Get On Your Bikes and Ride
March 16, 2009 by JD
Filed under Health News, Just Smile, News
The title of this post is an obscure lyric reference to an old Queen song called Fat Bottomed Girls. This was the first thought that entered my head when I read about a gym in San Francisco that offers “bikaraoke” classes. Yep, two things that I would have never thought of doing at the same time: bicycling and karaoke.
Number one, I can’t picture anyone doing karaoke unless alcohol is involved, and, well, unless you’re the guy in the video below, cycling and alcohol generally don’t mix.
But I’m wandering. So this cycling class coach in California has started these bikaraoke classes that have become very popular with the American Idol wannabee set. The rationale behind the classes is that in order to maintain a healthy training level heart rate, you should be able to hold a normal conversation during exercise. And if you can talk, you can sing.
This opens up the whole debate about what is the optimum heart rate during exercise. Many people will say that maintaining a rate of 65% or so of your maximum heart rate (use 220 minus your age as a general indicator of your maximum) during aerobic exercise is the best approach to losing weight and beefing up cardio fitness.
Many experts define this 65% of max as the “training zone” for cardio activities such as cycling, running, and swimming. It is a rate high enough to ensure that the body is working at sufficient levels to burn fat and strengthen the heart, but not so intensely as to risk stressing the heart. And short of having a heart monitor, they say the best way to ensure you stay in that zone is to exercise at a rate at which you are still able to carry on a normal conversation.
Personally I’m not a fan of this approach. It’s not for me anyway (and I am in no way recommending an approach to you - usual disclaimers about seeing doctor before beginning any exercise program apply).
Maintaining a steady heart rate at well below your max encourages the body to adapt to this rate. When the body adapts, it learns how to conserve calories and adjust internal systems to maintain that rate. Our bodies are very good at adapting to our environment and will adjust to meet energy needs. And while adaptation is great when it comes to human survival, it can work against you when you’re trying to increase cardio endurance and strengthen the heart.
I’m a big believer in interval training. This where you mix up your pace in cardio workouts. A typical interval workout might look something like this:
5 minutes - Warmup
5 minutes - Heart Rate: 65% max
5 minutes - Heart Rate: 80% max
1 minute - Heart rate: 65% max
1 minute - Heart rate: 90% max
5 minutes - Heart rate: 65% max
5 minutes - Heart rate: 80% max
1 minute - Heart rate: 90% max
5 minutes - Heart Rate: 65% max
5 minutes - Cooldown
You get the idea. The key is force the body to keep adjusting to different “environments”. This will prevent it from throwing up any defense mechanisms that might impede your progress.
The common argument against this is that the body burns more fat when you’re exercising at the 65% training zone rate. This is true. Training in this low intensity zone typically goes on for longer periods and the body will utilize fat stores as an energy source. In high intensity training, the body typically has to rely on glucose in the blood to supply needed energy.
The hole in the ‘exercise slower, burn more fat’ argument is that even though you burn more fat when exercising at a slower pace, you still burn a percentage of fat when exercising at a higher intensity. It all comes down to how much energy you expend in total. For example, if you compare exercising at a slow, steady rate that burns 60 percent fat and 40 percent glucose with exercising at a higher intensity or duration that burns only 30 percent fat and 70 percent glucose, you may, depending on the duration, still burn more fat at the higher intensity.
And aside from the fat burning aspect, interval training does far more for cardio endurance and strengthening your heart than sessions spent in the leisurely training zone.
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