This Bodybuilder Says That Aerobic Excercise Is (GASP!) HARMFUL!!! Rebut Him, Letsrun!

Brutal.

While you're at it, can you go on that Eddy Lee thread and give Jonesy a good dressing down? Thanks.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2270504&page=64

You should go back to ACSM. It's much better. the past two annual meetings have had powerful, heavy-science-based symposia and excellent topics.

I'm using the term nerual developments in a broad sense to describe the improvements in pace that a runner will make over an extended period of time. These improvements in pace are always attributed to "aerobic development" or improvements in aerobic or anaerobic capacity, by physiologists and coaches who have little or no knowledge of the fact that neuromuscular coordination controls every movement we make.

What we should be studying is research on how we improve our running skills. What parts of the brain are involved and how to apply the different neural adaptions which improve these skills.

embedded-troll-detector wrote:

If you write that you run 800s between 2:40 - 50 and also write you cant run a 200m faster than 42s (2:48), you do realize it is going to take away the impact of engrossing statements like "The ones that will have sex in the bathroom, even if the door doesn't lock" when you refer to slutty chicks?

I mean, come on! Whaddaya think: nobody here seen an action movie???

I think you are missing the comedy. Doing 200s slower than 800s=making fun of the claim that you lose fast twitch muscle and are overwhelmed by slow twitch muscle as described in the OP.

NONAME,

If I take away your self-authenticated credentials of an advanced education (after all what weight could self-accreditation of a NONAME user possibly hold?), and your personal attacks on Alan, and the ACSM, I find very little substance left.

You could go a much longer way to demonstrating your alleged education by outlining some of the "limits" in Alan's knowledge, what is correct, what is partially correct, and why, and what is debatable.

Presumably all of your unsubstantiated conclusary allegations can not carry any weight if they are based on an equally weightless unauthenticated education.

Besides your limited theoretical experience in research, do you have any practical experience in the real world?

Sorry Alan for dragging you through the "evolutionary" side-show. At the risk of exposing you more, I'm still interested in a description of your "by far greatest" success, when combining weight training with a little speed training. I guess mainly what you define as success, and I what the weight training (and diet?) looks like. Are your success stories also able to run 2:32 marathons and 1:09 halfs? Or is that just a different goal with different training requirements?

Now I will contradict myself - NONAME asks you a couple of good questions, which you left unanswered:

- How do you measure neural developments? (Is that the same as neuro-muscular coordination?)

- How do you know they are bigger? (How can we isolate which percentage of pace improvements are "aerobic development" and which part are "neural development"?)

I too am interested in hearing your response, as I can't think of any possibilities.

Very well said.And by the way, I would not respond to any other posts. You'll drive yourself mad. I used to respond to some finance or economics threads - people on here will drive you absolutely insane.I have a phd in finance, have worked for the federal reserve and worked at various i-banks, hedge funds over the years and have published a few (not as many as I would like) papers. It doesn't matter, every person who has ever watched Jim Cramer knows better and would not listen to any reason.So I applaud your posts and suggest you leave the thread be now.

For wellnow, One of my favorite sayings from a physiology professor...

whenever we don't know what the cause of any improvement or change is, we call it neural.

Why? Because at the present time, you can't really measure neural changes. So it must be neural...

Voice of Ray-san wrote:

Now I will contradict myself - NONAME asks you a couple of good questions, which you left unanswered:

- How do you measure neural developments? (Is that the same as neuro-muscular coordination?)

- How do you know they are bigger? (How can we isolate which percentage of pace improvements are "aerobic development" and which part are "neural development"?)

I too am interested in hearing your response, as I can't think of any possibilities.

NONAME has been posting here at least as long as I have, that's almos't six years for me. He has always provided intelligent information. It's obvious to me that he is what he says he is.

We can measure aerobic developments, and they are actually very small from untrained to highy trained. That is, an improvement of 20% in aerobic capacity. All well trained runners are pretty much maxed out in aerobic development by their late teens.

But an untrained runner can improve their distance running times by much more than 20%

How do we measure improvements in skill? By racing. The constant improvements cannot be attributed to aerobic development, since we can measure absolute oxygen uptake and see no improvement, despite improvements in racing times over the years.

what??? wrote:

For wellnow, One of my favorite sayings from a physiology professor...

whenever we don't know what the cause of any improvement or change is, we call it neural.

