Agree 100%. Recovery is absolutely key to becoming stronger. You don't get stronger during the workout, but after, when your body rebuilds. Listening to your body is crucial to knowing when you've done the appropriate amount of damage (and yes, working out is damage) that can be recovered. Also knowing when you've actually recovered enough to do the next workout is really important. This is why weightlifters rotate their muscle groups, to allow more time to heal and rebuild. You can't really do that with your legs, especially cycling/spinning, so you have to learn how to recover. And really, after some initial phase, cycling is more about cardio vascular health than leg strength.

Agreed, and that's the thing about cycling, it's a "gentle" exercise. Since the persons weight is suspended by the bike frame, the body doesn't experience the same stresses and impacts that runners do, for example. It's also how the big tours like the Tour de France can be 3 weeks long. Only a handful of people on Earth could run a marathon everyday for three weeks, but lots of cyclist can do nearly the equivalent on a bike.

I don't really buy that cycling is "gentle." It's true that it's not high-impact, but that's mostly about joints (IMO, I am not a sports scientist).

And joint stress is probably the reason that most people could not run a marathon every day for 3 weeks. The muscle energy expenditure for the TDF is off the charts--typically 8,000 calories a day, and the vast majority of that is burned in the leg muscles and respiratory system.

Also, waaaayyyyy too many people really underestimate and under train for high intensity stuff like marathons these days. Fitness has become a fade that people are not backing up with actually putting the hard work in to be able to do things safe. A thing called Sudden Adult Death Syndrome has become very prominent in Ireland (including claiming people I knew personally.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_arrhythmic_death_syndro...

Didn't see anything in that wiki article relating training/marathons to SADS. How did you make that link?

It's what a number of people I know who under trained for marathons dropped during/from.

The cause of SADS is very often a congenital heart defect. The high heart rate and blood pressure associated with endurance efforts is a good way of triggering an underlying defect that may be benign in a relaxed state.

But to state that these people died because they "underprepared" is ridiculous. That's like saying you could have prevented dying from a brain tumor by doing more crossword puzzles. Just as a tumor, a congenital defect was just a bad dice throw. Exercise triggered it, but so could running to catch a bus.

Marathons aren't high intensity workouts. A 20 minute tempo run would be a good example. (I guess it's similar to a 30 minute spinning class.)

>"Marathons aren't high intensity workouts."

It sounds like you've never run one. World class athletes can run an entire marathon at a sub 5m mile pace. While they could run a single mile race in 4:05 or so, it's not even remotely a low intensity effort to run a 5 minute mile, even for the fittest people on the entire planet.

Unless you've put real effort into training, 60+ year-old competitive marathoners have done a 20 minute tempo run faster than you ever have... and repeated it 7 consecutive times without rest.

Marathons are high intensity and extended efforts.

Marathon race pace is ideally ever so slightly below your lactate threshold. The definition of high intensity training is literally anything above that threshold.

Running is generally considered a high intensity activity, but of course there are different degrees.

>"The definition of high intensity training is literally anything above that (lactate) threshold."

That's far from a universal definition. The phrase "high intensity training" often refers to a type of strength training popularized by the founder of Nautilus that involved lifting until muscle failure. What you're describing specifically is called anaerobic training.

> That's far from a universal definition.

In sports medicine lactate threshold/anaerobic threshold/90(ish)% of VO2max has been the de facto definition for high intensity efforts for many many years.

You'll find plenty of examples on Google Scholar (including papers criticizing people for using these thresholds to define the intensity of workouts...)

> Running is generally considered a high intensity activity

Nope. Running can be a low, medium or high intensity activity depending on how hard you run (relative to your max).

That's an extremely pedantic argument. This isn't a sports medicine journal and you can google to find many other sites focused on health and wellness that go with a more mainstream usage. This even includes the NIH for what it's worth but I'm done on this thread.

