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Quoted message said:You said it lot better than I did, Steve.
Since loss of muscle is such an issue as we age, I was thinking maybe
weight training is more useful for health than aerobic activity.
I've
never visited "Tabata Protocol", but I'm also a big believer in
anaerobic workouts as a way to maintain cardiac health. My knowledge
and experience there
comes from reading about the "SuperSlow" weight training protocal.
When people talk about doing "cardio", it's almost absurd. As if one
could take one's
heart muscle out and put it on the treadmill. People seem to have
lost
sight of the fact that the only way to exercise the heart is through
the skeletal muscle.
I don't see the point in condemning the concept of traditional
cardiovascular exercise - it works very well for very many people, and
it worked well for me from my mid-20's to my mid-40's.
It's worth nothing that someone who primarily trains with weights can
find a place for traditional cardio in their program, e.g., I find a bit
of steady-state aerobic activity, e.g., swim, bike, run, brisk walk, can
help when I'm trying to drop a few pounds. A steady diet of lifting and
nothing else will tend to encourage your body to get bigger - might be
more muscle, might be more fat, usually some combination thereof, but
some people, me included, don't want to get any bigger. For that goal,
traditional cardio can work better than high-intensity interval-type
training. The whole reason Tabata was "discovered" was as a way of
allowing weight lifters interested in gaining muscle to remain in good
cardiovascular condition without interfering with increases in muscle
size. (For the record, I'm all of 150 lbs. at 5' 8".)
Quoted message said:And what more dramatic way to put the body, heart and all, unders
stress and thereby make it stronger than by weight training? When I
was training at a local facility doing "SuperSlow", I had gotten such
good anearobic fitness that I literally could not elevate my heart
rate
all that high doing sprint 50's.
I see no point in weight training with low weight to enhance swimming.
What is swimming other than many reps at low resistance? If you're
going to lift like that, might as well stay in the pool. And I found
it
impossible to weight lift INTENSELY and also swim and get enjoyment
out
of the whole process.
This last statement is again, I think, an overstatement. I recommend
Pavel Tsatsouline's book, "Power To The People!' - it's basic program is
2 sets of 5 reps each, using only 2 exercises, but done with heavy
weights, e.g., you perform your 5 reps with a weight that, at most, you
could lift for 7-8 repetitions before failure. This sort of training
goes very well with a program focused primarily on an aerobic activity
like swimming. There are many variables in the lifting of weights. For
an endurance athlete, lifting a few heavy, short sets with long rest
periods between will encourage strength without overly taxing the
athlete and still allowing plenty of aerobic work to be done. Here's a
link to that book:
http://www.kbnj.com/ptp.htm
It's also worth noting that there is a place for high-repetition weight
work for endurance athletes. Everyone is different - for me, the
purpose of weight training as it regards my endurance sports was to make
me overall stronger and more resistant to injury, but there is plenty of
evidence that high-rep weight work is effective for some endurance
athletes. I don't know much about weight training specifically for
swimming, but I've read about it for running and, while none of what was
recommended seemed interesting to me, I don't think that means it
doesn't work out well for some people.
Quoted message said:Your comment that as we age it may be best to increase weight training
and limit cardio is really the idea I was trying to float.
Here I agree with you completely - the only constant is change, and
training like you'r 20 when you're 50 may work for some but for most I
think the switch to primarily strength training does a better job of,
overall, fighting the aging process in a useful way.
These are just my opinions - I try to keep up on the reading and
research on these things, and the only reasonable thing to say is that
there are many ways to get to any specific goal - there is no one road
that leads to Rome. Each person needs to pay attention to the results
they're getting from their training, try to learn from others, and be
prepared to make major or minor adjustments as the months and years go
by.
-S-
Quoted message said:Eric