Cross-Training, strength training, & misc questions...

[Jim White]

To really up your level a combination of good form, good conditioning, a lot's of interval training on your skates.

The preceding are important, as are a few other keys.

Anyone who is training hard and not improving lacks quality in at least one of the keys. In which things are you doing well, and in which can you improve? Do you need better conditioning from cross-training, or are technique or equipment what's mostly limiting you now. Most people need a good coach to help sort that out.

[chaosdsm]

To really up your level a combination of good form, good conditioning, a lot's of interval training on your skates.

The preceding are important, as are a few other keys.

Anyone who is training hard and not improving lacks quality in at least one of the keys. In which things are you doing well, and in which can you improve? Do you need better conditioning from cross-training, or are technique or equipment what's mostly limiting you now. Most people need a good coach to help sort that out.

Equipment isn't a factor, at least not anymore... full custom Bont Vaypor 3 point with Matter 110mm wheels & TwinCam ILQ-9 Black Ceramic Ball bearings. Also use Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS with heart rate monitor for more accurate tracking of my skating progress.

Personal strong points:
Stamina
Leg Strength (although not as strong as they were 10 years ago)

Personal weak points:
technique
ankle strength (but improving)
flexability
weak lower back
Overweight - I still have at least 35lbs I can loose (which can only help my lower back!)

If it weren't for my ankles, I could probably skate the full distance A2A tomorrow (if you take away the hills). Although after finishing Disney, my ankles only bothered me for about 15 minutes. As soon as I had put my shoes on & started walking my ankles felt fine but my heels started to hurt, probably because I'm pushing with my toes instead of my heels making my heels try to lift. I say try because the achilles, ankle, & heal area of the Vaypors fit very snugly & the heel never actually leaves the footbed as far as I can tell.

I think my biggest single problem is technique. I know some of the things I'm doing wrong, like pronating when my ankles start getting sore/tired, & pushing with the toes instead of the heels. I also tend to skate in too much of a straight up & down stance, partialy just because I was never taught different but also because the further down I go (bending knees) the worse my back feels after skating.

[skate2Bfit]

Key point is, as long as you're losing weight, it means not enough calories to support the activity, which means you'll never improve performance. You might maintain your current level, but you'll never improve it because there is not enough fuel to rebuild those muscles much less make them stronger so they can adapt to the stress.

Depending how much weight you're losing, your body could even be burning off muscle in order to have fuel for the functions it absolutely must perform to keep itself alive.

So, if you're losing weight, now is not the time to try and improve your performance or build strength.

In order to improve performance, you simply must have the energy to easily get you through the workout itself, plus some more to aid in recovery.

You think you're having a hard time getting past your block? I eat about 3,000-3500 calories every day for weightloss which is just an insane amount of food and the absolute most time I can eek out on skates is 40 minutes.

[Jim White]

Weight loss and improved performance can be done simultaneously. They often are, and I think is very important for Chaosdsm. The key is to replace fat with muscle (and to cut total weight). It is possible to cut weight and improve performance simultaneously, but requires eathing the right things at the right time, and probably also a focus on training technique. I'm not the right one to give specifics, Major could, or anyone who is an expert on such in any sport.

[panch0]

It is ALWAYS possible to lo lose weight and improve performance.


Chaos,

by reading your posts, I think you have a lot "in your plate" in the form of weight loss and technical development and attending to those 2 items will be your current "improved performance".

As you lose weight, your performance will "automatically" improve alone on the fact that your strength to weight ratio will positively improve. One of the reasons that you feel like your leg strength is not as good as it was 10 years ago is probably because you were not 30 pounds heavier as you are now!

The best thing you can do is to skate skate skate as much as you can and in the meantime work on your technical skills! Although the total amount of work performed (regardless of the physiological energy source) has an effect on weight loss, the most efficient in spending bodyfat into energy is aerobic training. If you cannot skate longer than 60 consecutive minutes (I will venture to say 90 mins), you will not see a significant bodyfat spenditure or a very slow one. In which case you might want to recur to cycling to add aerobic minutes to your total tally.

