Bike or Walk

Which would have a more NEGATIVE effect on leg strength;
10-15 minute med. slow walk or 10-15 ride on a single speed bike (med. fast)?
Always trying to save leg strength...
Thanks

Gene,

Back when I first stared lifting with Mike Stulce, I used to ride a exercise bike for about 5-10 minutes before he got to warmup.  First time that he saw me doing that, his comment was that bike riding wasn't conducive to building explosiveness in the legs.  I'd say walk.  YMMV.

Rick

Walk ftw.

Though it's probably a small rock and won't have much of an impact either way.

chirolifter wrote: Which would have a more NEGATIVE effect on leg strength; 10-15 minute med. slow walk or 10-15 ride on a single speed bike (med. fast)? Always trying to save leg strength... Thanks

Kind of a vague question: save strength for what purpose?  Pre-workout warmup?  Outdoors or indoors?

Is "med. slow walk" faster or slower than your "I'm almost late for an appointment" pace? 

Do little bit of both Gene, and running gives you more oxygen so you be able to lift longer. Walking feels like doing nothing to me.

walk up and down hills.  or stadium bleachers.

screw both and sprint to get stronger.

seriously, both are too mellow and are a waste of time,
imo.

sprinting will make you stronger, and it'll make you move
hard and fast and coordinated like you move during the
throw...will make you lose weight, make your heart get
into shape, will make you cool, and will make chicks dig
you, instantly.

litvinov squatted and ran together, and it didn't make
his squats go down. his workout was 405 x 8 front squat
followed immediately by a 75 second sprint around the
track (400 m)...as in rack the bar and sprint...
reportedly (by john powell) he'd do this 3 times (without
breaks) and that was it. he was pretty good at throwing.

so screw "exercising" to save leg strength. if it isn't
adding to the workout, there's no place for it.

if it's cardio workout or weight loss / gpp you are
looking for from the running/biking, you'll get it faster
from sprint/lift intervals i think. (easy clean & press
for 8 then hard sprint for 200 M = awesome gpp) why take
the stairs when you can take the elevator.

Mike, I am sprinting 1x/wk right now..  The walk/run was just a filler for Mon and Fri before work...
May try the squat/sprint seems deadly!! 

chirolifter wrote: Mike, I am sprinting 1x/wk right now..  The walk/run was just a filler for Mon and Fri before work... May try the squat/sprint seems deadly!!

Hi Gene,

Thanks for clarifying.  Depends on what the purpose of your doing the biking/walking is.  I agree with those who say the sprints/intervals are probably the most time-efficient way of burning some calories, maintaining some explosiveness, and improving cardiovascular fitness (for health purposes). 

As for your strength, if you are doing biking/walking at a different "session" (time of day or an off day) than your strength/throwing, you shouldn't have any interference or compromise with strength. The pace you've described for your walking/jogging is probably more for warmup, recovery, circulation, and keeping your body moving.  For the sprints, I'd definitely save them for a day where you were NOT weight training your lower body or doing other explosive full-body moves.  I also suggest longer distance sprints: you mentioned 10-yard ones repeated 22 times--that's only 220 yards total.  You might increase that to 20-40 yards each, working back up to about 10-20 repeats--one time a week for those still.

Also, "jogging" (including a shuffle jog) usually makes for a harder impact than sprinting--the fast you run, the lighter you land.

Of course, use your training logs to track the variables and how well they work for you.

Teresa Merrick, Ph.D./Bellevue, NE

Agree on the sprinting, great full-body workout. Really helps leg and core strength and makes you feel bouncy. I do half-block intervals, sprint half a block and walk half a block etc. (the blocks in my nabe are about 100 meters or so). I stopped doing them over the summer, but gonna start back up.

For the older guys, I'm going to toss this out there: hill sprints, not flat ground.

Easier on the hamstrings.

Just read an article by Charles Poliquin, on why basketball players don't need to run mileage to get conditioned for basketball.  It's on charlespoliquin.com.  It talks about fast-twitch muscle fibers trying to act like slow-twitch muscle fibers after extensive cardio.   I have experienced this while doing cardio, years ago when I wanted to look like a personal trainer.   I would suggest doing a complex/power circuit type of workout for awhile to improve heart and lung conditioning.  Team that up with lower calories(because I know you know how to eat clean) and I think everything will improve.   Less weight on your organs and joints, will allow you to breathe better.  You can burn a ton of calories doing big exercises with little rest, in succession. I don't think this has a negative effect on strength.  Sprints are obviously great to mix in.  Whatever gets your heart rate up and keeps it up for awhile.   Here are some examples of what I've done that will help in this area. 

Zercher squat 6 reps, add weight Front squat 6 reps, add weight Back squat 6 reps.  Drop a rep on each set each time you do the workout. Only rest enough to change the weights and go through this 3 - 5 times.  I worked up to 225 zercher, 315 front, and 405 back squat for 3 reps each in succession, with no problem.

Another program I've used several times at the beginning of the off-season.

Hang snatch 5reps add weight each set for 5 sets, take the last weight and do hang cleans for 5x5 adding a little weight for each set.  Then take the finishing weight and do back squats for 5 by 5 increasing the weight each set.  Then take the weight down to an easy set of 5 for a push press, do this for 5 reps for increasing weight each set for 5 sets.  Then take the weight down to the ground and finish with 5x5 with RDL's with increasing weight.  I used to do this in about 30-45 minutes with little rest.  It's good technique work and will put a hurting on everything.  Your heart will be pounding and it will increase your work capacity.  Start with maybe 65-75 lbs on the snatches and go from there.  I did this 2-3 times a week. I always felt stronger going into the next phase of training, as well.

Sprints are awesome and once you get used to them, try doing variations such as backwards sprints, lateral sprints, sprints from different starts and obviously different distances.  Many throwers have benefited from doing sprints as short as starts up to even 10m.  Longer ones are great for conditioning and opening up the stride. 

A simple assessment of the physiques of many top sprinters should tell quite a bit.

Two years ago I even ran the open 100m dash at a local All-Comers track meet.  Keep it fun!

Gene is walking and singing?  Man my voice is not that great the chior told me, but if it makes my legs bigger I am in.

I hate to be "that guy" but I read an interview recently (I think by hammer thrower Martin Bingisser) where he asked Coach Bondarchuk about the squatting/sprinting combo that was attributed to Litvinov.  I believe Bondarchuk just laughed and said that he'd never done anything like that.  Might be another one of those "Bulgarian weightlifters only did step-ups" type of myths. 

Either way, great topic.