alcanoe

I would call nutrition, training for the drops, intervals, weight reduction and the trainer as "strength and fitness" and not "tricks"

Al

Stevie47

Anyone remember when Ollie and Ralph were considered "fat"? It is a different world today, for sure.

seawind161

I think that current figures for the incidence of diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and heart attack would argue against simple "body image prejudice".

As an interesting exercise, compare family group photos taken 50 to 100 years ago with those taken in the last ten years. What we see happening is a result of overabundance, overconsumption, and a near-total lack of physical activity- the "ideal" modern lifestyle.

alcanoe

In one, possibly two of my physiology text books the statement is made that an overweight person who has a reasonably vigorous exercise program and who smokes has a lower risk of death/disease than a non-sick sedentary non-smoking lean person. However, no study or research references are provided.

Physical activity seems to be a bigger problem (no pun intended) than over-weight. That said, overweight is definitely unhealthy and imposes burdens on others. Ever fly in a seat next to an obese? The spill-over crowds you out of the space you paid for and I just don't like people leaning on me.

Over-fat is known to be unhealthy to the extent that they have identified the dangerous chemicals that the fat releases into the blood stream an other physiological differences that puts the over-fat body under stress.

I personally AM prejudiced against the behemoths who can barely move and literally block access to some store isles. Some are plain disgusting! It doesn't help their situation to pretend nothing is wrong with obesity and that it's a prejudice thing. Of course I've always been against the "politically correct" mindset. Another prejudice I guess.


Al

tadawdy

One's goals certainly have to change as you get older. You certainly cannot be the same level of time trialist or sprinter in your 60's, so comparing yourself now to that of 30 yrs ago is not going to be healthy. Interestingly, there is a selective loss of Type II fibers as we age, shifting the metabolic balance away from glycolysis (and therefore acidosis). Due to the loss of these fibers, it is possible that the muscles become more geared for endurance as the CV system is losing some of its efficiency. Along with this, Type IIb (or x, or d/x, depending on who you ask) can be trained over long periods to resemble Type IIa fibers (all training stimulates this change), also increasing aerobic ability of the muscle. To me, there seems a natural adaptation as we age for endurance exercise.

This being said, the decline in athletic performance with age is almost always very overstated. One common citation is a roughly 10% drop in VO2 max per decade, past age 25. What is always left out when this is cited is the fact that this is from cross-sectional studies (taking a snapshot and looking at cohorts, assuming the average difference between groups is the natural value), rather than longitudinal studies (follows an individual and tracks changes). The problem with this is that it ends up averaging the least and most active people together, providing little insight into what happens as active people age.

It is thought that much of the decline in aerobic performance can be attenuated if one is willing to maintain the intensity of workouts.

GeraldChan

Thanks for sharing the article.
I will be 52 next week and just getting back to cycling this Sept after a 5 month long knee injury. I alternate between riding my FG bikes and multi-geared bikes. I see no problems with either approach to maintaining fitness. If you are a type-A hard charger then train hard but keep up with your routine physicals and blood work with your physician. If you like to go long and slowly, then enjoy the ride. There is no right or wrong. I do believe however in the benefits of cross training, stretching and strenght training as these activites help to prevent or minimize injuries.
Before someone asks, yes I belong to the type-A camp. I injured my right knee by hyper-extending it during a front snap kick. I was taking my green belt test in Tae Kwon Do (since I'm already present when I take my 3 teenage kids to practice I felt I might as well be getting exercise). I was showing off and threw a kick more appropriate for a board breaking exercise and since there was no object to recieve the blow the tendons and ligaments of my knee took the force. Ouch! The last time I trained in this sport was over 30 years ago. I decided to start over as a white belt to show the proper respect to the dojo. But trying to get my blue belt (one belt below brown) in less than a year was not the smartest thing I have ever done. Hubris.
As to bike riding, I find that good form, good cadence, a better tuck, carving a better line through a turn and reading the topography in order to maintain momentum help me to keep up with younger, fitter riders. They drop me on the climbs but I come roaring back on the descents.
Please excuse my verbosity but getting back to the WSJ article, it was a healthy reminder to take it easy; because riding a bike is fun! (A FG bike is just that much more fun)

NOS88

Seems to me in your case they would be justified in holding that it's a prejudice thing. I suspect there are motorist out there who might hold the attitude exemplified in the following: "I am against those cyclist who block the roads with their toys. They are just plain disgusting." An over blown sense of entitlement related to the extent to which one inconveniences another is precisely one of the reasons the roads aren't as safe for cycling as I'd like them to be.

