Friday 12 September 2008

My Bike Trip

A few days ago, I decided to visit gym at Bournemouth University...again. I actually tried going there last week, but got lost on the way and after 3 hours of muscle wasting, I decided to call it a day and head back home. I google-mapped my route and figured out where I took the wrong turn. Bloody Brits and their roundabouts. Throws me off everytime.  So I jumped on my bike and armed with a better sense of direction, I took off. I hoped I'd get a job out've this. They should hire me just for biking 30 minutes to get there.

Anyway, I stole this nifty little tool off my good friend Paul Mcquade.

It shows the route, but not the calories burned - about 8000 cals. I assume this takes into account gradient changes, but who knows. That will have to do as an estimation. 




An Aside on Muscle Wasting
Earlier, I referred to 'muscle wasting.' When you perform long duration, low intensity exercise, your body is under the constant stress of supplying energy for the body to use - so it turns to muscle for energy. Muscle is an expensive tissue to maintain so trying to bulk up and train for a marathon concurrently just won't work. 

If your goal is to put on muscle, reduce the duration of your cardiovascular work (which means you'll have to drastically increase the intensity) in order to prevent this 'muscle wasting.' Enter sprint training, interval training, HIIT, etc. 

If you absolutely have to go out and run a marathon every week, make sure you're consuming a good amount lean protein following the workout. The amino acids will then work in the body to replenish catabolized (broken down) muscle. The post workout stage is a perfect time to consume powdered proteins as they enter the bloodstream within minutes of injestion. 

By the way, they never hired me. 

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