Quotes from Gym Jones Article in Outside Magazine

Want to loose weight fast, try not drinking alcohol for a month.

Weight lifting, properly deployed, will serve any athlete at any level because it develops power, they told us, and power is the one thing central to almost every sport. Most of what I new about weight training I'd learned in high school, where I mimicked routines that had originated in competitive bodybuilding. The strategy entailed isolating muscles and working them until they failed - curls, bench presses, triceps extension, etc. - and them moving on to the next muscle group. After a while, your muscles got bigger, and naturally, everyone assumed that a bigger muscle was a stronger muscle.
But that wasn't always the case. In fact, exercise physiologists discovered that muscle isolation is often counterproductive when it comes to executing more complex natural movements, where muscles are required to work in concert. Hence the value of Olympic lifting, with its expanded range of motion. Physiologist also discovered that only certain types of lifting make muscles grow larger - specifically, doing eight to 15 reps in sets that end in complete exhaustion. In contrast, slightly modified approaches, like fewer reps with heavier weight, build stronger muscles without making them bigger - particularly appealing to endurance athletes, for whom increased size is considered a liability.

There's legitimate science behind the high-intensity work, too, and both John and Twight believe that done right, it produces rapid and profound results. The most convincing studies have been done by a Japanese physiologist named Izumi Tabata. In 1996, Dr. Tabata discovered that short-duration, high-intensity training enhances anaerobic capacity while simultaneously increasing aerobic endurance. This allows you to shed more fat than with moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, and it also produces a metabolic after-burn as the body works to repair itself.

Outside - Nov 2008

Remember....

You can't exercise your way out of a bad diet.

How interval training can help you become a better runner

To improve endurance, you have to understand how your body produces energy. During aerobic exercise--a light jog or bike ride, for example--your body burns oxygen. But when you kick it into overdrive--by increasing speed or pumping up a hill--there isn't enough oxygen to go around, so your body switches over to anaerobic metabolism, which produces energy in the absence of oxygen.

The byproduct is lactic acid, and the more it accumulates in your muscles, the more they'll ache and the less efficiently they'll work. To improve endurance, therefore, you'll have to increase your lactic threshold--the point at which lactic acid begins to build up in your muscles--and the best way to do that is with interval training. "Interval training is to endurance what weightlifting is to strength," says Paul Robbins, the metabolic specialist at Athletes Performance. "You overload the body to bring it to a higher level."

Plan your interval workout as part of a 3-day-a-week routine. On the first day, you'll perform low-intensity exercise that raises your heart rate to 65 percent of its maximum; this can be done by going for a light jog or bike ride. On the second day you'll kick it up a notch by operating at 80 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. You can perform the same exercises you did on day one as long as you raise your heart rate into the next zone. The third day is for intervals, where you'll elevate your heart rate to 90 percent of its maximum. Robbins recommends doing three 5-minute intervals, progressing as follows:
First Progression

Spend the first minute at 80 to 85 percent of your max heart rate (let's call it Zone A), kick it up to 90 percent for a minute (Zone B), then spend the remaining 3 minutes back at 80 to 85 percent. A general rule of thumb is to spend as much time recovering as you do exerting yourself, so follow your interval with 5 minutes of light exercise. Then move to the second progression.
Second Progression

Here, you'll alternate between Zones A and B in 1-minute intervals. Go all out for the first minute, taper back the second, go all out for the third, taper back on the fourth, and finish strong in Zone B. Exercise lightly for 5 minutes.
Third Progression

Finally, spend two minutes going as hard as you can in Zone B, taper back for a minute in Zone A, and then jump back into the top zone for the final two minutes.

2nd Annual Get Together Fun Run - 10 Miler