I don't want to sound like an SOB but I really think you need to attend to those 2 items before you go on to work on anaerobic and lactic sources. Or in the least bit, it would be a lot more conducive to "improved performance".

[excelsk8]

chaosdsm having better equipment suit for you doesn't always mean skating in the set up Joey Mantia skates on, with this said I notice how you talk about your ankles being week, the weeker the ankles the more the 110MM are going to hurt your technique, why not take a step back, and start all over again, paying special attention to technique, its hard to do it but at the end it pays off big time.
if you are interested in this aproach this is how you go about it.
For a while (not too long) just a while to give your ankles time to recoup. trow a new or as close to new set of 100MM in your skates, if you want to do more go to 90MM I think 100 is good depending on how bad the problem is.
every practice warm up with your skates untied for about 10-15 minutes. pay special attencion to not pronating and pushing with your heels. this should be hard, so please don't go either up or downhill, a flat terrain is best suited for this. then after that time in which you did not pronate for 10 or 15 go and tie your skates, then start your practice, try and skate only for as long as you can maintain your good form, knees bent, push with heel, don't let yourself pronate, and every single stride ask yourself : how gooda was my technique there? if your answer is good or great you are allowed to keep going, if your answer is : not good at all and too tired to make it better, then stop. take a 5 min brake and if you feel up for it do this part all over again.
Do this for at least 80% of your practices for the next 5 weeks, this means you can go and have a practice in which you can go hard for as long as you can. if you stick to this even though is not as fun or easy at all, you will notice a big difference in your times and your technique, also you will find that most pains and most times you get blistards with boots that didnt give you any before is due to problems in your technique.
Hope this helps, if you have any questions or need some more guidance feel free to contact me.
My Emai : admin@excelsk8.com
Francisco Ramirez

[skate2Bfit]

Yeah it's possible to lose fat and improve performance because I've been there, but it's also tricky, not to mention a bit obsessive, to figure out just the right meal timing, food combinations and carb cycling. Even when you have it all planned out and working, progress in both simultaneously is still a headgame because it won't come as quickly as you'd like, and you could do it faster by focusing on one goal at a time.

If you dedicate 6-8 weeks solely to dropping the extra weight, you'd be done with it (depending how much you have to lose), won't have to worry about it anymore, get it outta your head and you can move on to focusing on performance improvements which will come pretty quickly once you can put all your attention on them.

Aerobics burns body fat but only for so long. First the body has to burn through its glycogen stores, then it Hits the wall and switches to fat burning but for just a short while. The body freaks out because biologically it is programmed to store fat for use in times of famine, not being forced into burning it any time the body owner decides to kick up their exercise. So at that point the body is under stress and it begins producing cortisol to deal with that stress, then the cortisol causes catabolization of muscle tissue for fuel.

Aerobics are still a neccessary part of a balanced training program, but 10 hours a week just might be a little overkill.

Anaerobic cardio exercise (high intensity short duration cardio) burns mostly just glycogen, actually spares muscle tissue and allows the body to turn to fat for fuel while it's at rest (ie: slow, long burn which doesn't throw the body into stress) leading to a leaner body over time and minimal muscle loss. Just compare the ultra-lean rock-hard physique of sprinters to the softer appearance of marathon runners and aerobic instructors.
Plus, the higher intensity training raises your lactate threshold which means when it's time for an endurance skate, you can push harder and faster than you could previously.

When all else fails, here's an article on overtraining:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtraining

[panch0]

____ W_____

[chaosdsm]

The main reason I went with custom Vaypors is NEED... I have a very wide foot & no "off the shelf" boots will fit my foot properly. At the time I purchased them, they were the only 3 point skates available. If I had to replace them now, I'd probably wait till Bont starts making adds to the new Semi-Race boot to the custom lineup.

