getting in shape?

[svandamme]

now i bought a bicycle, because i need to get in shape
back hurts from no exercise and a sitting life, no stamina
the usual "haven't done anything in 15 years and it's paying dividend"

after 1 week of cycling every day
not much, just 7-10 km a day , usually in 2 runs
my back hurts less

great

but my legs seem to be getting weaker, first runs i was really gunning it , good pace the whole way round, now i'm down a lot in average speed, simply because the legs give out before i get up to some serious sweat.

what gives? how long till muscles actually get better
and i can do some more distance, and get a better cardio exercise out of it???

should i give it a rest for a few days?
force it anyway?
more sprints a day?

it's just annoying, i can hardly walk after i just did a run, no strenth left...and the improvement is just not there...

[tabs]

What kind of Bicycle did U get? Maybe U can leave it to me in your Will, after U croak of a Heart Attack.

In other words start slow, and don't push it. Your not 35 anymore, and U have to watch your heart after so long a period of inactivity.

[jeffgrant]

For what it's worth, taking proper recovery time is just as important as working out.

If you're working out hard every day, you're not giving your legs a chance to recover and rebuild themselves.

Try a day-on-day-off regime and see how that goes.


Also, diet plays a BIG part of it. You're going to need energy for biking, usually in the form of carbs. The night before hill climbs, we'd have plates and plates of pasta, and would drink energy drinks during the race... made a HUGE difference.

Be sure you're eating enough energy to sustain what you're doing.



That being said, I'm old and fat now, so take that with a grain of salt.

[svandamme]

Tabs, i have yet to reach 35 (31 in a month)
my ticky tickker is just fine , don't even have a will

got a race bike , just roads, no hills, holland is flat as a pancake

again , it's just the muscles that aren't cooperating, heartrate barely goes up with what i'm doign now (was better in beginning of the week when i still had the muscles to push them pedals)

so i guess i'll have to do this recovery thing

eating pastay allready , simply coz i like it

EDIT,

btw tabs, we can look into that will thing
both set one up , last one to croak get's the loot ,spoons and everything else

it's a win-win situation

[Jims5543]

Jeff is right, for now, you need to take some time to let the muscles recover. You also need to drink a lot of water to flush out the acid waste your muscles will create as you wake them back up.

Diet is huge, eating healthy will pay back tenfold. I was 20 lbs overweight 2 months ago and now have a 6 pack of abs and feel the best I have felt in 12 years.

Good luck and great first step keep it up!

[svandamme]

i've been eating health the last year or so, i'm not overweight (79kg/1m80), it's pure lack of muscles, sitting job syndrom that snuck up on me...

first noticed i had a problem when i went skiing in march for the first time in 10 years, and basically couldn't ski much, technique came back quite fast, but by that time i didn't have the legs to use it, and didn't recover

first day , 5 hours skiing,
second day 4 hours,
3rd day 1 hour till legs went
then skipped a day (also because cousin had a knee accident and had to take care of things beeing the second oldest and her beeing upset and all)
5th day, same as 3rd, 1 day wasn't enough to recover
basically quit then, because blue piste is boring and anythin more then that is to risky if the muscles give way... we didn't need another major injury there were only 3 on that trip, and 3rd one was not adult enough to take care of the old folks

that trip kinda got me thinking i had a problem and needed to do something

[djmcmath]

You've got a long ways to go, but you're on the right track. Work out until it's a serious challenge to get up a flight of stairs, then rest. Two-a-days are not a bad idea, but don't overdo it. Take one day off each week, at a minimum.

And just keep at it. You'll feel pretty weak at first, but over time, you'll see the change. Give it at least 2 weeks before you pass any judgement. A month might be more realistic, and we're not talking serious change in a month, just the beginnings of it.

[Flatbutt1]

Stijn, I have been riding a road bike for years and it does take time and efficient workouts to get the muscle gains you want.

