Friday, March 18, 2011

Running versus The Root Hog - No Contest! - Part II

Fred Fornicola and I had a good dialogue by e-mail regarding my first post.  I think I need to make a few more points to clarify things a bit. 


First off,= my goal is never to feel totally gassed after cardio. In fact, I hate the feeling.  Fred mentioned the following:


"It would be interesting (and a good experiment)  for you to only do the root hog for a couple month's and zero running then go back to running and see if you can bang out the same mileage and pace your first time out."


I've actually done this experiment before and found that running becomes very easy after doing the Root Hog. I keep my pace on the root hog quick and with little rest between trips.  Overall, as Fred also pointed out, it hits the overall body differently than just running.  What I have found though is that after running, and then going back to the root hog, it feels I have not done much cardio wise during the period of time I did the running (in this case, the winter months).  Now, this again does not say you need to blast yourself doing cardio to get the benefit of cardio.  That's never my goal doing the root hog either.  I like the low impact nature of the root hog compared to running.  So, for me, running is not very good in comparison.  My right knee was injured my junior year of high school and it always "talks to me" when I go back to running after awhile.  So, running is just fine and dandy. It's just not my favorite due to the impact it has versus the root hog. And, I can get more done pushing a sled in a shorter time period too.  The bottom line again is due cardio and enjoy what you do!


I mentioned in another post about the body just loves to "stay the same".  What if I told you that you could work your upper body 4-5 times a week (yeah, I know who has time!?) but with a couple caveat?  And, that you just might find you can use the body's alarm response to jolt some new gains or it might be used coming back from a layoff. Yes, it is tricky. And, yes it takes more time. Think about how new people to lifting make fast gains.  Think about it and I'll explain more in my next post.



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