I pulled my achilles tendon about 10 years ago and ever since it has been particularly fragile. Angling my foot too far creates an unpleasant sensation and if I'm not really careful about how I place my foot when running it will put me out of commission for several days. I also had a roommate who injured himself doing squats when he was in his early 20s (20 years ago) and has since had six back surgeries and has to work lying down to manage his back pain. Most people don't seem to realize that even casual exercise, if done improperly, can cause permanent, life-altering injuries.

> listen to your body. Stop when it starts to hurt.

but isn't the point of training to push thru the pain barrier? When do you actually stop and listen, vs when to ignore the pain and keep going?

In my own experience, as I have not found a way to transfer other people's physical pain unto myself, there are two types of pain: the pain from working your muscles, and the pain from doing something wrong.

The first thing that you should learn when doing a new exercise is what the difference between these two pains are. Then, when performing more rigorous forms of the same exercise, you can establish where you can push through the pain. Is the pain you are feeling exhaustive? Push through. Is the pain something foreign? STOP IMMEDIATELY.

This, I think, is one of the reasons why it is suggested to do a lighter exercise before engaging in the intense stuff. As well, you don't run the risk of learning the difference between the two pains too late into the exercise. In general it follows along with the trite quotes: "You have to learn to walk before you can run," and "Start slow to go fast."

I always take the advice of "push through the pain" as pushing through the pain of exhaustion, which will contribute to strength and your ability to push beyond current physical limits; whereas the advice of "listen to your body and stop when it hurts" is more related to injuries - if you have a constant muscle cramp, or joint pain, or a stress fracture, or a ligament issues... REST and recuperate. Pushing through this second sort of pain will very likely result in injuries worsening and requiring even longer to mend down the road.

As I understand it, there's breaking a sweat and being uncomfortable, and then there's pain. If you feel pain it's time to stop for the day or at least take a good rest.

Depends on the pain. If you're running and your muscles get sore, by all means keep going within sane limits.

If you get a stitch in your side there's no harm in pushing through, they're painful but not harmful.

If you get shin splints or your knees hurt, stop and figure out what's wrong before you damage something.

As always, it depends..

Depends on the end goal. If you can only complete two miles and you're signed up for a marathon a month from now, you're going to have to push past your comfort zones.

But if your end goal is to be able to go up a flight of stairs without heavy breathing, to sustain vitality through your older years, then no, do not push. Do just the amount of effort that will allow you to keep coming back, day after day.

Many beginners would be surprised how slow or lightly they should be going if they monitored and targeted heart rate. There is discomfort and pain. If you're feeling massive exhaustion and/or pain, you may be doing something wrong.

I think one big issue is that people who are new to an exercise (or exercise at all) don't have a sense of scale, and don't realize quite how much progress they'll make early on.

If you know some people can run marathons, it doesn't sound crazy to think "well, I ought to be able to run for 10 minutes without any problems", but there are a lot of people who would risk seriously injuring themselves with 10 minutes of quick-pace running. Not to the point of rhabdo, probably, but certainly not a healthy experience.

It also doesn't sound crazy to think "Well, I'm in agony after two minutes, but there's no way that means I should stop. I'll never get anywhere with only two minutes of running!" But of course, 'beginner gains' are distinctive - someone who hasn't done cardio in years might be at two minutes today and six minutes next week.

The only universal answer I know to solve this is to take your first few outings in a new thing lightly. Don't even set a training plan, just go out until you're a bit uncomfortable, then stop and see how you feel the next day.

This is very difficult. One thing when you should consider stopping is if the pain becomes chronic and never goes away. I remember seeing a lot of top fighters pretty much living on pain killers. That's probably a clear sign you should stop.

I got a lot of benefit from doing intense martial arts when I was younger but sometimes I wish I had been smarter and not just ignored pain. But again, it's a difficult decision. Some things make you tougher and some things cause problems later on.

Pushing through the pain barrier is wrong, point of training is to find that subtle balance where you push enough to advance but not too much to avoid injury.

I had an old running coach say something along the lines of, "The hardest part of running a marathon is getting to the STARTING line injury free." I certainly found that to be true - both personally and watching peers train...

That's a really nice way of putting it. Thanks for sharing it with us.