This weekend, my wife invited me to start sprinting with her. We rode our bikes to Fit House, where she was fully prepared to sprint some lengths of the parking lot, and then resume our bike ride. Oh, contraire, my dear; you married the wrong man. Gina looked a little shocked when I pulled our sprinting program out of my bicycle saddle pouch and laid out our program for the day, the week, the month, and the next three months.
I don’t do everything with a purpose. More specifically, every physical activity I participate in does not have a specific intended physique result. Bike riding, for example, I simply enjoy. It’s relaxing for me. Do I reap physical benefits from it? Yes, to an extent. When I first start bike riding every season, I always get leaner at first. My body adapts quickly, and I never see much of an increase in leanness after about three-four weeks. My thighs always get bigger at first. My body adapts quickly, and I never see any substantial increase in their circumference after about three-four weeks. Sometimes we ride 4 days per week, and other times we ride 6 days per week. Sometimes we ride for 15 miles, sometimes 20, and sometimes 30+. I don’t really care; more doesn’t mean better. We do whatever we feel like doing, and I could never give you an exact mileage. I’m usually good until my ass starts to fall asleep.
I maintain the initial outward results I see from biking so long as I participate 4-6x per week. If I start to cut down on my participation, I start to lose those results. Again, I do it for fun! If I really wanted to use biking as a modality to get leaner, I would need a periodized plan. It’s just like weightlifting—woo-hoo (shameless transition)! You can go to the gym, do pretty much anything, and you’ll see a modicum of results in the short term! Eventually, though, just like my biking example, you’ll be spinning your wheels extra hard just to stay the same and left wondering, “Why can’t I see my abdominals? Why isn’t my waist getting leaner? Why can’t I add 15# to my bench press, and why am I stuck within the same 5#, month in and out? Why are my arms not any bigger? Why do I look pretty much the same?”
Let’s cycle back to biking.
Your body has various energy systems. When you perform any type of conditioning or ”cardio” effort, your body is drawing on all of these systems; however, depending on the intensity, duration of your effort, and duration of your rest, the percentage your body draws from each system will change.
What does this mean? You can train to get faster. You can train to lose body fat but also lose muscle, or you can train to lose body fat in a way that will maintain muscle. You can increase your endurance while losing muscle, or you can increase your endurance while training your body to preserve muscle. There are even more possibilities, and it’s all dependent on how your structure your conditioning.
Why were we sprinting? To get leaner. Hence, we needed a periodized plan aimed at incinerating body fat and preserving or increasing muscle. That’s a little more involved than saying let’s just run from point A to point B four times. We are doing this because we want consistent, long-term results. There is nothing more demoralizing than doing something you think is going to give you an intended result and not seeing that result, not for lack of effort, but because you have some parameter wrong. I have never met a person who just haphazardly started biking/running/sprinting/cardio and actually achieved a toned, tight physique that he or she was proud of. Conversely, I’ve met countless who see some results at first and then keep spinning their wheels just to maintain, always wondering why they can’t take it to the next level. The reason I harp on this, endlessly, is because I was once that person who was putting in 100% effort and barely seeing 50% results. It was beyond discouraging! I felt that pain!
Something interesting happened whilst sprinting; my wife almost beat me. It was not a fluke; she hung with me the entire time! I would ordinarily leave Gina in the dust, but a few things have changed: 1.) I tore my Achilles in 2019. As a result, last summer I was learning how to walk again; thus, I have not sprinted in two years; 2.) Gina has been running all summer. I was Minnie Mouse to Gina’s Mighty Mouse. This made me smile.
Gina has been working hard and seeing how surprised and satisfied she was with her performance makes me happy and proud. Her transformation, having once being the slow kid in gym class who had to walk the mile, is nothing short of phenomenal. I was also inspired by my performance; I sucked. Part of my desire to sprint again is to fully rehabilitate my Achilles so I can always be able to run and run fast! As I age, I want to always be active, agile, and in tremendous shape! I don’t ever want to be that guy who says, “Oh, I can’t run. I hurt my Achilles… *wait for it* …15 years ago!” Life is short, and life is long—I strive to be able to use and enjoy my body throughout the entirety of it!
Morals of the story: 1.) if you’re going to do something with the intent of a specific result, you better be doing the right thing, or you’re not going to see said specific result; 2.) Respect your body; you only get one. If you don’t take care of it, it is slowly going to deteriorate over time until your days of feeling physically and mentally adept are a flash in the pan; 3.) Love your wife, even if she’s just as fast as you. Love is forever; being as fast as you is temporary! 😉 Muah, Gina!
About the author
Chris Rombola
Chris is the owner of Fit House. He's run the training departments at several commercial gyms, and after years of seeing how awful those environments were for his clients, he opened his own studio. He is devoted to getting people strong, lean, and healthy.
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