explains.

Using statistical techniques, the researchers were able to compare subjects with equivalent muscle strength, as assessed with a handgrip test, and equivalent exercise habits. Sure enough, those with lower muscle mass still had a faster subsequent decline in executive function, suggesting that muscle tissue itself has some sort of neuroprotective function.

Teasing out exactly how muscle helps the brain remains a challenge. There are plenty of indirect links: Those with more muscle are generally more active, which may help maintain the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the brain, for example.

But Dr. Chevalier’s results suggest there may be more direct mechanisms too. One possibility is the role of myokines, a set of hormone-like molecules produced by muscle cells that can travel to the brain and influence mood, learning and other cognitive functions. Greater muscle mass may also help keep blood glucose levels in check, protecting the brain from damage.

That’s not to suggest that strength training is the only path to better brain health. A 2014 study that followed 150,000 walkers and runners over a 17-year period found that meeting the standard recommendation of 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week was associated with a 25-per-cent reduction in the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease. And those who got twice that much exercise had a 40-per-cent risk reduction.


So if you want to cover all your bases, the choice between cardio and weights is easy: Do both. Incorporate some resistance training into your routine a few times a week. You don’t necessarily need to lift heavy weights, but push hard enough that your effort reaches at least eight out of 10 at the end of each set.

In addition, Dr. Chevalier adds, ensure that you have a good diet with sufficient protein, ideally spread throughout the day rather than concentrated into one massive protein bomb at dinner. There’s evidence that older adults become less responsive to the muscle-building stimulus of protein, so aim for about 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight with each meal. For someone who weighs 150 pounds, that works out to 27 grams of protein, the equivalent of a tuna sandwich, a glass of milk and a handful of almonds.

And remember, the goal still isn’t to wow everyone at the beach next year. A more realistic target for older adults is to keep the muscle you’ve got and prevent further losses, Dr. Chevalier says, citing the one ironclad law of exercise that no one disputes: “Use it or lose it.”









There’s more to working out than just building muscle – it’s good for brain health, too


Greater muscle mass may help ward off cognitive decline in older adults beyond what you’d expect based on their exercise levels alone




www.theglobeandmail.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

Here is something for adding to the workout mix. I finally got around to comparing my VO2 numbers. For years my body was so debilitated I was unable to get my HR to testing levels. I started in June with a simple "outside the lab" formula for my age, weight and HR. 

June 1st my max VO2 was a poor 25.7 I have worked my way up to a max 34.3 which is good (for my age). I won't go into the details of how to do it as there are dozens of ways and procedures to get a max VO2 rating. All the outside lab tests are within 2-3 of max VO2. Just pick one that works for you.

What will be interesting is seeing what my results are in a lab setting at the cardiologists office.


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## BigAlMTB (4 mo ago)

ballisticexchris said:


> Here is something for adding to the workout mix. I finally got around to comparing my VO2 numbers. For years my body was so debilitated I was unable to get my HR to testing levels. I started in June with a simple "outside the lab" formula for my age, weight and HR.
> 
> June 1st my max VO2 was a poor 25.7 I have worked my way up to a max 34.3 which is good (for my age). I won't go into the details of how to do it as there are dozens of ways and procedures to get a max VO2 rating. All the outside lab tests are within 2-3 of max VO2. Just pick one that works for you.
> 
> What will be interesting is seeing what my results are in a lab setting at the cardiologists office.


That's an incredible improvement! My cardiologist put me on beta blockers so when I tried to do get my Vo2 Max at the gym the readings were very wonky.


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## BigAlMTB (4 mo ago)

cyclelicious said:


> *People Who Do Strength Training Live Longer — and Better
> 
> View attachment 1998626
> *
> ...


Strength training also helps hold on to bone density. Unfortunately the bike doesn't do much for us there.


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## 2sharp7 (Aug 29, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ It's better to start somewhere than not at all
> 
> Building core strength, (as well as something as simple as grip strength), working on balance etc is all good as we age.
> 
> ...


Dang, girl! 💪💪


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## 2sharp7 (Aug 29, 2013)

BigAlMTB said:


> That's an incredible improvement! My cardiologist put me on beta blockers so when I tried to do get my Vo2 Max at the gym the readings were very wonky.


I don't have much of an understanding of v02 max, nor do I know if I should worry about it / focus on it?? All I know is my Garmin Fenix which I wear 24/7 tells me my v02 max is 51, which I guess is pretty decent for my 56 years.


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## NC_Foothills_Rider (11 mo ago)

Dunnigan said:


> Mirrors are great, for sure—I don’t have any.
> 
> That said, I won’t be attempting 1 rep maxes anymore. I count the risk reward ratio too unfavorable. My strength phase has 6-8 reps per set with good form. The weights are a means to an end, so I don’t directly care what numbers I’m lifting.


I agree. Daughters BF asked me what my max bench was... LOL I have no idea I
ve never tried to max out 1 rep on anything.


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## 2sharp7 (Aug 29, 2013)

NC_Foothills_Rider said:


> I agree. Daughters BF asked me what my max bench was... LOL I have no idea I
> ve never tried to max out 1 rep on anything.


I agree as well. At 56 I'm content to "not know" what my one rep max's are, although I've still got a good idea based on the weight used in my sets. I am interested however in my max pull-ups reps for some weird reason. I want it to be minimum of 20. Don't think I'm quite there yet, but will soon test and see where I'm at (guessing 15 max).


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## BigAlMTB (4 mo ago)

2sharp7 said:


> I don't have much of an understanding of v02 max, nor do I know if I should worry about it / focus on it?? All I know is my Garmin Fenix which I wear 24/7 tells me my v02 max is 51, which I guess is pretty decent for my 56 years.


