So Use It …

Resistance Exercise Training (RET) is good for you.

Muscle mass begins a slow decline from about 30 years of age, accelerating into old age and resulting in sarcopenia for most older people. There is a fair amount of strength in reserve at the beginning of this process but ultimately there may not be enough to cope with daily life activities. Falls and fractures are bad news for the frail elderly.

Good news – old muscles respond to training in just the same way as young ones. For a review of the science regarding RET in older folk see <HERE>.

Key Messages

  • Strength (resistance) training is effective in elderly persons and can be undertaken without notable adverse effects.

  • Strength (resistance) training is subject to a dose-response relation. Higher intensities yield greater effects than low or medium intensities.

  • Strength (resistance) training in elderly persons aims to increase muscle mass (hypertrophy) on the one hand, and on the other hand, promote neuronal adaptation (intermuscular and intramuscular coordination).

If you have despaired at the mythology surrounding diet or cycling be ready to ignore an even greater torrent of nonsense regarding doing weights. High reps, low weights for stamina, low reps very high weights for strength, medium reps medium weights for bulk. It’s all frog shit.

The reality is that the results depend on the intensity and your genes. Light weights and many reps until exhausted will have the same result as heavy weights and few reps until exhausted. The key is the exhaustion. Near exhaustion is very nearly as effective and has a few advantages!

Recovery and avoiding over-training are the other side of the coin. The science to back up these last few paragraphs can be found in a review paper by Morton et al. Their key recommendations include choosing weights that lead to volitional fatigue, three times per week with a total of at least 10 reps per muscle group and not more than 15 sets per muscle group.

And that leaves plenty of scope. I favour beginning with compound exercises such as squats and lat pull-downs, heavy enough so that 10 to 12 is the limit, 2 or 3 sets, followed by 1 set each for whichever individual muscles best serve your vanity. Don’t waste too much time on the biceps it’s the lats and deltoids that make the upper body!

Assembling the Weapon …

The posh name for it these days is Resistance Exercise Training or RET for short. When I was a lad we just called it weight training and it is sometimes referred to as strength training. I have indulged in it for some big chunks of my life sometimes by going to the gym and sometimes by means of a home gym.

One of my sons has a basic set up that he uses to good effect. When I decided to halt my slide into decrepitude I started to make use of his equipment. And then came Covid-19 and the lock down. I decided to buy some equipment of my own. Me and every other like minded person. I hit the web and found a lot of sold out signs but eventually I found machines for sale.

An outfit called Gym and Fitness were happy to take my order and of course my money and promised to pack and ship my machine within days. I enjoyed a state of happy anticipation for about a week. The excuses then started. They were really busy. How awful for a business. Their sales software wasn’t linked to their inventory software. How stupid for a business to be selling machines it didn’t have. The third version was that they never actually stocked this machine in the first place relying on the suppliers to ship it once the order was received. They really don’t belong in business.

They refunded my money. By that stage it was really hard to find a machine but eventually I found the Celsius GS2 from Rebel Sports. Delivery took a while but eventually a number of battered cardboard boxes on a broken pallet made it to my door. The machine had evidently had its first workout in transit. Fortunately the damage was only to the cosmetics.

Putting it together was the next challenge. The instructions for the frame were pretty good. Finding the parts was the hardest bit but of course that got easier as the job progressed. Fitting the cables was a different story. I think a different team had written the instructions for that phase. The instruction booklet showed the cables in a different configuration than they were supplied but there were only five and eventually they were sorted out.

The machine is working well. The cables run smoothly and a good variety of exercises are possible.

The Secret Weapon …

Now assembled in one corner of the machinery shed …

One of the Youtubers I follow is Dylan Johnson a cycling competitor and coach. He is a big fan of strength training to help you go faster on your bike.

But he’s just a whipper snapper. Joe Friel in Fast After Fifty is another advocate for the weights. But then from my perspective fifty year olds are also whipper snappers. This guy though seems qualified …

Weight training is one area where researchers have been keen to take older couch potatoes and put them to work. Strength training has major benefits in daily life activities, mood and cognitive abilities and reduction in falls. All of which serve to extend healthy life. But we are aiming higher than that – we want to ride fast.

Dylan has told us why. In the next video he tells us how. I’ll get started as soon as I recover from putting the bloody thing together.

