Originally Posted by
Jim Kukula
This is interesting. Suppose somebody is cycling who is very fit but in a different sport, so they have lots of upper body strength. The heart has to pump blood through all those muscles that aren't doing any good. Two people could weigh the same and have the same VO2 max, the same cardio-vascular fitness, yet the experienced biker will surely outperform the arm wrestling champ or whomever. Does outperform translate into burning few calories?
Certainly any sort of muscular activity that isn't tied to spinning the pedals, that's a kind of inefficiency, calories burned that don't make the bike go faster. How significant is circulation through fat or through inapplicable muscle? Darned if I know!
Hi,
Most body builders can't run for a bus without getting knackered.
Arm wrestling is very anaerobic, like weightlifting.
The experienced cyclist will outperform a say same size and weight swimmer
who doesn't use their legs much by being able to burn a shedload more calories
in a given period, i.e. much higher power output, not by using less calories.
The swimmers legs will go, well before any other difficulties.
rgds, sreten.