They say that that the Vo2 Max iis one of the best indicators of all cause mortality so that's an excellent score. You might want to find a facility that puts a mask over your nose and mouth while you run on a treadmill or ride a stationary bike to make sure the Garmin is accurate. I used to own a DexaFit franchise and MMA fighters had that kind of score!


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## 2sharp7 (Aug 29, 2013)

BigAlMTB said:


> They say that that the Vo2 Max iis one of the best indicators of all cause mortality so that's an excellent score. You might want to find a facility that puts a mask over your nose and mouth while you run on a treadmill or ride a stationary bike to make sure the Garmin is accurate. I used to own a DexaFit franchise and MMA fighters had that kind of score!


Yes, it would be nice to know how accurate Garmin's data is. One one hand, that Vo2 max score seems great, but on the other hand it's telling me my HRV is dangerously low (low-mid 40's). Also, it says I have an anaerobic shortage, and my training status is "strained".


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## oldcolonial (Aug 28, 2018)

Any thoughts on a source for strength data for "athletes" over the age of 50? I am interested in seeing percentiles for some basic lifts and exercises. For instance; the ratio of Deadlift, Back Squat and Bench Press weight to bodyweight, total pull up reps, plank hold time, dead hang time. My intermediate goals for these are 2x body weight for deadlift, 1.25 for back squat and 1.0x for bench press, 10 x for pull up, 3 minutes for plank hold and 1 minute for dead hang. I am reasonably close or ahead on all of these but am curious about understanding how this stacks up relative the population of men who are 60. I am relatively tall and light for my height ( 6'2" 175-185#) with average length limbs and have until recently not paid any attention to resistance training.


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## ballisticexchris (Jun 14, 2016)

Oldcolonial, I don't know the science of all this but I'm of the thought that low weight and more reps suits us older guys over 60 better regardless of how fit we are. And the body weight resistance bands are king!!

Your numbers are amazing for body weight exercises. I'm unable to do even one pull-up (bad shoulders) and would not even attempt a dead hang. I can knock out a one minute plank. 3 minutes is outstanding. 10 years ago I was able to do a 4 minute plank before body parts sagged to the ground. 

These days I'm doing cycling and stretches more than anything. My body is debilitated (shoulders, back, knees) and my disability's have me digging deep to do anything. What you are doing is great for someone that's fit like yourself.

IMHO, the heavy low rep stuff is best suited for the younger folks. I have a few buddies who power lifted when they were young and now can hardly walk or lift anything without joints popping and big pain. The strength is still there but bodies are trashed.


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## NC_Foothills_Rider (11 mo ago)

2sharp7 said:


> I agree as well. At 56 I'm content to "not know" what my one rep max's are, although I've still got a good idea based on the weight used in my sets. I am interested however in my max pull-ups reps for some weird reason. I want it to be minimum of 20. Don't think I'm quite there yet, but will soon test and see where I'm at (guessing 15 max).


20 pullups? Holy S**T! If you could do it you'd be in the top 5% for our age bracket or higher. Keep up the good work!


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## NC_Foothills_Rider (11 mo ago)

ballisticexchris said:


> That ladies deadlift form looks great!! That dude attempting the plank..... Not so good.
> 
> My planks are really bad. As little as 10 years ago I could knock out a 4 min plank before my body sagged to the ground. Just last week I was up to a solid minute and 15-20 seconds on the side planks.
> 
> ...


If you're at the gym trying at all, you're ahead of the game, and you're ahead of most of the other players too.


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## oldcolonial (Aug 28, 2018)

Note that the goals I posted are not my workouts, just the targets for where I would like to get my 5 rep maxes for the three big lifts, Bench press, Deadlift, and Backsquat. The pull up, plank and hang are also goals. 

I am typically working 3 to 4 sets for these exercises with rated perceived effort in the 6 to 8 range. For instance, bench press set of 6 at 145# and an RPE of 8 ( 2 reps in reserve ) maps to a 5 rep max of 160 which is about 25# from my goal. At some point, when I get close enough according to the calculator, I will test to see if I can indeed get to 5 reps at 185#.

I am also doing some supporting exercises.

I saw that someone posted about shoulder problems and pull ups. I feel your pain and frustration. I have had a number of serious injuries in my life and they all seem minor from a recovery perspective relative shoulder problems. I had a "complete rebuild" three years ago as a result of a slip and fall accident. I have been fortunate to get some really outstanding help from PT's and professional trainers as I put in the work to get stability and function back. It's far from what it was before the accident but then again, I am also a 60 year old guy, nothing is what it used to be.


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## 2sharp7 (Aug 29, 2013)

NC_Foothills_Rider said:


> 20 pullups? Holy S**T! If you could do it you'd be in the top 5% for our age bracket or higher. Keep up the good work!


I'm not quite there yet, I don't think but thank you! I think I can probably eke out 15 currently.


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

oldcolonial said:


> Any thoughts on a source for strength data for "athletes" over the age of 50? I am interested in seeing percentiles for some basic lifts and exercises. For instance; the ratio of Deadlift, Back Squat and Bench Press weight to bodyweight, total pull up reps, plank hold time, dead hang time. My intermediate goals for these are 2x body weight for deadlift, 1.25 for back squat and 1.0x for bench press, 10 x for pull up, 3 minutes for plank hold and 1 minute for dead hang. I am reasonably close or ahead on all of these but am curious about understanding how this stacks up relative the population of men who are 60. I am relatively tall and light for my height ( 6'2" 175-185#) with average length limbs and have until recently not paid any attention to resistance training.


