Darren Best
Level 6 Valued Member
A lot of really great information being brought up.
Thanks everyone.
Thanks everyone.
A lot of really great information being brought up.
Thanks everyone.
I will run when something chases me.
-S-
And I know _you're_ busy, and I always have time to have a conversation with you, Al.@Steve Freides I know you're busy, but if you have the time: what is the difference between walking and running? Philosophically, not physically. You walk everyday.
Or by, "run", did you mean, "forced sprinting" like on a training schedule?
I keep reading about how great of a training tool the C2 rower is.
So I'm curious as to what people that have used it and done extensive kettlebell swings and snatches think of it.
Do you think one or the other offers a superior training effect?
Similar or different?
Do you notice any difference good or bad in overall cardio response, aerobic, glycolytic and anaerobic?
@El Cid
Was there any big difference between rower and skierg for you?
I'm asking because at my old CF gym I luckily had access to both, but the skierg gassed me much, much quicker than the rower despite my 500m split being way slower than the split on the rower.
And I know _you're_ busy, and I always have time to have a conversation with you, Al.
Philosophically - for me, there is history. When I first started jogging in my mid-20's, I was about as opposite of "born to run" as one could be. I actually ran with my arms swinging forward on the same side as my forward leg - completely miscoordinated. Someone had to point it out to me before I realized it. Running has never been easy for me. There's never been such a thing as truly easy, relaxed running, although Lord knows I did my homework and understood what the idea was supposed to be. In particular, I was a very heavy heel striker, and I also managed to contract a pretty miserable case of runner's knee in both knees early on. I find LSD running much like I imagine someone banging a two by four on the top of my head over and over might be.
Paradoxically, I love to sprint, although I don't do that now, either. In fact, every time I would come back from a running layoff, I learned that the way I did it best was to start out running fast and just a few minutes at a time, and gradually work that back to longer distances at a slower pace. I've always been quick and, as a kid playing backyard football and the like, no one could ever catch me.
I have a history with walking, too - when I was a regular runner, I always hated walking for reasons I couldn't explain to this day - somehow it was the "other" gait and I wasn't interested because I just wanted to run. But once I stopped running and started lifting, I started enjoying walking. And somewhere along the way, I realized - no doubt after reading something short, simple and brilliant by Pavel - that walking was where I could find the "other side" of strength training, a physical activity that I could perform with a focus on simply being relaxed, and I really came to embrace walking and how great it made me feel. Walking is as close to dancing as my body will likely come in terms of being graceful while moving through space, and I do try to walk gracefully: tall, relaxed, flowing.
-S-
I can't seem to access my copy of the Cardio Code on my Mac - it's gone. So I'm working off of memory and Andrew Read's review of the book.
In a nutshell, here is why traditional forms of cardio differ from weight training (from Andrew's review):
During weight training, regardless of the lifts used, you simply can’t engage your muscles quickly enough to cause the action that takes place during traditional cyclic forms of cardio. When muscles are engaged for long periods they actually cut off blood flow, which lowers the amount of oxygen able to pass through them and decreases the intensity of work you’re doing when compared to your VO2 max. In other words, just having a high heart rate is not indicative of getting a cardio workout.
From what I remember reading in the book, when lifting heavy, the intense muscle contractions put pressure on your blood vessels which causes an increase in blood pressure which causes the heart to work harder. This is not pathological because it's not like have high blood pressure all the time. However, over time, this causes the heart wall to thicken and lose elasticity without increasing the volume of the LV. An increase in volume of the LV happens only with traditional cardio. Why does this happen? Because it happens. It's how our bodies work. Unfortunately our bodies don't work how we would like them to work. The good news is that adding traditional cardio will undo some of this loss of elasticity and increase the volume of the LV to hold more blood.
What about a high rep snatch protocol like in Viking Warrior Conditioning? The reason high rep snatches can produce heart muscle adaptations similar to traditional cardio is that the weight used will be light or relatively light for the trainee. This means that the muscle contractions do not result in the same blood occlusion that comes from lifting (relatively) heavy. I've inserted the word "relative" here because it depends on the person. I've watched Ivan Denisov do 238 snatches in 10 minutes with a 32 kg. I have no idea whether that type of effort was "cardio," but I can say for sure that no one can lift for 10 minutes non-stop and rely only on the ATP-CP energy system and probably could not rely solely on the glycolytic energy system. Some of his effort was aerobic, which meant he needed blood flow to his muscles in order to bring oxygen to those muscles.
So it's not that it's completely impossible to do cardio with weights, it's that the parameters need to be specific. If you think about it, all traditional forms of cardio involve "lifting weight" to some degree. It's just that the weight is our own bodyweight plus some equipment such as a bike for cyclists. The amount of force needed to move our bodies in traditional long-effort cardio training is fairly low which allows the blood to flow through our muscles. If you were to try and duplicate this effort with weights you would be using a very light weight and lifting for several minutes straight. This is different from most circuit training programs which have you go through any where from 2 to 4 exercises doing 8 to 15 reps. The weight used is too heavy and the duration is not long enough. Most circuit training programs will increase work capacity but will not allow for an increase in LV volume.
I have said that many times! And I used to run quite a bit, mountain trails mostly and some football stadium stair intervalsI will run when something chases me.
The way learned to row (from that teacher of all poor form for everything YouTube) was that the return after the stroke is done quite passively and all effort expended should be on the drive of the stroke i.e. when straightening legs etc.My biggest problem was as I increased my cadence, the constant joint traction on my knees as I pulled back into position eventually caused a great deal of pain in my knees. Overall the swing hits many of the same movement patterns, and combined with some upper body work I find the KB to be far superior in terms of tailoring the workout. It also activates the core better through the entire ROM, improves balance under load, and your tailbone won't ache no matter how much you do.
Thx for that article!@El Cid and @Kettlebelephant I think it may have something to do with the fact that the upper body is weaker than the lower body or even an upper/lower body combo exercise like rowing. The Skierg is primarily upper body and abs. Interesting article here:
The Upper Body in Skiing
Thx for that article!
Answered a question that I had in mind a lot of times, but never really knew where to search for an answer.
Btw skate style all the way, classic is so...
You can't skate through kilometers of uphill powder to get to a backcountry telemark run
Yes... There is thatYeah, but then you gotta put on skins, and worry about running into trees.
The way learned to row (from that teacher of all poor form for everything YouTube) was that the return after the stroke is done quite passively and all effort expended should be on the drive of the stroke i.e. when straightening legs etc.
What I did, prompted by some youtube video, was several sessions using the foot plates but NOT the straps. That way there is no possible way to pull yourself back in. Worked like magic and now though I use them, I could comfortably work without straps...My biggest problem was as I increased my cadence, the constant joint traction on my knees as I pulled back into position eventually caused a great deal of pain in my knees. Overall the swing hits many of the same movement patterns, and combined with some upper body work I find the KB to be far superior in terms of tailoring the workout. It also activates the core better through the entire ROM, improves balance under load, and your tailbone won't ache no matter how much you do.
I tried to just let it, but kept wanting to drive up the cadence, and I also suspect some of it was from driving hard and the weight of the seat and me slamming back on its own was enough to cause issues over time. I'm a bit of a monkey on some pieces of equipment...