Biking aerobic benefit?

75 minutes at 170/min hr is the same aerobic benefit whether it's running or cycling. Regard biking as 2.5-3.0 miles to one mile of running. Exception, steep uphills and downhills, yet overall it pans out this way. Go to www.duathlon.com for more information on this type of stuff.

Finally some reasonable advice from a letsrun poster!

I was expecting to hear a "get off the bike and run sissy" comment!

the news wrote:

75 minutes at 170/min hr is the same aerobic benefit whether it's running or cycling. Regard biking as 2.5-3.0 miles to one mile of running. Exception, steep uphills and downhills, yet overall it pans out this way. Go to

http://www.duathlon.com

for more information on this type of stuff.

thanks!

Runner Crosstraining wrote:

ok, so if I am averaging between 10.5 hrs and 11.5 hrs of biking per week (about 90-100 minutes per day) with a hr of between 150-190 throughout the bike (usually at least an hour is over 170) .

If this is true, then you are my new hero. An hour of biking with your hr over 170?? Are you using a stationary bike? Either you have an insanely high max hr, or you are a total beast. On a regular bike, I can barely get my hr up to 160 during a sustained effort (my max hr is about 180).

Keep that up and you will be in very good aerobic shape.

the diceman wrote:

Runner Crosstraining wrote:

ok, so if I am averaging between 10.5 hrs and 11.5 hrs of biking per week (about 90-100 minutes per day) with a hr of between 150-190 throughout the bike (usually at least an hour is over 170) .

If this is true, then you are my new hero. An hour of biking with your hr over 170?? Are you using a stationary bike? Either you have an insanely high max hr, or you are a total beast. On a regular bike, I can barely get my hr up to 160 during a sustained effort (my max hr is about 180).

Keep that up and you will be in very good aerobic shape.

Yeah, my max hr might be around 5-10 beats higher than the 220-age rule, as I've seen it creep over 200 on the hrm for short amounts of time.

the news wrote:

75 minutes at 170/min hr is the same aerobic benefit whether it's running or cycling. Regard biking as 2.5-3.0 miles to one mile of running. Exception, steep uphills and downhills, yet overall it pans out this way. Go to

http://www.duathlon.com

for more information on this type of stuff.

QFE

I also believe that one of the benefits of cycling is that you can do it for so much longer than running.

You might try dropping down the intensity a bit and going for some longer rides. Try a couple of 3 hour rides during a week of training. A couple of benefits will happen due to this.

1. Your stroke volume (ammount of blood pumped per beat) will increase.

2. You will become more efficient at burning stored fats.

I had a stress fracture my junior year in college and begain riding with my roomate (who went on to become a Cat. 1 cyclist). I feel that when I came back to running, I was aerobically just as strong or stronger than when I developed the fracture. Its hard to get a 3 hour run in, but a 3 hour ride can be done quite often(not to mention 4 and 5 hour rides). This is why many people believe that cyclists are aerobically better conditioned than any other type of enduracne athlete.

You already understand that the direct benefit to your running muscles is minimal so use the time to really build up that heart.

I'm looking at a possible injury right now, and was wondering what exercises I could do to keep the muscles used for running conditioned for when I return. Could anyone give me any advice?

assuming that you mean cycling workouts because you're posting this in a thread about cycling as cross training

what kind of injury, where and how bad is it?

If cycling isn't painful it, as already said, can be great.

Basically cycling workouts can be structured almost exactly the same as running. You can do for example 16 x 1 min. that can take the place of a vo2max workout on the track that would 16x400m, and so on.

The only real difference is you can do most things longer on a bike.

somewhatfast wrote:

I'm looking at a possible injury right now, and was wondering what exercises I could do to keep the muscles used for running conditioned for when I return. Could anyone give me any advice?

aqua jogging ... tie yourself to the wall of a pool and run like you would regularly

ii wrote:

assuming that you mean cycling workouts because you're posting this in a thread about cycling as cross training

what kind of injury, where and how bad is it?

If cycling isn't painful it, as already said, can be great.

Basically cycling workouts can be structured almost exactly the same as running. You can do for example 16 x 1 min. that can take the place of a vo2max workout on the track that would 16x400m, and so on.

The only real difference is you can do most things longer on a bike.

I'm not sure if you're addressing my post, but I was wondering about non biking exercises that keep your running muscles in shape while you're injured. (things like squats, calf raises, etc.) also, the injury involves my toe. It is either a sprain, with the outside shot of being a stress fracture.