The problem with an attitude like the one you put forth is the arbitrary line one must draw in terms of who is a disgusting behemoth and who is not. Given your earlier post in this thread, it is clear you do rely on some research. So, I imagine you've seen some of the research on obesity linking it to genetic differences. For SOME people being fat is not a matter of choice, lack of will power, or some other moral defect. I'm not suggesting that one's health isn't impacted by body weight. I am, however, holding that western civilization's notion of the ideal body size and shape is very distorted. And, there are people who suffer the social slings and arrows of those who have little tolerance. Much in the same way those who ride bents frequently find themselves the target of DF riders. Or, in the same way slower less competitive riders can become the but of jokes and insults from faster riders. I guess the evolution of human nature has not reached a point where tolerance and a modicum of respect can be assumed.

alcanoe

To you it's arbitrary. To me there are absolutes as relativism excuses almost all behaviors. It's the king of excuses/cop-outs.

Those who are obese due to no fault of their own are as rare as hen's teeth. If you got the numbers, I'd sure like to see them. The last ones I saw, it was far less than 1%. It's just another excuse for bad behavior and a favorite excuse of the over-fat. It would be hard to believe anyhow that all of a sudden after thousands of years we have an epidemic of over-fat "victims".

It's an issue of personal responsibility to one's self, family and society. Being a behemoth shows a blatant lack of personal responsibility.

In my world, slower non-competitive riders are not the butt of jokes/insults. They are considered positively for being out there. When I'm on my road bike, the "roadie snobs" will pretend I don't exist as I have a luggage rack and a trunk bag. It's their loss, not mine. Not all roadies act that way, the ones that do I have no use for and don't feel one bit discriminated against by them.

The world is full of ass-holes (almost as many as apologists), but your stretching a bit to try to prove it's all related to the over-fat thing.

As far as the car driver who thinks I'm blocking his lane, I'm responsible to keep myself safe. That's why I use a helmet mirror and have studied urban cycling safety from expert authors. Since I don't have the victim mentality, I managed something like 70'000+ miles of road motorcycling with no accidents (very significant if you look at the statistics) due mostly to my attitude that if I got hurt (or fat), it was strictly MY fault.

Al

alcanoe

You are one mean dude. Type A used to have a negative connotation. It's now recognized that only the angry type A suffers health issues. Type A's are now just considered more active and goal driven. That's a good thing, but I'm biased. I had to suffer the Type-a stigma and the "asthma is caused by emotional problems" stigma until the science caught up with the psycho-babblers.

Al

NOS88

Al, at what point would you draw the line; where is the absolute, and perhaps more importantly who should define this absolute within a civilized social structure? As one studies social deviance, it is abundantly clear that demon-ism is a major construct in any society's definition of what is acceptable and what is not. The very language you use to make your points is a testament to this. Those outside of your view of things are behemoths, irresponsible, and/or ass-holes.

My view is different. Behaviors that modern western cultures would find acceptable are not seen that way in all cultures or across all time periods. It is unrealistic to think that there are absolutes, other than those that a given social structure have identified as such. Such identification by nature has an element of arbitrariness in it. Finally, I'm not trying to prove the "over fat thing". I'll repeat my major point from my last post, western culture has an idealized body image that is distorted. I'd encourage a visit the the University of Colorado's web site Wellness - Body Image. Just a handful of statistics found there would lend support to this claim (Please note that I've not indicated that these statistics are the only ones to be found, but they should raise some serious questions about body image in our culture.):

- Two out of five women and one out of five men would trade three to five years of their life to achieve their weight goals.

- In 1970 the average age of a girl who started dieting was 14; by 1990 the average dieting age fell to 8.

- One study found that women overestimate the size of their hips by 16% and their waists by 25%, yet the same women were able to correctly estimate the width of a box.

- 30% of women chose an ideal body shape that is 20% underweight and an additional 44% chose an ideal body shape that is 10% underweight.

As with most issues there are numerous views and beliefs. I simply don't believe in punishing people for being either obese or too thin. I also believe that if we take the focus off appearance, body size and body shape, and place it on the ability of people to fully function in ways that maintain or improve their quality of life (by their definition of what constitutes quality), we would see more people motivated to reach goals that are reachable. I'm always amazed at the number of people I speak with who simply give up because they don't believe they can ever look like the fashion industry's view of beauty. And for most of them their assessment is spot on. In my 3 decades of training people in the martial arts I have witnessed people working just as hard or harder than the best in the class, actually denying themselves food, and end up feeling that they've failed when they don't develop the physical characteristics that others who work less hard develop. Well, enough said. I don't suspect we'll agree on much of this.

dynodonn 

You don't have to go that far back, just 30 to 40 years ago, 300+ lbs persons were a rarity.

