Criticism of cycling
. e practice of cycling training intensity involves “down time” when no
effort is made to produce new gains in muscular size and strength. ere is
some detraining because, by cutting back, you get a little weaker than your
previous best, before pushing again to go into new (for you) poundage terri-
tory.. Taken to its extreme, i.e., if you cut back too much and for too long, cycling
is a disaster. Do not abuse cycling. A six-month “perfectly” organized stretch
that brings you to a peak for just two new-ground workouts is a perver-
sion of cycling. You need to train very hard for a darn sight more than a few
weeks out of every twenty-six—for most of your workouts, in fact.. Some people see intensity cycling as a waste of time because they think that
the more hard workouts they have, the better. ey are so eager to get train-
ing flat-out, or very near to it, that they never develop the gaining momen-
tum needed for long-term progress. Also, by dropping right into full-bore
work, how are exercise form and mental concentration going to be learned
or reviewed, and then perfected?. While you should push yourself to the limit for most of your workouts,
“most” does not mean “all.” Learn not to push yourself to the limit during
some periods. is is difficult to do if you have been locked into the “hard
all the time” philosophy.. ose who try to train full-bore all of the time have a built-in natural cycling
format, whether they like it or not. Is there any typical working and family
person who can train full-bore two or three times each week for fifty-two
weeks of the year while being healthy, motivated for every single
session, and not having work or family circumstances disrupt training? e
disruptions and constraints of life force people to have ups and downs in
their training, giving it a natural cycling format.. e typical adult—i.e., someone who is none of the following: very young,
genetically better-than-average, superbly supervised, free of demanding
work and family obligations—is best off slotting into a formal but not-too-
rigid cycling format along the lines described in this book. It gives a struc-
ture that almost guarantees training success.. Never mind that in some circles cycling is all about drug dosage. In other
words the most intensive training and heaviest drug use coincide, and the