The New York Times ran an interesting piece the other day about staying in shape, getting out of shape, and matching your workout with what you do for fun. The story opens with the experience of a competition rower who lost and regained fitness.
It shows, exercise physiologists say, training is exquisitely specific: you can acquire and maintain cardiovascular fitness with many activities, but if you want to keep your ability to row, or run, or swim, you have to do that exact activity.
It also shows, they say, that people who work out sporadically, running on weekends, for instance, will never reach their potential.
I realized this on the first hill Sunday at Mount Diablo (which has lots of hills) … I hadn’t been on a serious hike in nearly a month, and my heart rate was way up there after maybe five uphill minutes.
The story mentions that if you’re pressed for time, it’s better to crank out a short, high-intensity workout.
For hikers, it’s not really practical to hike five days a week — best I’ve been able to come up with is stair laps (we live on the fourth floor) for leg strength and jogging for cardio capacity.
How about the rest of y’all? Any tips on finding time to work out, especially at the holidays, are welcome.
Link via sportsgeezer.
Tom, I’m in the same boat. Between Gina’s back and a lot of work (and a broken chair), I haven’t had much time to really ramp up the training regimen.
But I make time either at the gym or with dumbells at home. It’s not the best situation for enduarance runs, but at least I can keep my strength up.
I didn’t realize just how much can be lost until I started back at the gym a couple weeks ago after almost two months off! Wow. Almost at square one! My suggestion? Take the time to do SOMETHING, even if it’s just a walk around the neighborhood when you get home. I only feel bad if I get lost in a televised sporting event or something equally sedentary. You may not be fully taxing yourself, but anything beats nothing 10 times out of 10!
Getting enough exercise is a major problem for me. I work at a supremely sedentary job sitting in front of a computer all day long. I have a long commute and I may not get home from work until 8 PM by which time I am dead tired from sitting in front of a computer all day followed by the stop and go commute. It really takes a toll and on top of that, I have developed asthma, I think from breathing all the diesel exhaust on the freeway. AND I am not getting any younger. My doctor agrees with 4wheelbob, I should get out and at least walk around the block when I get home. One of these days I will do it. But this past summer I did manage to put nearly 1000 miles on my bike riding around the neighborhood and I think that helped. I don’t exercise on bad air days though. But add it all up, and I am the weakest link, the slowest hiker on the trail. I would love to be faster and stronger, especially on the uphill parts!
Oh, and one other comment, I worry enough about the Bay Area air quality now that I check it before I go out riding my bike. In fact I subscribe to free email alerts from the Bay Area Air Quality management District (the Spare the Air people) at http://airalert.sparetheair.org/
If the quality is bad, I don’t ride. My lungs don’t hurt as much after exercising on good air days and I figure my lungs come in handy on the trail!