BikeArkansas

That article is not for the normal person. The athletes discussed were world or at least national class.
I just returned home from a meeting in Houston. We were in a very large hotel for a number of days. I worked out almost every morning and evening. Often I was the ONLY person in the room and never were there more than two others.
The bulk of the people in this meeting were male and over 50. MOST were overweight. The rest were obese. Of the couple hundred of us about 10 were in reasonable shape.
An article like this one is actually silly when looking at the people in our society. The last thing we need to think about is "over exercising."
However, I will admit that I am cutting down on 100 mile rides in favor of 62 mile events. Just easier to recover from, and I can do more of them.

8Lives

I raced with Mark Allen back in the '80's on the Nike team. I was on the amateur team, and lived near Mark in Leucadia. Did many a tuesday run or Wednesday ride with him, Tinley, Paula and all the names from the "early days". Raced against Lance too, when we was a 16 year old triathlon phenom :-).

i am a couple of months shy of 50 (sorry for crashing the party early, but the Road Bike forum was getting me down). For me I needed to stop racing the same sport for about 10 years to break the "always competing" cycle. I took a step back. I swam, because it was my weakest sport and the one I was least likely to be competitive in. I rowed single sculls for something new. I took up yoga and climbing, both of which I still do passionately along with cycling.

I made a very conscious decision to step back from competition. It worked for me. I may not be as fast now as I was in my '20's, but I am without doubt fitter. The focus on a range of activities designed to make me feel great, replacing "workout" or "training" with play and thinking about fitness holistically instead of by time (or power) metrics has made a world of difference. I can still hang (and throw in the occasional long pull) on fast group rides, but my yoga practice and climbing have developed so much that i am overall much stronger, have dramatically better balance and am very flexible.

I am competitive (uh, yeah) and friends still urge me to race. But every time I think about it seriously I realize that I'll get in training mode - and given a finite and fixed amount of time to be physical something will give - yoga or climbing. And I just don't want to make that trade.

DnvrFox

Yeah - but you live in Berkeley!!

Just kidding.

I think you have made a great choice, given your "nature."

I love having a mix of activities in my physical life.

Good on you.

icyclist 

I could not agree less with the statements in the WSJ article. Kevin Helliker is, I think, projecting his own sense of loss onto everyone else in his age group.


"baby boomers [snip] can become a threat to their stiffening joints, rigid muscles, hardening arteries and high-mileage hearts."

It's the opposite - inactivity is the threat to joints, muscles, arteries and hearts.


"A number of medical experts [snip] now believe that extreme exercise can increase the body's vulnerability to disease like cancer."

This is true for everyone, not just older people.


"Evidence shows that feeling worse during exercise translates to doing less exercise in the future"

Then what's the problem? Over-exercise leads to less exercise? The author advocates less exercise.


"Of course, exercise [snip] help[s] weight control."

No, exercise leads to increased hunger, as studies have shown. Whatever it's other benefits, weight reduction isn't one of them.


"In my case, the aneurysm-induced prohibition against high-intensity aerobics seven years ago presented an ultimatum: Either give up trying my hardest in races, or quit racing altogether"

Well, I don't have an aneurysm. And even if I did, my choice wouldn't necessarily be the same as the author's.


After a recent operation that saw two stents placed in one of my arteries (detailed here, in the road forum), my cardiologist, my wife, and some of my friends have suggested I slow down a bit. Why should I do this? So that I can live a long time not doing what I want to do? I'd rather go out in my cycling shoes than a pair of slippers.

I'm with Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Of course, this was easy for Dylan to say, because he said it while he was relatively young. And he went out from this world rather young, too, for reasons still somewhat mysterious, but certainly not related to over-exercise. Perhaps, with a couple of decades more of living under his belt, he would have decided to slow down, too. We'll never know, and I think that's just as well.

I suppose I could stay quietly in my home, reading and making comments in this forum. That would offer less of a risk of injury or death than riding a bike would. Each time I climb into the saddle, I know I might be killed in a collision with a car, or suffer a heart attack.

I do wear a helmet and carry nitroglycerine tabs with me. But sometimes I ride as hard as I can, even as sometimes I ride easy, and it's as I decide.

I'm old, or at least a lot older than Dylan Thomas, and I'm still with him:

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

gash44

Quote:

Originally Posted by jppe

Hopefully we could all agree that the level of exertion we experience is a personal thing.......and its OKAY to ride slow if that is your thing, its OKAY to ride fast if that is your thing and its OKAY to try and continue to improve if that is your thing. We should not have to justify why we ride slow or fast, or short miles or long miles because we all have our own reasons and we should all respect that.