I'm trying to find the powerlifting classification standards I used to follow when I was competing, but it's been a few years and for some reason they seem to be eluding me on the internet. Your numbers track fairly well with what I aim for . If you are pulling double bodyweight you are doing quite well for any age. As for bench, that is a young man's game and if you are still hitting bodyweight you are well ahead of the game, and at 6'2 with a corresponding wingspan your leverages are working against you here. I also add .75 BW as a overhead press goal, and that is getting harder and harder to hit as I age. 

For most things strength training for older guys I find Dan John to be great. Unfortunately he doesn't have a category here for masters (over 50) lifters but I would refer to this frequently back in my 40s. 

Strength Standards…Sleepless in Seattle » Dan John


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

oldcolonial said:


> Any thoughts on a source for strength data for "athletes" over the age of 50? I am interested in seeing percentiles for some basic lifts and exercises. For instance; the ratio of Deadlift, Back Squat and Bench Press weight to bodyweight, total pull up reps, plank hold time, dead hang time. My intermediate goals for these are 2x body weight for deadlift, 1.25 for back squat and 1.0x for bench press, 10 x for pull up, 3 minutes for plank hold and 1 minute for dead hang. I am reasonably close or ahead on all of these but am curious about understanding how this stacks up relative the population of men who are 60. I am relatively tall and light for my height ( 6'2" 175-185#) with average length limbs and have until recently not paid any attention to resistance training.


I think there is a chart linked in this thread somewhere that listed lifts, maybe max, for ages and body weight. It listed what a novice lifter through to expert lifter of that age and weight could do.


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## oldcolonial (Aug 28, 2018)

Yes, saw this set of charts. You either get age or weight.
It turns out that over a broad range of weights, you can just use a fairly constant ratio to weight. Say 150 to 200 Men. For instance year of Age beyond 25 costs you about 2.3# of 1 rep max in bench press at the intermediate level, 3.1# at advanced level and 4.0# at the elite competitive level. 
Male Strength Standards for Weightlifting (lb) - Strength Level


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

You can fill out the bottom of each section with weight and age and calculate how you stack up. Gives a rough estimate in my opinion.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

ZX11 said:


> You can fill out the bottom of each section with weight and age and calculate how you stack up. Gives a rough estimate in my opinion.
> View attachment 2002173


Damn. I'm pretty lean for my age and do presses at the Y, but I would stack up lamely in looking at these max rep values!


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

Crankout said:


> Damn. I'm pretty lean for my age and do presses at the Y, but I would stack up lamely in looking at these max rep values!


 I've always found there to be a bit too much internet bravado involved with the Strength Level charts to put much stock in them. Even at my best as a competitive powerlifter I was pretty mediocre compared to the self-reported results shown here.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Horseshoe said:


> I've always found there to be a bit too much internet bravado involved with the Strength Level charts to put much stock in them. Even at my best as a competitive powerlifter I was pretty mediocre compared to the self-reported results shown here.


I'm relatively cycling-lean (but not super skinny by any stretch), so bench presses will never be more than anything to keep me in shape and have some level of muscle mass on my frame. Even my squats are not about setting records....


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

Crankout said:


> I'm relatively cycling-lean (but not super skinny by any stretch), so bench presses will never be more than anything to keep me in shape and have some level of muscle mass on my frame. Even my squats are not about setting records....


That's a great way to approach it. Dan John refers to it as "armor building" which basically translates to maintaining bone strength and lean muscle mass as we age. Cycling is great for cardiovascular conditioning but not so much as a replacement for resistance training. I combine the two with the goal of being pretty strong for a mountain biker, and pretty good on a bike for a beat up old powerlifter. So far, so good.


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## ZX11 (Dec 24, 2020)

Crankout said:


> Damn. I'm pretty lean for my age and do presses at the Y, but I would stack up lamely in looking at these max rep values!


The weight based charts seem slanted a bit by youth who like to lift. By 154lbs 19 year olds who bench all the time and can bench 400lbs (arched back, wide grip?). skewing the charts.

Never have I been with guys in the gym that couldn't out bench me. Full sets at 225lbs is common for other guys with a half set at 275lbs, and max in the mid 300lbs. I'll never get there. I think most of those guys have the advantage of lifting in high school for football, basketball, and baseball. It gave them a good foundation as they were still growing into adults. I never tried those sports.

Isn't the chart not of all men (women) but only of all men who lift regularly and willingly report? It's how you stack up among lifting enthusiasts, I think.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

ZX11 said:


> Isn't the chart not of all men (women) but only of all men who lift regularly and willingly report? It's how you stack up among lifting enthusiasts, I think.


That's what I wondered. I'm just trying to keep my chest from sagging!


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## Horseshoe (May 31, 2018)

ZX11 said:


> The weight based charts seem slanted a bit by youth who like to lift. By 154lbs 19 year olds who bench all the time and can bench 400lbs (arched back, wide grip?). skewing the charts.
> 
> Never have I been with guys in the gym that couldn't out bench me. Full sets at 225lbs is common for other guys with a half set at 275lbs, and max in the mid 300lbs. I'll never get there. I think most of those guys have the advantage of lifting in high school for football, basketball, and baseball. It gave them a good foundation as they were still growing into adults. I never tried those sports.
> 
> Isn't the chart not of all men (women) but only of all men who lift regularly and willingly report? It's how you stack up among lifting enthusiasts, I think.


I suspect there are an awful lot of half-depth squats and "It's all you bro!" assisted bench press numbers mucking up the works in here too.


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## Velobike (Jun 23, 2007)

BigAlMTB said:


> Strength training also helps hold on to bone density. Unfortunately the bike doesn't do much for us there.