Why? Because at the present time, you can't really measure neural changes. So it must be neural...

That's not really a very intelligent thing to say though is it?

Do we really need to measure improvements is a golfer's swing? a tennis players passing shot? a swimmer's stroke? a cyclist's pedalling action?

We can't measure neural improvements, because there is such a vast network of information being passed forward and backward along so many routes. But we know that such an information super highway exists in our bodies, even if physiologists prefer to ignore the importance of this issue.

When people say "aerobic capacity", they don't mean an absolute increase in the amount of oxygen your body can take in with each breath, they mean the ability of the muscles to use that oxygen to avoid an excess build up of lactate/hydrogen ions/whatever the official substance is this week. Thus improving "aerobically" means that I can now run easily at paces that used to become difficult after 3-4 miles. It is not my brain having a better command of my legs, it is my leg muscles being more efficient at pressing off of the ground, because they are able to get more oxygen and thus not tire as easily.

I know what aerobic capacity means. And no, you won't improve this beyond a certain point, in fact as you get older, your aerobic capacity will probably go down, whilst your paces continue to improve.

This is because of improvements in running skill, you become more efficient with practice.

Your last sentence shows your lack of understanding of the issue of neuromuscular coordination, your brain most certainly DOES develop a better command of your legs with practice.

yeah

wellnow wrote:

We can\\\'t measure neural improvements, because there is such a vast network of information being passed forward and backward along so many routes. But we know that such an information super highway exists in our bodies, even if physiologists prefer to ignore the importance of this issue.

I don\\\'t doubt the importance of neural improvement and co-ordination in running as a skill.

However, unlike golf... which is almost entirely a skill-based sport, running depends on variety of other things. Aerobic capacity is usually a catch-all phrase to mean everything from VO2Max to mitochondrial development in the leg muscles to christ knows what else.

I simply can\\\'t see that by learning to \\\"run well\\\" and improve the ability to \\\"run well\\\" that you will develop a better athlete than one who simply trains to improve his capacity for work (be it anaerobic or aerobic capacity).

I am done with this thread. Though this is the first time I've posted here...but I AM SO DONE WITH THIS THREAD!

anEconomist wrote:

Very well said.

And by the way, I would not respond to any other posts. You'll drive yourself mad. I used to respond to some finance or economics threads - people on here will drive you absolutely insane.

I have a phd in finance, have worked for the federal reserve and worked at various i-banks, hedge funds over the years and have published a few (not as many as I would like) papers. It doesn't matter, every person who has ever watched Jim Cramer knows better and would not listen to any reason.

So I applaud your posts and suggest you leave the thread be now.

[/quote]

No, you stopped posting because you couldn't stand the realization that economics is a bunch of bull created by those in power to try to convince the population at large to accept policies that are not in their best interest. Unlike the hard science debated in this thread, economics is just a mushy "social" science that is easily manipulated to create "theories" that readily support policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Economists can't stand having to defend themselves before the rabble because the rabble won't accept as gospel the notion that everything will be peachy if you direct all the wealth to a small segment of the population.

As for the attacks launched by NONAME, I generally agree with your assessment, but am also discouraged by your generalities. Don't fall into the economist trap and just throw up your arms and say "I am just too smart to have to provide any detail." Put up or shut up. If you can only articulate yourself to a small group of Phds and can't successfully make your positions accessible to the population at large, what good are you to anyone? Let's here more, NONAME. You can do it. I'll start: A calorie is a calorie. Big study about this, not just 40 college kids and a doctoral thesis. Discuss.

wellnow wrote:

This is because of improvements in running skill, you become more efficient with practice.

But this is where I think you draw unnecessary distinctions. The term "efficiency", by its definition, implies the use of something to perform a task. If I make cars more efficiently, then I am able to make the same number of cars using less metal/money/whatever, or able to make more cars with the same amount of metal etc.

What, in your model, is being used more "efficiently" in, say, a 5k race? If I improve my neuromuscular coordination, how does that translate into faster running? Is it not my body being able to use less energy to run the same pace as before? And if so, is that energy not provided by aerobic means at most easy to medium paces? So, is neuromuscular coordination not another way to say that your body (leg muscles) are becoming more efficient at using oxygen to provide movement? If not oxygen, what is your body becoming more efficient at using?

Respectfully,

Edumacator

bump for wellnow