The Shoes …

I have been riding in some old sneakers. Real cycling shoes have very stiff soles so that the force you put on the shoe is in turn put on the pedal with no losses in the process. They also have the means to fix the shoe to the pedal until such times as you want to put your foot on the floor.

That is ideal. Unless you want to walk in them, which you might want to do when you’re mountain biking or taking part in cyclo-cross style activities. In those cases you’d like some flexibility and some grip for a steep muddy surface.

The last time I used real bike shoes the toes were strapped into contraptions that we fondly referred to as rat traps. You don’t see those any more. These days shoes are married to pedals by a system derived from ski bindings. Cleats fixed on the shoe click into place in the pedals and stay there until you swing your heel laterally to unclip. Forgetting to unclip leads to your shoulder heading towards the ground at 9.80665 m/s2 (32.1740 ft/s2).

In ideal circumstances the furthest you walk in your road bike shoes is from your bike to the barista. Cleats and pedals are broad, shoes are stiff and flat. Mountain bike shoes range from stiff to flexible and have a bit of a heel. Cleats are narrow so that they can be recessed into the sole. Mountain bike shoes are incompatible with road bike pedals and vice versa.

Does this mean that the well-rounded cyclist with both a mountain bike and a road bike must have two sets of shoes? Do I need even more trouble with the wife? Fortunately not. Pedals are unconcerned whether they are attached to road bikes or mountain bikes so a reasonable compromise is within reach.

The terrain I tackle on the mountain bike doesn’t normally require me to walk therefore a stiff mountain bike shoe is the go. It has the added benefit of protecting the cleats from the cafe floor when I buy the road bike and venture into town.

I toured the bike shops of Ballarat and settled on the Bont Riots.They are made of carbon composite  and can be heat molded. The retention is by a velcro strap and the Boa quick fastening quick releasing system.

Bont is a little Aussie company. I feel good about that and I don’t need to feel like I’ve made a sacrifice. So far the company trophy cabinet holds :-

59 World Track Championship titles.
3 UCI World Road/ TT champions.
12 x Olympic Gold Medals.
A TDF title (Sir Bradley Wiggins).
1 x Paris-Roubaix win.
2 x Tour of Swiss.
3 x Ironman World Championships.
3 x 70.3 World Championships.
2 x UCI BMX World Championships (Caroline Buchanan).
Numerous Grand Tour Stage wins, classics and countless stage races.
If you add silver and bronze you could probably triple those figures.

I’m sure they can barely wait for me to add a top 1000 finish in next year’s R3R.

One quibble with the design. As you insert your foot the tongue tends to recede into the nether reaches of the shoe. A tag on the front of the tongue would make that easy to prevent.

They have now made approximately 63,680 revolutions on my pedals and are as comfortable as my old sneakers.

Buying Speed …

Being old enough to know better must be something that comes to different people at different ages. I doubt that my life expectancy is so great that it will ever come to me.

As a saxophone player I know the temptation to buy a better sound. I also know, from experience, that having made the investment you sound just like you. The horn that you’re trading in can, in the hands of a better player, sound better than you will on the horn you’ve just bought. A well maintained instrument and a great deal of practice is the starting point. Once there the law of diminishing returns will deliver small gains for large outlays.

So, I’m a cyclist now. I really must buy some speed!

What for? Will I race again? Maybe. Will I win? No. Come on, McGee, why is it that your money is burning a hole in your pocket?

It’s that bloody charity ride., the R3R. Maryborough has a 108 km ride that tours the three local reservoirs. I completed the training wheels version (R1R) recently at 22 kph on my shiny new mountain bike. Given a year to prepare how much better can I do?

I could certainly do it quicker on a recumbent bicycle or even slower on a unicycle but either of those would seem eccentric. Five hours in the saddle of my mountain bike is an option but if I chose the right tool for the job it could be considerably less.

Choose the right tool. That is an excellent choice of language. Gayle is well in tune with the notion that you must have the right tool to get the right result. I’ll work on that.

Fat tyres and forgiving forks are certainly the right tools for our local riding. We live on a gravel road and the corrugations round here are cruel. We are nicely placed to ride through some very pretty forest tracks and listen to the birds.