Try rigid singlespeed.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Do pushups help lose weight?*

Push ups are famed. There’s a reason we all know EXACTLY what “drop and give me 20” means. There’s a reason they’re considered a punishment (OH, the BURN) and strength training exercises meant to both humble us and ultimately make us stronger people, physically and mentally. We know their benefits – they work the entire chest, your triceps, your delts, and your core muscles (thanks to the plank position that is the starting position for a push up). We know how to do them correctly, we know the variations, many of us probably bang out 10-15 push ups every week (or maybe even every day?!) as part of your regular workout routine. Plus, hey! Zero equipment required for a good push up. Just your body and motivation. So, we get it. Push ups are beasts. They work many major muscle groups and help you gain muscle strength. Hooray! But do pushups help lose weight? The answer – it’s complicated.

*The Science of Weight Loss*
Basic weight loss is all about math. Calories consumed, calories burned. A sports medicine doctor or nutritionist will advise you to be in a caloric deficit, a fancy set of words basically meeting that you need to be burning more calories throughout your day than the number of calories you’re taking in through food and drink. For example, if your starting number is 1800 calories per day, you will need to consume fewer calories to accomplish a deficit and ultimately lose weight. Easy enough.

Experts recommend to lose weight and trim belly fat, do 30 minutes of moderate to intense physical activity five days a week. But they typically suggest starting with cardiovascular exercise for the most effective calorie burn for weight loss. Some examples:
– Running
– Swimming
– Biking
– Dance

30 minutes of one of these activities will burn approximately 250 calories. A push up burns around 7 calories per minute. So, how many push ups do you need to do to hit this recommendation? That would be push ups (with good form, mind you) at a moderate pace for around 35 minutes straight five days a week. How many push ups total? 245. Per day. No, thank you. So, in other words, it’s probably not feasible to plan on doing push ups as your only plan for weight loss.

One note though: strength training/resistance training fitness journey is important. Strength training can help with weight loss because muscles burn more calories than fat when the body is at rest. So, having more muscle mass can help you burn fat and ultimately lose weight more easily.

*Do Push Ups Burn Fat?*
Push ups burn fat, but not as effectively as some of the cardiovascular exercises listed above. A good fat loss exercise is effective because you’re burning calories more efficiently to lead to that caloric deficit. So if you want to shed body fat as part of your fitness plan, start by getting your heart rate up. But, if you want push ups as part of your body fat exercise routine, consider doing sets of push ups at a faster tempo, or doing reps until your body begins to burn out. 

Let’s talk about belly fat. Push ups do stimulate your core muscles, which are key in helping you lose fat. But remember – push ups mainly are about building muscle in your upper body, and the ab benefits are secondary. Doing a high rep scheme or quick reps of push ups burn calories and can reduce fat because it increases the time under tension for your ab muscles stabilizing your body.

While push ups alone are not necessarily an effective exercise for weight loss, there’s still a lot of reasons they’re such a popular exercise and why you should make them part of your circuit training, or even your daily routine! 

*Push Ups: Great for Building Strength*
But…you probably already knew that. Let’s go over it one more time.
Push ups are a compound movement, meaning push ups work multiple muscle groups all at once. Let’s go over all of the muscles worked and why they fire during a pushup.
– *Chest Muscles: *Controls the descent of the torso during a push up and the actual “push” back up to the plank position.
– *Triceps:* Stabilize your torso at the bottom of a push up. They are also the primary mover as you extend your arms.
– *Deltoids (or Shoulder Muscles):* Help bring your arms inward towards the chest during ascent. They also help stabilize your shoulders as you descend.
– *Core:* Holding a plank position stabilizes and strengthens your entire core. Same goes for your lower back. 

Plus, if you add a weighted vest, there’s similar activation in your chest muscles as the bench press. There’s also research that shows adding regular push ups into your workout routine, you can improve your body composition (aka, more muscle, less fat).

*Variations to Make Them Harder*
So, you can’t utilize just push ups for losing weight, but if you want more strength gains, you’re in the right place. For starters – if you want to work harder on the standard push up, try a higher number of reps or speed them up. But if you’re looking for more, there are plenty of variations to challenge your upper body even further.

*Decline Push Ups*
Place your hands on the ground shoulder distance apart (like a high plank position) but put your feet up on a box or weight bench. This will create a further distance you will have to go to reach your chest to the ground (or “chest to deck,” as my coach tells me), giving you more tension. This one works your pecs harder too.
*Weighted Push Ups*
Same standard push up, heavier weight. You can use a weighted vest or place a barbell plate or dumbbell on your back. You need to have proper form on this one so the weight doesn’t roll off your back.
*Pike Push Ups*
This is a mash up of push ups and yoga! It’s great for your triceps. Instead of coming to a standard plank, lift your hips back into a U-shape (similar to a down dog or a pike), with your toes resting on the floor. This adds more tension to your shoulders and arms.
*Spiderman Push Ups*
Think of this as a push up and a variation of the mountain climber. Your starting position is in plank. As you lower down into a push up, bring your right leg up to your right elbow, bent at a 90-degree angle. For an additional challenge, hold for 1-2 seconds before lifting back up. Switch sides, bringing your left leg up to your left elbow.
*T-Push Ups*
A little extra love for your obliques here by incorporating a side plank. Begin in a high plank. Lower down to a push up. After coming back up, slowly rotate your body to the right side, with your left arm supporting your body and your right arm straight up in the air. Still not enough? Lift your right leg too. Hold for 3 second. Come back to the high plank on all fours, do another standard push up, roll over to your left side. Try for five on each side.

*Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Push Ups*
If you want to keep push ups in your strength training routine (and why wouldn’t you?), make sure you’re keeping up with good form. Bad form makes your push ups less effective and could even lead to an unpleasant injury if you aren’t careful. Remember:
– *Keep Your Back in a Straight Line: *Don’t let your back sag or push your hips high into the air (creating more of a U-shape). Both make your push ups easier and less effective.
– *Don’t Flare Your Arms:* If you’re creating a T-shape with your arms and torso, you’re doing it wrong. This will strain your shoulders. Tuck your elbows toward your torso.
– *Control Your Descent: *Losing control and dropping straight to the floor will take away half of your push up’s benefit.
– *Don’t Let Your Feet Slide: *For this one, best thing to do is choose your surface wisely. If you’re sliding around, you’ll get frustrated in a hurry and you won’t be able to do the exercise effectively.

So, in the end, will push ups help you lose weight? They certainly burn calories and help you gain strength, both which are helpful in losing weight and body fat. Don’t plan on push ups alone doing the trick. But maintain a healthy diet, get your sweat sesh in with some cardio and throw in a few sets of push ups in your fitness plan along with your regular strength routine, and it’s very likely you’ll see results. 










Do Pushups Help Lose Weight? -


Do pushups help lose weight? This is a question we hear often from our crossfit women athletes. They do if you do them right.




thebarbellbeauties.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Cardio isn’t the First Step to Losing Weight*
Most people think cardio is the main component to losing weight but not so fast.

Although steady state cardio can be great for your overall health, it probably isn't the most effective way to lose weight. Here are four reasons why you should start your weight loss journey through diet and lifting weights instead of slaving away on a treadmill. 

*Reason #1: Doing Cardio Doesn’t Burn That Many Calories *
Doing cardiovascular exercise can help you improve your oxygen consumption, heart rate, and short term calorie expenditure. However, it is very hard to get a calorie deficit for weight loss solely through cardio. In a 2011 meta analysis of 14 different studies with over 1,800 participants found that aerobic exercise was not an effective weight loss therapy for overweight or obese individuals [1]. For example, if you are a 175 lb man you can burn around 400 calories with 30 minutes of treadmill running at 6mph.

After your workout, you leave the gym, you feel hungry, you eat a 300 calorie protein bar and now you are left with only a 100 calorie net loss for the day. Since humans need to burn 3,500 calories to lose one pound of weight, you would need to run everyday for 35 days to lose a single pound. That is a lot of hours spent for very little return investment. So if you are currently doing hours of cardio and not seeing results, maybe it's time to switch to some weight training.

*Reason #2: Cardio Plateau *
When an untrained person starts doing cardio, that person can immediatley see some promising results because their calorie expenditure has substantially increased. After several weeks, that person may hit a weight loss plateau because their body has now adjusted to this new routine. Over time, your body burns less calories with the same workout because your heart becomes stronger, your breathing becomes more efficient, and muscles use less energy to do the same amount of work [2]. Therefore, you have to continually increase the intensity or duration of your cardio session to lose weight. At some point, that may not be sustainable. 

*Reason #3: Too Much Cardio Can Have The Opposite Effect*
While most people might not do too much cardio, the effects of overexertion and under recovery from cardiovascular exercise may increase your risk of injury, inhibit muscle growth, lower your metabolism, and even cause your body to store more fat. After intense exercise, your body releases the hormone cortisol to put your body in a recovery state. With adequate rest, your body will return to baseline.

However, some people can become obsessed with burning calories and losing weight which can lead to multiple days, weeks, or months of overtraining and an increased risk of injury [3]. When the body is stressed and cortisol levels are high, studies have shown it to inhibit muscle growth, disrupt sleep patterns, increase hunger signals, and gain excess fat especially in the stomach area [4]. In order to counteract these negative effects, adding in rest days and strength days can help you achieve your weight loss goals. 

*Reason #4: Resistance Training Can Burn More Calories Than Cardio In The Long Term.*
Resistance training such as weight lifting can be a much more effective weight loss tool than cardio. By increasing your muscle mass, you can increase the amount of calories you burn at rest which makes it easier for you to have a calorie deficit [5]. A 2015 study found that resistance training burned at least as many calories as steady state cardio when they measured the post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) over the subsequent 24 hours after working out.

They hypothesized that resistance training would burn more overall calories possibly due to the muscle breakdown and protein synthesis [6]. Since lifting weights can burn as many calories as traditional cardio, it may greatly help you with your weight loss goals. 

*Conclusion*
The optimal method for losing body fat would be to do cardio, high intensity interval training, weight training, and eating a balanced calorie restrictive diet. My advice for setting yourself up for weight loss success would be to start weight training first and then adding cardio to your program.









Why Cardio isn’t the First Step to Losing Weight


Most people think cardio is the main component to losing weight but not so fast.




www.bodybuilding.com


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## Hrodulf (12 mo ago)

A well trained core is the best bonus for MTB'ers.

Give this one a try - with no breaks !






Five Minute Plank Workout


Five minute plank workout for a stronger core. Visual guide: print & use.




darebee.com


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## motleynation (2 mo ago)

I am a fan of hiking now and body weight exercises..I use to CF, but too many injuries..I do a modified CF routine but using DBs only and bodyweight..love grinder WOD's


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

motleynation said:


> I am a fan of hiking now and body weight exercises..I use to CF, but too many injuries..I do a modified CF routine but using DBs only and bodyweight..love grinder WOD's


I enjoy hiking too. Body weight exercise can be effective. Even with minimal equipment there's loads of stuff to do that's effective.

