Thursday, April 26, 2012

My Bicycle Update!

Update! 4/26/2012


My Background in Personal Training
If you read my biography you would have noticed I am a Kinesiology major at San Francisco State.  Kinesiology is defined as "The study of the anatomy, physiology, and mechanics of body movement, especially in humans." in dictionary lookup.  Taking movement classes in school has taught me about the elements of training and the principal of Overload and Specifcity.  This should make sense to us because if we are to overload a specific muscle group it is going to be forced to adapt to the new load by getting stronger.  I could go into the specifics about how long, and how the muscles actually do this, but the main idea here is that local muscle adaptations are going to make the desired activity much easier.

A quick overview of how I have been training

I've been riding my bicycle to work and school both of which are in the city of San Francisco.  I live in Pacifica so the distance is about 15 miles to school and another 5 miles to work for a total of 20 miles in one direction. To get an idea of time, I average about an 1 hour and 20 min in one direction.

Almost every other day I go in both directions but needless to say I've been averaging about 100-120 miles per week.  Also there is a huge hill going out of Pacifica so I spend  a good 15 minutes dedicated to climbing up and out of that hill Pacifica.

Picture above-(Of course that's not me, I always ride with a backpack and not followed by a crowd  or policeman for that matter lol)

The Update
After riding my new bicycle for about 3-4 weeks now I've really noticed why Moto Gp riders use bicycles as training purposes.  I noticed my quadriceps, calves and hamstrings start to tighten up and get stronger.  The very last time I sat on my motorcycle I felt extremely adept to pushing down on the pegs.  For those that don't know pushing down on the pegs exerts pressure and weight onto the rear swing-arm of the bike, in Lay-mans terms, it helps the rear tire grip the ground.  By being able to push down on the pegs for a longer amount of time and fatiguing less,  these guys racing in Moto GP aren't going to wear down nearly as easily and can push through until the end of the race!

Anyways I thought this was kind of interesting and fun and wanted to share it with yall!

 Johnny 5-

2 comments:

  1. It seems as though you like expensive two-wheeled habits. I have an old Schwinn road bike and always love riding. Its old and heavy, but going fast is fun. There's a bunch of hills near me which keep me from riding everywhere. I can run a ten mile in under an hour, but the idea of climbing a hill on a bike for fifteen minutes makes me winded just thinking about it!

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  2. haha thanks! Yeah apparently I do like expensive stuff... I went into the bike shop (bicycle) the other day to buy some clip in pedals and shoes (average cost- 200-300 for the pair)and my eye was drawn to this particular red and black bike. i looked at the price tag $6300, lol all i could do is laugh, I would have to sell my motorcycle to buy a bike like this, so yeah I guess I do have expensive taste but hey like an old friend told me "you buy cheap, you buy twice!" I had a handful of experiences where buying cheap parts wasn't the way to go and I ended up replaceing those parts shortly after, so my general rule of thumb is to spend that little extra so you don't have to get stuck on the side of the road somewhere.

    As for the hill climbs, go for it!!! those hills are only gonig to shrink in size over time! start now and by the end of summer I promise your gonna be killin 'em!

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