Ask the Experts - Fitness

Answers from John Shepherd:

Q.I'm a 42 year old man who has been fit all his life until the effects of a car crash many years ago resulted in 5 back operations, leading to spinal fusion with bits of titanium. Whilst recovering over the last two years I have developed the typical middle aged business man's stomach!

In search of fitness and weight loss I've started with a lot of core stability work and have started cycling on a mountain bike, predominantly on the roads, providing the necessary suspension to protect my back from country road potholes. I've read a lot of books about mountain bike fitness training which is naturally not primarily written for people in their 40s! I'm riding a lot of cadence/spinning rides on the middle cog three or four times a week for durations of 50 mins to 1hour 20 mins.

I understand that, in your 40s, you need to incorporate a certain level of intensity to produce the "growth hormone effect". I do dips, pull ups, press ups, vertical leg raises and some yoga in pursuit of a good level of cardio fitness from cycling and the body beautiful from the rest!. I have ordered "Training for Master Athletes" from Peak Performance but I need some guidance on my cycling in terms of duration, intensity etc. I would be very grateful for any advice!

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Answer:

Congratulations on your fitness routine. It appears from what you have written that you are following a sensible training routine. You mention the growth hormone (GH) affect. You are correct in that exercise will stimulate an increase in certain hormones, notable and valuably, GH and testosterone. As a rule the more intense your training the greater the response will be. Thus, lifting medium to heavy weights quickly will have a greater stimulatory affect than lifting lighter weights slowly. Now, you have a back issue and I would not recommend that you start lifting dynamically. However, there are always solutions!

Perform short duration exercise bike sprints:

Do 6 x 30 seconds intervals at 95% effort, against a medium high resistance, taking a 60 second, slow pedal recovery between each interval (after an appropriate warm up of course).

This workout will stimulate GH and testosterone response and also improve the production and usage of your muscles’ high energy producing phosphates, notably creatine phosphate. I selected an exercise bike as opposed to your normal mountain bike, to avoid potential ‘sway’ and instability caused by pedalling near flat out, not to mention the jarring that could be transmitted through your back, through the roads. Get used slowly to pedalling quickly over a couple of workouts before attempting this workout and monitor your back at all times.

Weight train:

Now, I don’t want to sound contradictory, but I believe you need to weight train, albeit at a ‘sensible‘ intensity. Muscle is metabolic dynamite. The more you have the more efficient a fat burner your body will be. For every 0.45kg increase you’ll burn an extra 350 calories a week doing nothing. That’s equivalent to approximately 45 minutes easy cycling.

Mountain biking and yoga, for example, do not really provide enough muscle stimulation to build muscle; the former will burn fat predominately, whilst the latter will tone muscle. I therefore recommend that to increase your lean muscle, improve your body shape and benefit from a relatively high hormonal response, you initially use fixed (machine) weights. After a couple of months you could progress to using dumbbells.

You should weight train twice a week. Crucially in the light of your back, you should avoid all exercises where you support the weight across your shoulders or press or lift above your head. Here are some suitable exercises given the above:

• Leg press
• Leg extensions
• Preacher arm curls
• Bench press
• Lunges with dumbbells held at arm’s length
• Squats with dumbbells held at arm’s length
• Calf raises with dumbbells held at arm’s length
• Single arm rows with dumbbell

Do seek professional advice to ensure you learn correct lifting technique and perhaps consult a physio. Do not give up on your core strengthening work.

A weekly routine of mountain biking (2-3 rides), weight training (2 workouts) and interval exercise bike cycling (1 workout) should help shape the body you are looking for.