I still enjoy CF: The workout programs and format hits all the right body parts  Most of my CF WODs are scaled but can be regarded as prescribed for masters athletes. The prescribed weights and some of the gymnastics are geared for elite athletes (eg bar muscle-ups, handstand push ups or walks... stuff like that)
I'd rather focus on good form and complete each movement.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

cyclelicious said:


> I enjoy hiking too. Body weight exercise can be effective. Even with minimal equipment there's loads of stuff to do that's effective.
> 
> I still enjoy CF: The workout programs and format hits all the right body parts  Most of my CF WODs are scaled but can be regarded as prescribed for masters athletes. The prescribed weights and some of the gymnastics are geared for elite athletes (eg bar muscle-ups, handstand push ups or walks... stuff like that)
> I'd rather focus on good form and complete each movement.


Form? I remember a video of a cross fit pull up competition, and as the athletes do rep after rep, the voice over counts, "zero, zero, zero, zero..."


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I agree. There is bad form especially when there is pressure to compete. People get excited and everything they have been taught gets forgotten. Good coaches teach and demo the movements. They correct proper form during class but some people continue to add more weight (even though they are struggling) or do incomplete movements just to get through the WOD if it requires a high volume of reps. Kipping pull ups are acceptable and if done right can help when doing a high number of reps. But kipping if done poorly looks half-ass... so no rep.

I can do a pull up. I can kip a few in a row and I can do a strict pull up but I need to rest in between. It takes me awhile to do several. If I'm doing a WOD that requires a high volume of pull ups I'd rather do banded pull ups; do the full range of motion and try to complete my MetCon in a reasonable amount of time.
In the meantime I continue to work on accessory movements to build my strength so I can reach my goal to do more consecutive pull ups.

I like CF because of the high-intensity training, incorporating cardio, weights, and multiple muscle groups at a time. When I challenge myself to something my brain secretes a magical little bit of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is a very pleasurable experience. I sometimes get that feeling (aka Runner's High) when I do my long distance training run. Working out should be fun. I'm fitter and stronger overall and I attribute that to CF


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## kosmo (Oct 27, 2004)

cyclelicious said:


> I like CF because of the high-intensity training, incorporating *cardio*, weights, and multiple muscle groups at a time.


CF can certainly bring the cardio, but approach is the opposite. If I'm in my home gym doing my dumbell/core/pushup routine, I'm typically looking for a day of rest from cardio.


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## Stonerider (Feb 25, 2008)

kosmo said:


> CF can certainly bring the cardio, but approach is the opposite. If I'm in my home gym doing my dumbell/core/pushup routine, I'm typically looking for a day of rest from cardio.


Me too...I do cardio 5 days per week and my two strength training days are on my non-cardio days. The heart is a muscle and needs rest days as well. Cardio: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. Strength: Monday and Friday.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sharing a good link for Core Training Exercises.









Core Training Guide - Roadman Cycling .pdf







drive.google.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Can You Pass the Flexibility Test?*
Having a good range of motion is essential for athletics as well as everyday life.










Bending down to put on your socks. Looking over your shoulder to change lanes. Reaching up to pluck a box of cereal from a high shelf at the grocery store.
When most of us think about flexibility, we imagine a yogi with their legs wrapped around their heads or a ballet dancer doing the splits. The truth is, there are countless everyday movements that require flexibility. And being able to do them takes maintenance.
“Flexibility is very much a case of use it or lose it,” said Dan Van Zandt, a flexibility coach and educator.
Instead of shying away from movements that are painful, Mr. Van Zandt said, you can work on your flexibility and improve your range of motion. Even though most of us won’t ever become flexible enough to do the splits, with time and patience we can squat a little deeper, reach a little higher and maybe even sit cross-legged on the floor.

*Flexibility and mobility can be cultivated.*
Flexibility and mobility are different but related concepts, said Andrew Pavlov, an orthopedic physical therapist and a faculty member at San Diego State University. Flexibility describes the ability of your muscles to lengthen, or stretch, and mobility refers to the ability of your joints to move through its full range of motion, Dr. Pavlov said. Combined, a lack of flexibility and mobility make things like stretching to pluck something off a high shelf or reaching down to pull a weed in your yard difficult and sometimes even painful.
Flexibility and mobility are skills to be cultivated, like strength and cardiovascular endurance. And like those skills, they can improve your quality of life. Some small studies suggest that being more flexible is linked to improved sleep and less pain, as well as a lower risk of depression. According to LaDora V. Thompson, a professor in the department of physical therapy at Boston University, maintaining an optimal range of motion in your joints is also associated with good balance, strength and walking speed. And, of course, improving your ability to move smoothly and without pain simply makes many everyday tasks easier.
“As you get older, as you stop getting into these positions that were once easy,” Mr. Van Zandt said, “then you lose function, your quality of life becomes impaired.”

*Test your flexibility with five simple stretches.*
Gauging your own flexibility isn’t simply a matter of bending over and touching your toes, though that is one good test. Our bodies move and bend in many ways, and you’ll need to try a few different tests if you want a comprehensive assessment.
It’s also important to know that with flexibility, you can have too much of a good thing. About 20 percent of the population is hypermobile, which means their joints move beyond the typical range. It’s not a cause for concern unless one experiences pain or has recurring injuries. However, if you are extremely flexible, doctors and physical therapists recommend shifting your focus from stretching to building strength in order to stabilize and protect your joints.

*Back, hips and hamstrings*









Theresa Larson (pictured here), an expert on movement health, said that touching your toes is a good way to test your lower back, hips and hamstrings. Those with short arms might not be able to reach all the way down, but if your fingers are in the general vicinity, that’s a sign of good flexibility.

Theresa Larson, a physical therapist and expert on movement health, recommended beginning your flexibility assessment with a simple toe touch. Start by standing up with your legs straight, then bend over and touch your toes.

