Athletic transference, or lack thereof

Being Good in One Athletic Undertaking Does Not Necessarily Mean JACK in Another

Being good in one athletic undertaking does not necessarily mean JACK in other athletic pursuits.

Ill-prepared: a hellacious, what-felt-like-45-degree, half-mile upward slog. “Somebody get me a doctor!”

I had high hopes and great expectations coming into my spring transformational campaign. Coming off the winter, I am usually at my heaviest bodyweight due to all the rich and delicious winter foods and reduced cardio activity. I am fine with this. I get thick and strong in the winter. Spring and summer are the whittle-down, leaner and lighter months; late fall and winter are the strength-building and mass-building months.

Winter Fan-Bike Fitness and Spring Expectations

This year, I rolled into spring weighing 195, down 15 pounds over last year at this time. I had tightened up and lightened up and had made good use of my venerable push-pull fan bike over the winter. Stacy found an excellent heart-rate monitor app for my phone, Polar Beat. She got me a chest strap online and I was off to the push-pull stationary bike races, effortlessly tracking and logging every session with finite precision.

I was regularly busting out age-estimated heart-rate-maximum sessions of 90% plus, my session report card, using the push-pull bike. I worked out new “burst” interval push-pull protocols that kept stationary biking semi-interesting. I would sit down, stand up, pedal forward, pedal backward, legs only, arms only, one leg coupled with the off-side arm, switch sides, and so on. I had personal records in each identifiable technique.

After riding the bike and attaining and maintaining a high heart rate for a protracted period, once the session was over my 90% heart rate would plummet to 70%, quickly and predictably. Once I pushed the button and ended the cardio session, I locked in the stats for the session and immediately would Zen out to see how quickly I could regain normal breathing.

Heart-Rate Recovery and the Drop-Off Test

I routinely attained a 20-plus beat-per-minute drop in one minute. Out-of-shape people can get their heart rates jacked up quite easily but often have a terrible time regaining heart-rate and respiratory normalcy. This can be dangerous territory for the unfit. A fast-dropping heart rate post-exercise is highly desirable, though it should not be treated as a self-diagnosis or medical stress test.

Pay attention to your drop-off rate: how fast do you regain normalcy after a hard cardio session?

Heart-rate recovery can be a useful training marker. It is not the whole story. Age, medication, heat, hydration, health history, the type of exercise, and whether you keep moving during recovery can all change the number. The lesson remains: tracking heart rate and recovery adds precision to cardio training, just as sets, reps, and poundage add precision to lifting.

Back to the Farm Trails

I had big expectations when the dry weather finally arrived. I would get back to outdoor jogging, running and sprinting — but lighter, leaner, fitter than any spring in recent memory. I traverse a 155-acre farm in good weather and shut down outdoor running from January until April. I will not run if there is snow on the ground or when the ground is frozen, wet, or covered with leaves that obscure potholes, roots and trip hazards.

I never run on concrete or hard surfaces by choice. All my running is trail running on either ground or grass. From a foot-health perspective, trail and grass running works well for me. Every footfall is different, and that is a good thing when approached progressively. This forces the foot contacting the earth to absorb and accommodate different landing surfaces.

On concrete, with every stride, the foot hits the same hard and unyielding surface in the same way. For me, that is a recipe for repetitive-motion irritation. That said, trails and grass are not magic. Uneven ground has its own dangers: rolled ankles, slips, roots, rocks and hidden holes.

Every stride I take on my good-weather runs is done with flat-soled shoes. I feel the earth. Every footfall is felt and uneven, a wonderful thing for my feet when I am adapted to it. I avoid the shin splints so common to those that slam their thick rubber-soled marshmallow “athletic shoes” on hard surfaces. Again: this is my approach, not a universal shoe prescription for every runner.

I run game trails. I run on dirt or grass. Best of all, I run on woodchips. When the good weather finally arrives, when our moist mountain climate dries out, I mix things up. I take long runs of 40 to 50 minutes three to four times a week and I sprint, hard, twice a week.

When I sprint, I run on a woodchip-covered trail that is straight and flat and runs for 150 yards under a wonderful tree canopy that keeps me dry even in light rain. Sprinting on a woodchip-covered trail is, I would imagine, akin to running on clouds.

The First Run Reality Check

On my glorious first day of outdoor farm running, I took my lightened and streamlined body out for a test run. I was expecting world records right out of the box. Within 25 yards of commencing my first real run, I knew something was terribly wrong. All my fantastic preconceptions flew out the window. I ran like an out-of-shape high school freshman, awkward and clumsy. I had to relearn running, which, apparently, has limited direct relationship to stationary bike riding.

I felt like the unoiled, or barely oiled, Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. Encountering my first steep grade was a hellish revelation. My legs died, my lungs died, everything in me died. Halfway up, I thought about quitting. I looked like I was running through mud. Only pride and embarrassment stopped me from stopping.

I have a series of predetermined circuits, differing running routes I can take, differing in length and topography. I decided to break in easy. On my first day back, I would do my sightseeing route, a wonderful 40-minute circuit, mostly on the flat, that took me under the woodchip tree canopy, along a trout stream, over a scenic bridge, and into a second long woodchip-covered trail, a second sprint section. I was stiff and sluggish on the flat and knew I was in trouble.

The 45-Degree Slog

Twenty minutes into my scenic run and the flat sections were done. Time to hit the steep grades. The first section is a game trail that runs upward at what feels like a 45-degree incline alongside a mini-mountain. The thin trail lies hidden, tucked inside a lush, ancient-growth forest. This section runs under massive oak, pine, and walnut trees for a quarter mile. Narrow, slick, dangerous, this Billy Goat trail has 30-foot drop-offs to the left. I tell myself not to space out and slip.

