Suffering

[cantunamunch]

I’m not sure why you state otherwise.

There's been more research since that was the going explanation. Turns out lactate is a good thing - even helping your heart keep going while your muscles suck fuel.

Lactate shuttle hypothesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Wendy]

I know the high school MTB teams use that as a training climb. I'd NOT want to climb that on a MTB. It's long enough in a car!

Which indicates that the MTB team, as part of their training, applies ‘suffering” in this climb in order to gain fitness to become competition ready. It’s part of the sport.

 

[Wendy]

There's been more research since that was the going explanation. Turns out lactate is a good thing - even helping your heart keep going while your muscles suck fuel.

Lactate shuttle hypothesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

OK. Understood. I knew this at some point but it got lost in the cobwebs.
But I believe there’s still some uncertainty about what causes muscle fatigue/failure during intense anaerobic exercise - part of our described “suffering” - it still could be lactate/falling pH?

 

[martyg]

???
Anaerobic exercise “burns” glycogen, so glycolysis creates lactic acid when the body isn’t getting enough oxygen during intense exercise.
Lactic acid flushed out pretty quickly though as soon as the body gets enough oxygen to revert to aerobic respiration.
The muscle burn and soreness afterwards is not due to lactic acid, no, but to changes in the muscle fiber.

I’m not sure why you state otherwise.

You have part of it correct if you sub lactate for lactic acid. Lactic acid contains an additional proton or two, as compared to lactate, and is never produced in the body.

What happens: You body throws off pyruvate (C3H4O3) and a hydrogen ion when in aerobic state. In an aerobic state, your body combines the pyruvate and hydrogen ion to form lactate. Lactate is then shuttled to other parts of the body, including the liver, where it fuels many functions - including going back into C6H1206 (roughly speaking).

In anaerobic metabolism, your body cannot keep up the rate of lactate production, so hydrogen ions begiun to accumulate. That causes a ph imbalance, and that is where the "burning" sensation comes from.

Covered in detal in any 300 level exercise physiology course.

 

[skibob]

There's been more research since that was the going explanation. Turns out lactate is a good thing - even helping your heart keep going while your muscles suck fuel.

Lactate shuttle hypothesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sure, but that is an emergency survival response, not one that takes place in health. Lactate impairs ATP production, among other various negative effects.

Lactate vs. CO2 in wounds, sickness, and aging; the other approach to cancer

Ray Peat

raypeat.com

 

[4ster]

Can't have it both ways unless you make sport and fun identical.

If you equate sport to competition, there are not many things more fun than winning ?

 

[skibob]

You have part of it correct if you sub lactate for lactic acid. Lactic acid contains an additional proton or two, as compared to lactate, and is never produced in the body.

What happens: You body throws off pyruvate (C3H4O3) and a hydrogen ion when in aerobic state. In an aerobic state, your body combines the pyruvate and hydrogen ion to form lactate. Lactate is then shuttled to other parts of the body, including the liver, where it fuels many functions - including going back into C6H1206 (roughly speaking).

In anaerobic metabolism, your body cannot keep up the rate of lactate production, so hydrogen ions begiun to accumulate. That causes a ph imbalance, and that is where the "burning" sensation comes from.

Covered in detal in any 300 level exercise physiology course.

I think the "pH imbalance" is overly simplistic though. What is clear is that lactate inhibits the production of ATP (ie, inhibits mitochondrial respiration). So, clearly those muscles don't have sufficient energy for the work they are doing. How this translates into "that burning muscle feeling" is poorly understood though. I am making a distinction between the chemistry of what is happening and our perception/experience of it. The former is well understood, the latter less so.

 

[cantunamunch]

If you equate sport to competition, there are not many things more fun than winning ?

I wasn't doing that either. Sport is sport, sui generis.


Equating things to other things is where we get in trouble.

Dictionaries only work one way ->.
Anyone using the dictionary <- is guilty of faulty generalization.

 

[Wendy]

I’m going to ride this evening. I’ll do, as part of my ride, a half mile climb up a rutty dirt road that steepens as it goes up. It can kind of suck, especially on a humid day like today. But when I get up to the top, I feel amazing. And it’s a nice view. Is it fun in the standard sense? Nope. But it’s rewarding.

The ride down is fun - wheeeee!

 

[cantunamunch]

I was wondering this morning - if you take the suffering out of cycling is it still cycling?

Interesting timing, by the way. Did you sign up for the LeCol Everesting-in-June challenge?

 

[Tony S]

Without trying to sound like a philosopher in a cycling thread, what does “suffering” mean in the context of bike riding? We may all have different perspectives on what it is.

This is at the root of some of the misunderstanding here, I'm sure. Many cyclists use "suffering" as a convenient and - let's face it - self-congratulatory catch-all term to indicate that they're sweating hard and pushing themselves. It doesn't generally mean suffering in any crown-of-thorns sense that the general public might use the term. I'm guessing that thread starter @Erik Timmerman meant it in the casual cyclist-lingo sense. I certainly read it that way. Probably it came across to some others here as more dramatic than it was meant.