If you can touch your toes while keeping your legs straight, Dr. Larson said, you probably have a good amount of flexibility in your lower back, hips and hamstrings. If you can only reach your knees, that’s a possible sign of tight hamstrings, stiff hip joints or perhaps pre-existing spinal injuries. Some people can put their palms flat on the floor while keeping their legs straight. This might be a sign of hypermobility, or you might simply have long arms. Conversely, those with short arms might never be able to touch their toes, no matter how flexible they become.

*Neck*

1) To test the flexibility of your neck, you can sit in a chair or kneel on the floor, so long as you are comfortable and your shoulders are aligned with your body.Credit...
2) Keeping your shoulders squared with your body, turn your head to one side and then the other. You should be able turn your head 90 degrees from your starting position without moving your shoulders.

To evaluate the flexibility of your neck, sit in a chair or on the floor and turn your head to one side. You should be able to get your chin almost in line with your shoulder, about 90 degrees. Many of our daily activities, including looking down at a phone or leaning over a computer, can cause neck stiffness that interferes with flexibility.

*Thoracic spine*

1) To do the “open book” test, begin by lying flat on the ground and twisting your hips and bent legs to the right side so that they touch the floor.
2) Bring your hands together on the ground, straight in front of you, on the same side as your knees are facing.
3) Now lift your top arm and move it to the other side of your body, getting as close to the floor as possible without pain. If you can reach the floor, you have good flexibility in the upper and middle part of your spine 

You can test the flexibility of the upper and middle part of your back by gauging your thoracic spine rotation, Dr. Larson said, with a stretch called the open book. Start by lying on your side with your legs and feet together, knees bent. Straighten both arms in front of you and slowly rotate your top arm open, keeping your lower arm, pelvis and legs still. See how far you can rotate your arm. If you can “open the book,” or touch your top arm to the floor behind you without moving your legs, you have adequate flexibility in your upper back. If you can’t get your arm to the floor, that might be a good place to focus your stretches.

*Calves and ankles*

1) To test your calves and ankles, position yourself near a wall or door jamb and press one knee against the wall. You can stand or, if it’s more comfortable, kneel on your back leg. 
2) Kneeling can make it easier to see the tape measure or ruler. If you can hold your foot, heel on the floor, four inches from the wall, then you have good flexibility in your calves and ankles.

Tight calves and ankles can cause Achilles tendinitis, plantar fasciitis and impact your walking gait, which can lead to injury. To test these, start by facing a wall, with your toes touching the wall. Step one foot back slightly, holding onto the wall for balance if needed, and keep the other foot planted. If it’s easier, drop down onto your knee with the back foot. Then let your front knee come forward to touch the wall.

“If you’re able to touch the wall with your knee — without the heel popping up on that front foot — then move yourself slightly back away from the wall and keep going. See how far away from the wall you can get and still touch your knee to the wall without your heel popping up,” Dr. Pavlov said.

Next, get out a ruler or measuring tape. If you can move your front foot back four inches away and still touch your knee to the wall, Dr. Pavlov said, you have a good amount of flexibility in your calf and ankle. If not, you should focus on stretching your calves and ankles.

*Hips*
1) To test your hip flexibility, lie on your back and raise one leg up, leaving the other bent and on the ground. Cross the ankle of the raised leg over the other thigh and pull on the back of your bent leg. If you can’t reach the back of your leg, that’s a sign of poor flexibility. 


The final test evaluates the external rotation of your hips, which can become very tight if you sit for most of the day.

Start by lying on your back with your right foot on the ground, knee bent. Bring the left ankle to the top of your right knee and, using your hands, lift your right leg off the ground. Reach for your hamstring or shin as you bring your right leg closer to your chest. Repeat on the other side. If you can’t reach your hamstring with your hands, that’s a sign you have tightness in your hips.

*How can you become more flexible?*
If any of these tests revealed a lack of flexibility, a good place to start is by turning that movement into a regular stretch. For example, if you weren’t able to get your arm to the floor in the open book stretch, perform the stretch until you feel resistance. Then spend about 30 seconds slowly and carefully moving your arm a little bit closer to the floor.
“Eventually you’ll find the point at which the discomfort gets farther and farther into the range of motion,” Mr. Van Zandt said.
Stretching doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Mr. Van Zandt said five to 10 minutes per week per muscle group is optimal for most people. This can be a single five-minute stretch or a few sets of 30-second stretches three to four days a week. Avoid stretching cold muscles by stretching after a workout, or warm up your muscles for five to ten minutes beforehand.
If you enjoy lifting weights and dislike stretching, you can work on both at the same time by moving through the full range of motion in your workouts, like squatting with a barbell as low as your strength and flexibility allow to improve your calf and ankle flexibility.
“The way you train it is entirely up to you,” Mr. Van Zandt said. “You can lift weights, you can stretch, you can do a combination of both.” He added that combining tends to be the most effective.
Lindsay Renteria, a personal trainer and functional fitness coach, recommended the Samson stretch for its efficiency. This stretch — a lunge forward with one leg, hands clasped overhead, alternating legs after 30 seconds — targets your quads, glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors and even shoulders.
The most important thing to focus on while you’re stretching, said Ms. Renteria, is your breathing. While you stretch, take a deep breath in for two or three seconds, then out for two or three seconds. “Breathing helps reduce stress and relaxes your body so your muscles can go through a full range of motion.”

For illustrations of the test movements: see attached



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/well/move/flexibility-test-mobility-fitness.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20230106&instance_id=81946&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=78430320&segment_id=121735&te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Resolved to work out more in 2023? What science says about sticking to it*











Exercising doesn't have to happen in a gym for it to become routine, according to experts, but pre-planning a workout can help the habit stick. 