But the race, sorry, charity ride is on bitumen. If I’m going to take a chunk out of that five hours there are a number of places I might find it …

  • More training
  • More weight loss
  • A lighter and …
  • more aerodynamic bike
  • appropriate gear ratios
  • bike shoes
  • road craft

The road bike is on the shopping list. The things to take into consideration are endless. In order to keep some sense of proportion I’ve decided that it will not cost more than our last car! Somewhere on the curve of diminishing returns is the Goldilocks bike. The choice is delicious and totally immune to buyer’s regret … That doesn’t happen until after you’ve parted with the money.

Where Dreams Go To Die …

As mountaineers ascend the world’s highest peaks they know that above 8,000 metres they have entered the death zone. At this level oxygen is so scarce that the human body can no longer acclimatise. Indeed the highest permanent human habitation is a fair bit lower – La Rinconada in the Peruvian Andes at 5,100 meters.

Time in the death zone is at a premium, the climber must achieve their goal and descend. To remain long is to die.

So it is with my weight loss diets. Somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 grams my body ceases to acclimatise. Progress ceases and the journey downhill begins. The summit beckons, I linger hoping that I will find the strength to continue but alas it was never to be.

In this I am not alone …

A search was conducted for weight-loss-focused randomized clinical trials with >or=1-year follow-up. Eighty studies were identified and are included in the evidence table.

… A mean weight loss of 5 to 8.5 kg (5% to 9%) was observed during the first 6 months from interventions involving a reduced-energy diet and/or weight-loss medications with weight plateaus at approximately 6 months. In studies extending to 48 months, a mean 3 to 6 kg (3% to 6%) of weight loss was maintained with none of the groups experiencing weight regain to baseline. In contrast, advice-only and exercise-alone groups experienced minimal weight loss at any time point.  Franz et al.

I started cycling five months ago. The distance covered each week has slowly increased. Last week it passed 200 km for the first time. The one long ride each week has also increased. The longest so far is 80 km. A kilogram a month melted without conscious dietary modification over the first three months. I have now been on a low carb high fat diet for two months and a further six kilograms have departed.

Is my diet in the death zone?

It doesn’t feel like it. My trousers are walking around looking for a decent bum to fill them, my belt is distraught at the loss of the companion that for so long bore its imprint  but I feel good. Per ardua ad astra. Carpe diem. Et cetera.

The greatest challenge is ahead.

Durability …

I have a buddy who lives in Queensland. We had taken a little time off our regular careers to study something totally unrelated and met at Charles Sturt University. Roy and I have a lot in common including a passion for birds and live music. It was not in the least surprising that we enjoyed a yarn and a beer.

When I signed up to the cycling app Strava up popped Roy’s visage and we have followed and encouraged each other since. Roy has clocked up more than 35,000 km since he started using the app. I am most impressed.

It got me thinking about the sort of distance Grand Tour professionals accumulate over their careers. Or what about a single big year?

When Strava got started the bench mark to aim at belonged to Tommy Godwin a native of Stoke on Trent, UK and a professional cyclist. Back in 1939 he rode a staggering 120,805 km (75,065 miles) in a year. Since 100,000 miles was a good round number and not far off he carried on to nail that landmark in 500 days!

The record stood until 2016 when the American Kurt Searvogel edged him out with 122,432 km (76,076 miles). The Ultramarathon Cycling Association logged his efforts on its website and vouched for his achievement to the satisfaction of the Guiness Book of World Records. His Strava trophy case is stacked with badges although it seems that he is not currently active.

Nor is his record. That was eclipsed by another American, Amanda Coker, the very next year. She blew it away with 139,326 km (86,573 miles) about 382 km a day. By then she was in the groove so she took the opportunity to knock off Tommy’s 100,000 mile record in just 423 days.

Bird watchers like to go for a big year so what about a cycling big year? I think there is a great opportunity there for you Roy.

Glycogen Dethroned …?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote Running on Fat in which I said that glycogen was king. The current paradigm can be summed up as things go better with carbs. That is before during and after. Muscle glycogen depletion during  exercise is the main factor in the onset of fatigue.  If you want to exercise again in a hurry you need to get some carbs down in a hurry. The amount and type vary from paper to paper and there is an unresolved debate about the addition of protein. Overall though it is suggested that 6 to 12 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram within 30 minutes of completing an exhausting workout should have you ready to go again the next day.

Since my muscles are not being rewarded for their efforts with a jar of marmalade after every session I have been wondering how much of a disadvantage I’m putting them at. And it’s not that easy to find out.