At the same time, I do relate to some of what Wendy and AmyPJ are saying. As I said to a Pug via PM:

Groups of able bodied middle aged people shuffling along at a slow walking pace at the xc center, having a protracted conversation. Couples tooling along through downtown Freeport on their LL Bean hybrid cruiser bikes, looking for a lunch place. These people are getting out on skis and bikes. More power to them. I'm all for it. But what they are doing seems fundamentally different from what I'm doing when I go out for a bike or a ski.

 

[AmyPJ]

I work less while skiing (most of the time) at least physically compared to while biking, but tend to "suffer" more mentally because of the fear that creeps in. (Much less so this past season--making progress!)

I will say that MTB from a fitness standpoint is less difficult each season that I do it. My spring fitness level is better each year, and I can get back into it more easily each year. My first ever ride here, I thought I was going to die. But it wasn't the physicality of it that frustrated me the most--it was getting left behind by a group of women, getting lost, and ending up in the most heinous of rock gardens. I walked and cried. I bought a new bike, then I just started pedaling as often as I could. A lot of the balance and skills that require the body to absorb stuff I possessed already I think due to spending a large part of my life riding horses on a competitive level. The fitness part of it was really challenging, but I loved it and still do. It's hard for me to take a day off.

 

[François Pugh]

I think the "pH imbalance" is overly simplistic though. What is clear is that lactate inhibits the production of ATP (ie, inhibits mitochondrial respiration). So, clearly those muscles don't have sufficient energy for the work they are doing. How this translates into "that burning muscle feeling" is poorly understood though. I am making a distinction between the chemistry of what is happening and our perception/experience of it. The former is well understood, the latter less so.

What I don't understand is how that burning muscle feeling translates into suffering; it's fun!

 

[tball]

However very, very few people in the US have been exposed to real suffering.

I have a very different perspective. There's a lot of real suffering in the US every day by people undergoing difficult medical procedures and treatments. The things they'll do to save your life can be brutal.

My most challenging day on a bike was the Beaver Creek Ultra 100 mountain bike race. One hundred miles and more than 14,000 feet of climbing. One year was particularly nasty, with a steady rain making it a cold slog through the mud. Temps were below 40 degrees at the top of the passes. Burned into my brain is being soaked, shivering, covered in mud, and pushing my bike up endless steep climbs where there wasn't enough traction to pedal due to the mud. At mile 60 (!!) the course had a 3890-foot climb up Muddy Pass, and it delivered to its name.

A huge percentage of racers DNFed that year, including me. I came in at 13:01, one minute over the 13-hour cut-off. No finisher buckle for me! That was an hour forty-five over the previous year due to the weather. I suffered in that race, and I believe you can suffer on a bike doing far less. I know I have.

Many years later, I had to go through some particularly nasty medical crap. The suffering was much worse than that race. The difference is the suffering went on 24/7 for more than three months. It took a full year before I was no longer in pain.

Suffering is relative. What I went through medically was a walk in the park compared to so many wounded warriors and accident victim recoveries.

Or, what Dave Repsher endured gives me shutters. Pretty sure I couldn't survive what he went through:

https://www.summitdaily.com/news/da...nty-life-years-after-deadly-helicopter-crash/

I love this video. We saw Dave skiing that day. What an inspiration:

 

[AmyPJ]

I took my daughter to a high school tennis lesson today. The football team was practicing nearby. Two boys came over to the fence (thankfully not too close to us) and were puking. I'm sure they were feeling some suffering at the moment. It's definitely all relative.

 

[cantunamunch]

What I don't understand is how that burning muscle feeling translates into suffering; it's fun!

If you push yourself to where you get amnesia episodes (and spastically wave your bike over your head for no rational cause), is it still fun or suffering?



I'm pretty sure it IS sport tho.

 

[Tom K.]

If you equate sport to competition, there are not many things more fun than winning ?

Yup. Few will admit it, but winning rocks. It just does.

I'm guessing that thread starter @Erik Timmerman meant it in the casual cyclist-lingo sense.

Zactly.

If you push yourself to where you get amnesia episodes (and spastically wave your bike over your head for no rational cause), is it still fun or suffering?

YES!

 

[François Pugh]

If you push yourself to where you get amnesia episodes (and spastically wave your bike over your head for no rational cause), is it still fun or suffering?



I'm pretty sure it IS sport tho.

It's mind over matter; if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Fun is what you make it.

 

[Tricia]

Found a stem cap for you @Erik Timmerman

Know Pain, Know Gain Custom Bicycle Headset Stem Top Cap

CUSTOMIZE YOUR BICYCLE. FAST & EASY! If we didn't know the pain, we'd never know the gains. Every drop of blood, sweat and tears. That's what it takes to make a dream come true. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger and that's how we know the gain. Remember that the next time you're...

dispatch.bike

 

[cantunamunch]

Found a stem cap for you @Erik Timmerman

Know Pain, Know Gain Custom Bicycle Headset Stem Top Cap

CUSTOMIZE YOUR BICYCLE. FAST & EASY! If we didn't know the pain, we'd never know the gains. Every drop of blood, sweat and tears. That's what it takes to make a dream come true. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger and that's how we know the gain. Remember that the next time you're...

dispatch.bike

It's almost time for the annual Trek stem cap challenge.