A pledge to get more active is a popular New Year's resolution, but research shows that most people give up on their efforts around exercise and losing weight by February. 

Researchers say there can be several factors as to why people don't stick with it. Often, it's because the goal may have been too ambitious.

"A key part is really starting small. We need to set realistic, routine goals," said Mary Jung, an associate professor in the University of British Columbia's (UBC) health and exercise sciences department, in an interview with Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC's _The Dose_. 












Researchers encourage people to try different activities when they're new to working out


Sticking to a new exercise routine can be challenging, as it involves a series of behaviours like getting dressed, checking the weather, and then doing the activity, says Kathleen Martin Ginis, a professor in UBC's medicine department and director of the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management. 

"That's what makes it exceptionally difficult to start and maintain. It's not like putting on a seat belt or brushing your teeth or taking a vitamin," she said.

Recognizing what is stopping us from doing a workout and addressing it can help us incorporate exercise into our weekly routine. 

So if you've ever struggled to stick with a resolution or want to become more active, here's what those who study physical activity and human behaviour suggest for the best chance of developing a routine. 

*Why does it matter to you?*
Before you lace up the runners, experts agree you should start by reflecting on why physical activity or losing weight is important to you. 

"We know from lots of research studies that … people who are most likely to stick to an exercise program are the people who find deeper meaning to exercise than just losing weight or looking good," said Martin Ginis. 

"The typical New Year's resolution of 'I need to lose 10 pounds fast' may get you into the gym or outside for the first few days, but it's not going to keep you going for the long term."

In fact, Swedish researchers found that people who made resolutions around approaching a goal with a positive outcome rather than avoiding something — like aiming to get fit enough to run the bases at a slow pitch tournament versus swearing off sweets — were more likely to keep their resolutions.

To help outline your priorities and set up a plan, Lynne Honey, a psychology professor at Edmonton's MacEwan University, recommends the SMART goals approach, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.











There are thousands of free workout videos online for people to use if they don't want to go to the gym.


"You're working towards potentially something you haven't been working at for quite a while so it's really important to create goals that are actually attainable so that you're not just setting yourself up for disappointment," she said. 

She suggests being as specific as possible. If you want to run 5K by the summer, that's a more concrete goal than just "getting fit," and it can be broken down into sub-goals through weekly training, Honey says. 

*Start small*
Most people take on too much when beginning to exercise, says Rebecca Lloyd, a professor and anglophone director of graduate studies in the University of Ottawa's education department.

She recommends people start slow and recognize the movement they already do as part of their daily routine, like getting up from a chair or walking down stairs, and building upon that.

The next steps will look different for everyone, but for someone who is inactive, Jung typically recommends starting with 10 to 15 minutes of daily activity. 

Walking is a good starting activity for many because it doesn't involve a pricey gym membership or special equipment, she says.

Jung says to also start with something you know you can do and build upon that. 

"If I know I can lift 10 pounds and do a biceps curl, I'm going to start at 10 pounds. It's in fact really important for me to experience success and accomplishment," said Jung, who is also the director of UBC's Centre for Health Behaviour Change. 

Canada's movement guidelines suggest adults get at least 150 minutes of cardiovascular or aerobic activity at a moderate or vigorous intensity per week and muscle strengthening activities like lifting weights at least twice a week. 

Terri Roberts, executive director of Nova Scotia Fitness Association and host of The Pink Dumbbell Problem YouTube channel, says those first workouts can be challenging. 

"I always tell people this is like learning a dance form or learning to play a musical instrument. You are not going to pick up a guitar and play like Eddie Van Halen in the first lesson," she said.

Personal trainers can help build a workout plan that'll be catered to your physical abilities, she added.

*Remove barriers as much as possible*
Time is often a barrier for people, says Honey.

"A lot of us like to talk about how busy we are but we all do still find time to fritter away a few moments here and there on social media or playing a video game," she said.

"I'm not saying that people need to give those things up, but there are chunks of time that we could be using differently."

Honey, Jung and Martin Ginis recommend action planning — making time in your calendar and adding details like location of workout — to help people stick with their goals.

"What we have shown and others have shown again and again is that the simple act of putting this in your calendar … will significantly increase the amount of time spent on activity," Martin Ginis said.

Still, it can be easy to ignore that calendar on the fridge or the notification on your phone to workout when life is demanding. 

"What makes it more challenging when we think about exercise is that, of course, it has to be volitional. We have to choose to do it, and there's so many other factors in our life that are going on that act as a barrier to us engaging in this purposeful exercise," said Jung.

But it's important to remember that increasing your physical activity levels doesn't need to happen in a gym, and that there are millions of free workouts available online, she says. 

Martin Ginis says it helps to think through those kinds of alternate plans for times when you encounter barriers like lack of childcare or poor weather conditions. 

"What this does is it takes off the burden in the moment of trying to come up with an alternative exercise plan when your babysitter cancels on you or when it snows and the sidewalks aren't cleared," she said.

*Self-monitoring*
If you want to stick to your goals, make sure to reflect on your growth as you go.

"The reason it's so powerful is because it gives you an opportunity to gauge your progress," said Martin Ginis.











Smartwatches can be one way to self-monitor your exercise progress

Tracking allows us to recognize our accomplishments which can help us "feel good about ourselves and perpetuate our motivation to exercise," she said. It also helps to assess what's working and not working.

There are many ways to self-monitor, but apps and smartwatches can help track our progress. And for the old-school trackers, a notebook also works. 

"It really has to be what works best for you," said Martin Ginis.














https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/exercise-resolutions-expert-advice-1.6703887


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