During this ten-minute hell section, my eyes stay glued to the trail ten feet in front of me, careful not to slip and tumble. I made it through the wooded section and burst into the sundrenched cornfield. I kept running, picking up the pace. It was still steady upward, steeply, for another lung-stressing quarter mile following a curved pathway cut through the lush pines that run next to the cornfield.

I am pushing as hard as I can. My legs weigh 1,000 pounds each and they burn. My lungs cannot suck in oxygen fast enough and they burn. I feel as if I am “running” in slow motion — because I am. I finally top out at the scenic overlook. By the time I arrived at the scenic overlook on this first day, I was in need of an ambulance.

And this was only the halfway point. Somehow, I managed to drag myself through the rest of the route. After all, it was literally all downhill. Twenty minutes later, done, I felt as if I had completed an ultra-marathon. How disheartening. My excellent push-pull bike efforts did not mean JACK out here in the woods: trotting, jogging, running, sprinting. My biking did not help my running legs or running lungs nearly as much as I had expected.

Legs or Lungs?

My aerobic mentor, Dr. Len Schwartz, used to always make me pose a question to myself as I performed any cardio exercise: what is lagging, legs or lungs?

So simple, so profound. When you begin to “struggle,” put a finer point on struggle. When the going gets tough, what fades first, your legs or your lungs?

Are your legs still strong and fresh as your lungs struggle to keep up? Or are your legs exhausted and dying while your lungs are still able to supply the body with all the oxygen it needs? What fades first, legs or lungs? Once you have the answer, you can steer your training accordingly.

Why Athletic Transference Failed Me

The athletic stresses imposed by the push-pull stationary bike are one-dimensional compared to the stresses encountered in trail running. Every revolution, every rotation, is identical using the push-pull bike. Every footfall and stride are different running flat-footed on grass, dirt or woodchips. Uneven footfalls are a fabulously beneficial biomechanical wonderment when respected and progressed.

The mechanically frozen motor pathway of the bike meant nothing out here in the woods. Apparently, pedaling a mechanical device in a never-varying 12-inch circle does not fully prepare one for the much larger ranges of motion that define trotting, jogging, running, or sprinting. Steep grades were the ultimate body killer and created stresses that were just too much for my push-pull body.

My time in my first session, the death-march session, took 46:25. I had traversed this identical route in August posting a 38:31, weighing 215. The good news is that, after six sessions, I whittled my jump-in time of 46:25 down to 42:52. I am quickly acclimatizing to the stresses, particularly the steep grades.

The Bike Still Had Value

I put the push-pull bike to good use over the winter. It proved to be an excellent metabolic stimulator that helped me pare down to under 200 pounds. It was good activity during cold-weather inactivity. Insofar as direct athletic transference, there was little. Yet how much harder would it have been for me had I not had good attendance with the push-pull bike over the deep winter months?

That is the lesson. Cross-training can help general conditioning, bodyweight control, heart-rate familiarity, and winter consistency. It just might not prepare the exact muscles, joints, tendons, footfalls, stride rhythms, and terrain skills you need when you return to the target activity.

Goals, Road Maps, and the Next Step

My short-term goal is to get back down under 40 minutes in my sightseeing runs, then recommence sprinting twice weekly, not before. The springtime overarching goal is to bring up my leg strength — squats, hamstring work, calf raises — while reducing my bodyweight to 185 to 190 pounds, thereby maximizing my power-to-weight ratio.

This is a doable goal that fires me up. Do you have goals? Once you create short- and long-term goals, set them into time frames and reverse engineer a starting point. As Confucius is often credited with saying, the longest journey begins with a single step. All journeys need road maps.

Equipment Notes for Cardio Training and Mode-Specific Work

Cardio equipment is useful when matched to the goal. A fan bike, indoor cycling bike, treadmill, elliptical, or stair climber can create a serious cardiovascular effect, but each mode stresses the body differently. That is the point of this article.

For bike-based conditioning, lifters and facilities can compare exercise bikes and indoor cycling options such as the Schwinn SC 5 Bike. For running-specific or walking-specific work, compare treadmills and a commercial model such as the Spirit Fitness CT900 commercial treadmill.

For lower-impact cardio variety, compare elliptical trainers, including the Spirit Fitness CE900 commercial elliptical. For steep-grade style conditioning, compare stair climbers and units such as the StairMaster GAUNTLET StepMill.

The machine does not decide the transfer. The movement pattern, range of motion, terrain, muscle demand, intensity, and progression decide the transfer.

Safety Note for Trail Running, Sprinting and High-Heart-Rate Cardio

Returning to trail running after a seasonal layoff should be progressive. Steep grades, roots, wet leaves, loose dirt, drop-offs, woodchips, downhill fatigue, and sprinting all carry real risk. Build route difficulty, sprint frequency, and total volume gradually.

High-heart-rate intervals, hill running and hard trail runs are not appropriate for everyone. Stop or scale back for chest pain, faintness, unusual shortness of breath, dizziness, sharp pain, numbness, repeated stumbling, loss of coordination, or any symptom that feels different from ordinary training discomfort.

Heart-rate recovery can be useful feedback, but it is not a home medical diagnosis. People with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, medication concerns, fainting history, recent illness, major injury history, or significant medical conditions should seek qualified guidance before hard intervals, sprinting, or steep trail running.

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW training diary and cardio philosophy. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, or programming advice.

Related Cardio Reading

For a broader cardio-equipment overview, read Cardio Equipment for Home, Commercial and Rehab Use. For more Marty Gallagher on tracking cardio intensity, read Heart Rate Monitor Cardio: Define Training Intensity.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.