As for 110mm wheels, with the 3 point skates, the footbed is actually lower than my Rollerblade Lightning 10's with 100mm wheels, in fact, they're about as low as most 90mm setups. The primary reason for the problems with the ankles is not enough skating in race boots. I went straight from Lightning 10's which have tons of ankle support, to the Vaypors which actually have more support than I was expecting, but no where near the support offered by the Lightning's. BTW, I have tried 100's on the Vaypors, & other than skating slower at the top end, I cannot tell any difference.

As to diet, I'm not on a "diet", I consume an estimated 2300-2500 calories on non skate days & about 3000-3200 calories on days that I skate. When I skate, I start out with a larger than normal dinner portion the night before , & a larger than normal breakfast morning of (i.e. about 25% larger portions), when I get to where I will be skating & before putting on the skates, I consume either a PowerBar Protein Plus bar (23g protein per bar & they actually taste good!), or EAS AdvantEDGE high protein shake. I bring plenty of Vitamin Water (like Gatorade without the sodium), about 20oz for every 10 miles of skating, & an extra snack for every 20 miles of skating (Bannana, Granola Bar, energy bar, etc...), & immediately following the completion of skating, I consume another PowerBar Protein Plus bar. I generally skate anywhere from 2-3 hours in a session with an average heart rate of 165 with peaks as high as 190, & lows around 140.

My weight loss has been very gradual, 20lbs in 4 months = 1lb a week, well within safe levels to avoid any potential negative effects.

BTW... personal stats:
5 feet 10.75 inches (1.8 meters)
Weight on Dec 31, 2006 - just before lunch - 236.2lbs (107.14 Kilo's)
Weight on April 29, 2007 - just before dinner - 215.7lbs (97.84 Kilo's)
Current estimated body fat - 35%

One final note: Anything at wiki is subject to extreme scrutiny.

[skate2Bfit]

I'm getting another sense of deja vu here! Sorry, don't mean to be an a$$

No worries.

You can do whatever type of exercise you like.

I know for marathons you need to train that time in your skates, no doubt about it and if you have just 5-10lbs to drop, it will come off with time.... and lots of it..
If you can lose fat with hours of aerobic exercise, especially if you're already in good physical condition, more power to you.. but if you want to drop the weight like it's hot, you need to kick up the intensity!

I know the aerobic exercise doesn't work for me in terms of burning fat, I'm simply conditioned to it because I did it when I was over 300lbs, and now I'm much lighter and in better physical condition. If I want to lose fat, it's high intensity weight lifting, Tabata exercises and maximum effort interval training (HIIT) for me. I can do these workouts in 30 minutes or less - Tabata is done in 5 minutes! - and get faster results than people stuck in the "fat burning zone". FBZ - it's a myth I tell ya, and the sooner people learn you can't drop fat doing these cardio sessions at 65%-80% that don't even make you sweat, the better off they will be.

Aside from that, high intensity exercise increases your performance all around. Your endurance will increase, you'll be able to go faster and longer, your oxygen uptake will increase and so will your lactate/aerobic/anaerobic threshold.

[The Major]

The fat burning zone is misleading. When you're in the FBZ you do burn a higher percentage of fat. But at higher intensity you burn much more calories including fat. Even though the percent of fat calories isn't as high it's still more fat calories.

20 percent of 1000 is higher than 50 percent of 100. To burn fat you should go at the highest intensity you can over a period of time. If you keep your heart rate at 150 bpm for 30 minutes but can also keep it at 175 bpm for 30 minutes the higher heart rate will be more effective in burning calories.

[chaosdsm]

The fat burning zone is misleading. When you're in the FBZ you do burn a higher percentage of fat. But at higher intensity you burn much more calories including fat. Even though the percent of fat calories isn't as high it's still more fat calories.

20 percent of 1000 is higher than 50 percent of 100. To burn fat you should go at the highest intensity you can over a period of time. If you keep your heart rate at 150 bpm for 30 minutes but can also keep it at 175 bpm for 30 minutes the higher heart rate will be more effective in burning calories.

Don't know if I could keep at 175 for 30 minutes, it was all I could do to keep it between 175 & 185 for 1 mile this past Sunday... Guess I'll have to incorporate your interval workout schedule into my skating