Don't just go out and hump it every day. You must do sprints one day alternating with spinning(high rpms work out) another day. And yes rest is important. But not resting by taking a day off completely. You are a young man so you'll get plenty of rest during 8 hours of sleep , BUT don't punish your muscles every day.

Also pay attention to technique. Are you pulling UP with one foot when the other is pushing down? Is your upper body relatively "quiet" when pedalling? And is your position on the bike correctly adjusted?

These are all critical to your development.

[john70t]

If you build up the calves and quads too quickly, without balancing them, this may lead to a nasty case of shin-splint where it seems impossible to lift the toes up in normal walking(I've experienced this).
Take it real easy for the first six months and use the lower gears lightly on hills- cardio is best with repetition. Swiming in combination will probably help.

Too many people start a program, push it, get an injury, and then quit. Then they are injured and unmotivated.

[svandamme]

well, it's 2.2km to work, so that's about 4 a day
to work i don't push much, don't want to arrive sweatting and end up stinking up the place

i guess the commute isn't to much to do daily
and some days i'll be with the car if i have to do some things that require the car

i'll just lay off the 5km run around the block i've been doing daily after work, perhaps one 5k after work on wednesdays and then 2 a day in weekends, one in the morning before bf, and one in the late afternoon...

no hills John , this is the Netherlands
the biggest hills here are speedbumps

[Dennis Kalma]

Hi there Stijn, I am back on the wrong side of the Atlantic...

Anyway, I spent a lot of time working out with only marginal effects on muscle strength and stamina (like 10 years) and was getting frustrated. Wife found a personal trainer who knew his stuff, and I have been working with him for the last two....with much better effect. I probably am not exactly right in terms of descriptions, but here is what I have gleaned from the guy I call Eric the Evil.

First things first, a given exercise only works a given set of muscles, they get good at doing whatever exercise you are doing and then the effect plateau's a lot....very little benefit for a lot of effort. You need to change the exercises to work different muscles, just biking is too narrow a choice.

Second. Diet is important, but not for the reasons you think. As I have understood it, right after a work out, your body needs protein fairly soon to help with teh building process. I take a protein drink right after working out, and it makes a difference. Idea is you need fuel to burn, but also to build muscle.

Third, you need to give time to build. Muscles build by repairing micro-tears in the tissue. When you do a good workout, you make microscopic tears in the muscle that get repaired with "new" muscle, which in turn contributes to development of strength. Eric the Evil always wants me to have a full day between strength training sessions for recovery....do some light stuff if you want, but don't do back to back sessions, they don't work as well.

You might consider weight training. When I last bicycled a lot in 2000 (prior to the trip to NL this past month), my legs would poop out pretty easily. I have done a fair bit of strength training since then, basically I could bike at full speed around NL, Rijskwik to Kijkduin for example, and absolutely zero stress on the legs, even against wind, higher speeds etc etc. I think the difference is balanced strenght training for my whole legs...

Anyway, I would not look at biking to work as a strenght training programme, most definitely it is a good thing, but you need to do some other stuff before you can do the Arnold Schwartzenegger thing....

Take care

Dennis

[svandamme]

i'm not really into strenth , i'm not looking to get ripped

my frame isn't built for it anyway, even when i was younger, no matter what i did, i looked skinny , no mass ( at 22 i weighed 57 kg, underweight)

got some mass now, in the for of a small beer gutt, nothing spectacular even

the idea is just to get a minimum of condition built up
to stretch the muscles that have been shrinking with 10 years of desk work and no exercise, i allready notice the back pain is pretty much gone, in just 1 week (been having trouble with that for 6 months, walking to work improved it , but it didn't go away completely)

if i can do 25km once in a while at a reasonable speed, without struggling, that'll be enough for my purpose

[CJFusco]

About 3 years into college, I discovered that I was about 30 pounds heavier than when I went in. Granted, I was a skinny little dude when I graduated high school, but lots of late-night beer and pizza had taken its toll.

Basically, I designed my own workout plan. I knew that if you put too much strain on your body too quickly, your results wouldn't be great.

