Originally Posted by Koffee Brown

As Lance Armstrong is a good endurance rider (for example), are you stating that he is no stronger than others in his age group?

I may believe more inclined to believe this if an endurance rider does little or no strength training and spends most of their time doing aerobic activity, but Chris Carmichael does stress strength training in the off season for Lance, as well as weight training for muscle maintenance during the competitive season.

I think that if an endurance rider is trying to lift heavy for weight training to gain maximum muscle mass, there is definitely going to be compromising of endurance capabilities. An endurance rider does use weight training to strengthen muscles, but I don't think they use strength training to build massive muscles. All that extra weight would actually hinder them with speed, hills, etc.

I was under the impression that athletes are encouraged to use weight training to maintain muscle mass, and especially to prevent more of their Type II, or fast twitch, muscle fibers from converting as quickly to type I, or slow twitch), muscle fibers as a person ages, as well as to train the Type 1 muscle fibers to contract more quickly (of course, I am talking generally, since I do know there are different types of muscle fibers). While I do think that over time, endurance athletes' Type II muscle can covert from B to A, which can lead to a somewhat weakened response, they should still have more overall strength than the undtrained sedentary person of the same age group and gender.

This is what I believe Joe Signorile, who lectures and does research in exercise physiology and aging in Miami was telling us when I attended his last lecture. Dr. Len Kravitz, who is also does research solely for exercise physiology at New Mexico, also lectured as much when I saw him at his last lecture.

Are you assuming that the sedentary controls are doing the same strength training as the endurance athlete and the sedentary controls are not doing endurance, or do you assume that the endurance athlete does no resistance training, and only does endurance training, and you compare the muscle strength of the athlete with no resistance training with the sedentary person who also does no resistance training? And finally, do you take into account the exercise intensity of the elite endurance athlete, who (from the lectures I've attended, this is what they say, mind you) have trained at higher intensities to maintain motor neuron firing capacity, which should lead to a longer life of faster contracting muscle fibers, as opposed to the sedentary person that does nothing?

I'm always open to clarification... perhaps I have just confused the information out of the lectures, and I need a bit of emphasis. Could you go through this, and just dumb it down a little so that everyone can follow it too. Thanks!

Koffee