Tuesday, June 30, 2009

New Science [?] On Endurance Training

Oliver thinking to himself, "If only I'd known...."

Thanks to Ride 350 friend Seth, we now have reason to believe that training for our adventure down the California coast won't necessarily mean slaving over the handlebars for hours on end. We all like bike riding, and endurance training is going to be instrumental to our team's success, but according to a recent article in to the New York Times Health section, improving endurance might be easier than we think. According to the article, a professor at McMaster University in Canada studied the effects of two distinctly different types of exercise on a group of healthy college students. After two weeks of experiments, the group who had ridden a stationary bike "intensely" for 6 minutes (not a typo) a week showed endurance improvement equal to those who had spent up to 5 hours on the saddle. Scientific proof that the guy you see at the gym who's physically assaulting the rowing machine - then hitting the sauna - in the same amount of time it takes you to tie your shoes, is actually on to something. Interesting stuff indeed.

In light of this new scientific evidence, the next Ride 350 training ride will take place on Thursday July 9th. Find the route here or just take a look down the length of it:

Now, back on the bike!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Training rides like this would make great PR events! I'm envisioning every rider with a Ride 350 flag of some kind coming off the back of the bike, preferably something big and bright and impossible to ignore for city folks.

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