[quote=jppe;9687462]
Regardless of how we ride, what is very important is we ride at the level that motivates us, and keeps us riding and exercising. I think I'd take my chances of overexercising versus not exercising at all????

Right On

Wake

Don't let that be a stopper - at 64 with hip arthritis I can't do that any more, so I swing it over the bars. Not a problem!

will dehne

I want to offer a little insight into the mindset of two people who have decided NOT to be grossly overweight or obese. We arrived at absolute panic numbers of 195# for me and 140# for my wife. We pull all the stops to get below those numbers but we do have our vices called wine and cheese and good food.
I just biked 300 miles in 4 days and did not loose one pound because of those vices.
--------------------
Now we have these friends who are obese or grossly overweight. Do we criticize them? NO.
Do we discuss what they should do? NO.
Do we wish they would change. NO.
Do we listen to anything they say about food and drink? NO.
Do we agree with their choice of lifestyle? NO.
Do we think they are good role models for our children or any children? NO.
We accept them but do not follow them.
-----------------------
Hope this helps.

alcanoe

I have the same vices as I had French parents. It's now known that endurance activities are not all that effective at keeping the always increasing fat percentage due to ageing in submission. More and more it's becoming apparent that it takes intervals. Some advocate 30 second intervals where you max your effort as far above above 90% max heart rate as much you can for 30 seconds. You do about 8 of those with 1 minute (+/-) rest gaps in between.
several times a week.

I do intervals periodically, but not at that level. I'm planning to build up to them as I'm convinced it does shed the pounds. Too many folks have been successful with intervals for me not to try it. I also attempt to eat less and less as I age which is very difficult. It's amazing and very disappointing how little you need at 70.

A very large side benefit of longer intervals as it dumps a huge amount of growth hormones into the blood stream to fix the cell damage from the intervals. That of course repairs the damage due to ageing as well. That's the reason folks who exercise live longer, have far fewer diseases and maintain a much higher quality of life to the "end".

We also have an obese friend. We never mention it either unless he brings it up. He's pretty active at times.

Al

dynodonn 

I should be doing great then, just increase the max time and reduce the rest period somewhat, and it sounds rather close to what I do when working motor vehicle traffic on my urban combat commute.

will dehne

I found this to be true what you say above. Interval cycling is a good thing.
One critical aspect of lots of exercise is that you can put more quality food through your body. Our body needs certain vitamins and minerals. I do not know if pills and powders do the same thing as natural foods. Judging by the looks of our heavy friends who try to control weight with just dieting, it seems that pills and powders are not doing the same job.
Skin color, and a generally healthy appearance are one benefit of exercise and eating healthy.
OH, and cycling gets you to be outdoor a lot. I guess the sun and fresh air are a good thing also.

Yen

In my personal experience, exercise does lead to weight loss and aids weight control. IMO increased hunger can lead some people to overeat; then they wonder why they don't lose weight in spite of all the exercise.

will dehne

I agree with you Yen.
We have plenty of friends who do not exercise and control their weight with just food intake. They often report digestive problems and do not look so good. Weight reduction by dieting alone does things to your body which are not so beautiful. Like skin hanging down or the body looks like a balloon without the air.
---------
I also did read the reports of exercise inducing appetite. I can not argue against it but God gave us a brain. It is calories in and calories out. The trouble is that it takes more exercise to burn enough calories then most people want to face. So they come up with stories like this.
A Century of Cycling fast burns over 5,000 calories. That is a lot of food. Many of these story writers can not imagine doing a Century so the pretend it does not exist.

Yen

The Los Angeles times ran an article about the success of various popular diets. Bottom line: Maintaining weight loss requires "strong self control". Not just self-control, but strong self-control. To me, that means saying "no" to myself daily, often several times a day. No to the donut calling my name from the pink box someone takes to work... no to the 500-calorie muffin in the cafeteria... no to the burger and fries in the cafeteria... no to a second helping after dinner. People I know who were never overweight have always eaten this way, AND exercise has always been a part of their lifestyle. But for those who never ate that way, smaller portions and self-control are "diet" words and once the diet is over, then what? It must become a lifestyle. It is NOT EASY --- I apply it one day at a time, one meal at a time, one temptation at a time. But it beats diabetes and weak/achy joints and the feeling of fatigue and low energy I used to have all the time when I didn't exercise and ate whatever I wanted.

alcanoe

You are correct. Trials/studies show that increased exercise does increase hunger to a degree, but the calorie intake increase is markedly less than the calories burned by the increase in exercise. One might not lose weight, but that's generally because while fat is lost, muscle mass is increased. The goal is to reduce fat percentage and increase muscle mass. The increased muscle mass increases one's basal metabolism which means you burn more calories at rest.

Al