Some short term research has been done putting normal (high carb) athletes on low carb diets for three weeks and watching their performance suffer. Hardly surprising that it goes down hill it takes a few weeks to sort out your fluid and electrolyte balance and adjust to ketosis.

The body can make it’s own glucose from fat and if it’s starving it can turn to protein. In the absence of ingested carbohydrate does glycogen replacement grind to a halt or does gluconeogenesis step into the breach?

I was pleased to come across a paper by Volek et al describing research with 20 well matched elite athletes 10 of whom were regular high carb guys and 10 were low carbers (and had been for at least 9 months). Naturally, when you get your hands on such a group, you take muscle biopsies and put them on a treadmill for three hours, take more muscle biopsies and measure everything you can think of. Then you give them two hours to recover before taking another muscle biopsy!

The rate of fat oxidation was two to three times higher in the low carb athletes and it peaked at a higher level of effort. Glycogen stores, usage and replacement were very much the same in both groups.

Their conclusion …

Compared to highly trained ultra-endurance athletes consuming an HC (High Carb) diet, long-term keto-adaptation results in extraordinarily high rates of fat oxidation, whereas muscle glycogen utilization and repletion patterns during and after a 3 hour run are similar.

At the ultra marathon level the benefits of using fat as fuel are appealing to more and more competitors, you just don’t run out.

Metabolic Goodness …

It was my long ride this morning. In fact my longest in this incarnation of my cycling career. 80 km. Thirty years ago I would have made sure I ate a good breakfast and would have taken a banana or two and some other snacks perhaps. This morning was devoid of breakfast and there were no snacks en route. I just took plenty of fat, all stored internally and it will be a long time before that runs out!

After my low carb lunch my ketones were ~6mm/litre. My fat cells are throwing ketones around like the missus spends my money, my muscle cells by comparison are as tight as Mr Scrooge. (Forgive me Gayle I know you are very sensible with our money and I’m the one that throws it around).

The reason that fat cells waste energy when ketones are present whilst muscle cells, including heart muscle, are very efficient are complex. Dr Bikman explains this as clearly as is humanly possible …

He has a book coming out in a few months entitled Why We Get Sick. Spoiler – it’s because of insulin resistance but it will be very interesting to read what he has to say about that and I expect it will be remarkably lucid.

Ketosis …

In my recent reading I came across a paper in the medical literature than mentioned ketosis and followed that in brackets with ketoacidosis as though the two were synonymous. How dumb is that I thought and moved on. Now I can’t find it again and dumb is not a useful search term – way too many results.

On a carb restricted diet the body produces a group of chemicals called ketones, hence the keto in keto diet. Ketones are excellent fuel for the brain and heart in the absence of normal amounts of glucose. Our ancestors went through lean times it was ketones that got them through. Nutritional ketosis is a normal response to fasting and carbohydrate restriction.

Ketoacidosis on the other hand is a medical emergency. It occurs mostly in people with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Ketones are present at more than ten times the quantity found in dietary ketosis along with very high blood sugar. The combination causes a pH change in the blood which will bring liver and kidney function into a downward spiral. This is sometimes the way that diabetics first present and remains a risk if patients fail to manage their insulin properly or hit the booze. Death is the likely outcome in the absence of prompt treatment.

Type 1 diabetes occurs because the islet cells in the pancreas that make insulin are snuffed out by the body’s own antibodies. If there are still some functional islet cells ketoacidosis is less likely.

What stops the enthusiastic keto dieter from slipping into ketoacidosis? Two things. On a low carb diet blood sugar is not through the roof. Secondly functional islet cells mean that insulin is available when needed. Insulin doesn’t only regulate glucose it can also turn down the production of ketones. Ketosis is a normal functional response so it is hardly surprising that it is well regulated.

My low carb diet is rolling along quite nicely. A reduction of five inches off my circumference is evidence enough that I am maintaining an effective level of ketosis but it is easy to check. Ketones can be measured in blood, breath or urine. There is a good article on the available technologies at Diet Doctor. Given that I have no interest in checking every day for the rest of my life I opted for the low tech urine sticks. The brand available at the local pharmacy is Keto-Diastix which measures glucose and ketones and gives a numerical result. I am pleased to say that glucose has been absent from my urine, as it should be, whilst ketones have ranged from 1.5 to 4.0 mm/litre.

I have departed the ranks of the obese and I am now proudly overweight!