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Running with Greyhounds

August 14, 2005 07:32 PM

Intense sprint training and mild caloric restriction makes greyhounds faster. Trainers have known this for some time, but research now verifies this long-standing practice of mildly restricting caloric intake leading up to a race.

The primary effect seems to be a better body composition, less fat and more lean tissue relative to body mass. The abstract from the American Journal of Veternary Research is here Greyhounds.

It turns out that the same thing could be said about Lance Armstrong. Over the 7 year period from age 21 to 28, he made an 8% gain in muscular efficiency from his training. Typically 3 to 6 hours a day. He went from 374 watts at an O2 uptake of 5.0 l/min at age 21 to 404 at age 28.

His V02 max was 6.0, just below Indurain's 6.4, the highest recorded for a cyclist. Indurain was perhaps the greatest climber of all the cyclists, though Lance comes close.

The largest factor in Lance's improvement over the years came from leaning down. He reduced body fat and total body weight from 78 kg to 72 kg for a gain of about 10% in power to weight ratio. Combining his increased musclar efficiency with his improved body composition gave him an 18% gain over the 7 year period of his dominance in the sport.

Just like the Greyhounds and other athletes I have mentioned, a lean body helps a lot. His body fat ranged between 8.8 and 11.7%. By age 28 his lean body tissue was up and his body fat was lower. The rest is history.

Why is it that people so overestimate the value of eating enough? Do they all have Jewish mothers? Or are they oversold on the value of nutritional aids? Given a choice between eating and not, the better choice usually is not eating. That is because we live in a calorie-replete world. In our former lives as hunter-gatherers the better choice between eating and going hungry was probaly eating. Its not a good choice now.

Stay lean.

· Evolutionary Fitness

Comments

Posted by: Flower Online [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 12, 2006 3:01 AM

Lance also noted in a local interview that the bout with cancer caused him to lose a significant amount of upper body mass, a holdover from his days as a swimmer & triathlete in Plano, Texas, and Austin. His coaches felt that this reduced upper body mass & lower overall body mass allowed for the optimal combination of endurance/speed/power which allowed his subsequent wins.

Posted by: Parker [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 22, 2005 7:13 PM

Professor,
Not a comment but a question.
As it hard sort the vitamin / minral scams, What, if I may ask, do you take any and what is your source for it. At my age it is important to get decent
addtional supplement.

Thank you.

Sattar

Posted by: Sattar [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 16, 2005 12:47 AM

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