There is a 3-mile loop in the woods near my old house. I decided I would walk around the loop for the first couple times, and then start running. I would go every other day. The first few times, I walked, and I noticed I was a little less out of breath by the end. So, I started running around the loop.

You say you might not be into strength training, but you should know that muscle burns fat; the more muscle mass you have, the faster the fat will melt off your body. I decided that on the days I didn't walk/run, I would lift weights. Nothing strenuous, I concentrated on reps more than weight.

After a couple weeks of running 3 miles, I started running 3 and then walking another 3 around the loop. After a couple weeks of this, I started running twice around. By the beginning of the following fall, before I went back to school for year 4, I was running 9 miles every other day. Week-to-week, I could see the fat just coming off. I could see my jawline again.

Over the course of a summer I went from 180lbs back down to 150 (I'm only 5'8" - this is an ideal weight). Actually, I actually overdid the running a little the next summer and dropped a little bit underweight (140 or so). I am now hovering at about 150.

Definitely let your muscles recover after working out, but I wouldn't discount a little strength training either. Twice a week and you will see beneficial results, trust me.

[svandamme]

Originally posted by CJFusco

You say you might not be into strength training, but you should know that muscle burns fat; the more muscle mass you have, the faster the fat will melt off your body. I decided that on the days I didn't walk/run, I would lift weights. Nothing strenuous, I concentrated on reps more than weight.

fat burning isn't a goal either, i'm not overweight
and couldn't care less about that small beer gutt, i wear it with pride

it's mostly because in my current shape, i can't do much
skiing, nope
driving my car for anything more then 20 k , hurts my back
skidiving?? with pack pain?? i think not

now i'm a car nut, this is a serious issue, having pain in your lower leg , because of sitting in my car, not good

physio says it's pure down to lack of exercise... so here i am

[Dennis Kalma]

Stijn, I sort of wonder if you are missing the point....namely, you can't just do one thing (cycling) and get broad benefits like what you need to ski or improve your back pain. You need to do something that works the broader range of back/leg and maybe arm muscles as well, need to do it in some sort of way that keeps changing a bit to prevent plateauing and make sure you optimize your result with some diet and scheduling.

The gut thing is not it for sure ( I still have one), but I would say that I now feel I can do pretty well any physical thing I want as I have done a fairly broad programme. Nothing complicated, all I have is a ball, bosu and free weights for strength training....but it is the combination of stuff that got me from pretty well a physical basket case to OK.

Just FYI, I also take yoga....for stretching, and it also has made a difference in mobility and relieved a number of muscle strains and pains...

Think about it....either that or get a job in construction that will work you physically as part of the deal, or play some fairly active sport that uses a lot of muscle groups...many ways to do it...

Dennis

[Hugh R]

Pack a banana or two when you ride. They help a lot. Drink plenty of water.

[livi]

Stijn,

Relax buddy.

If you have been laying about for a long time, it will take time to get in shape. Paraphrasing Rowan Atkinson in the discotheque scene: Many people donīt know how to dance - and so they do too much..

The most important muscle when it comes to training is your brain. When starting out, the most paramount factor is not giving up after a few weeks or months because the result is not satisfactory. Next important rule say: Less is mostly more efficient than more. Particularly in the beginning. Give your body time. Too much pain and fatigue spells failure - both for your body and mind. You have the rest of your life to improve. Stay at it, be consistent, donīt overdo it and give the body plenty of rest. Make sure you feel motivated. If you start to feel you hate it - find another form for exercise. Otherwise you will be back on the couch pretty soon.

Once again: No matter what form of exercise, intensity, rest intervals you choose - the effect will be much better than doing nothing at all. Sticking with it is the number 1 issue.

Ride on, brother!

[svandamme]

well , went out again an hour ago
found a new trick

tailing scooters

get's me out of the wind
get's me up to 37/kmh
drives them nuts

then came home and ate 3 eggs

[livi]

Go Rocky Go!!

[nostatic]

Rome was not built in a week.

Took how many years to get to this out-of-shape place?