Thinking aloud: my kickbiking options: more exercising and what? Less pleasure?

Since I was reviewing my kickbiking options I too my quest to the Yahoo kickbiking egroup and mused publicly about my thoughts.

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When I began scootering my primary interest was that here was a device that, despite my stiffness and pain, was a means to get about. Easy hop on: hop off. Walk along side if you are tuckered out.

Then I started logging the distances, using it as a primary means of transport and in effect anchoring a lot of my activity atop its running board.

It has been a great journey and en route I've exercised more and built up my physical confidence because of this two wheeled no chain no gears bike.

Chains, peddles and gears are for whimps! Right?

But since I now have a greater hold on what I want to do in way of 'exercise' I was wondering what folk here do to make the best physical use of their kickbikes?

Long Slow Distance anyone? Interval Training?

I doubt that you can get much of an interval burn from a kickbike as it takes so long to speed up and once there relative to your own strength and the conditions (weather, terrain,road surface, etc) it is hard to advance quickly up to another level...as you tend to coast.

I could be wrong but you may have to be an athlete to interval train on a kickbike -- like the Danes here.

But it seems to me that kickbiking lends itself to LONG SLOW DISTANCE with the advantages that the main drawback of LSD -- the pounding you put your limbs under -- is massively reduced.

If we look at some LSD protocols we are really talking within the easy access kickbike 'zone'. But I suspect there is probably an optimum distance from which you could garner the most efficient results from kickbiking. I'm sure the team trainers and competitors may know this. Sure you could go for broke and try to do more rather than less miles/kilometres each week but that may not necessarily improve your competition chances.

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Peter Hummers wrote:

 But now on the footbike I just do what I feel like each day (of course  the idea of competition I left long ago) with the goal of feeling good  and keeping my weight down.

Of course. That's my zone too. But it seems to me that to notch it up a tad requires a fair degree of athleticism given that the way you need to throw your body and extend it is very demanding.

With a bike it's a straightforward structural option -- you can sprint or peddle for ever. That's not so easy on a kickbike as forever will take so much longer and sprinting isn't so easy to turn on. I see the Danish team currently in training  doing 250 metre sprints on the Velodrome.

As I point out here, I kickbike for pleasure and never seek pain but I wanted to demand a bit more of the old bod to lose some weight as I've reached a plateau -- although exercise is not a good way to lose weight.

Do I go farther or do I go faster, albeit in intervals? Fartleking perhaps.

I cut my teeth/split my blisters on seventies and eighties style jogging and didn't come to the scooter bizo with a extended cycling CV. So my head is in that jogging place: long and slow.

But while I could sprint it I find that it is so hard to generate momentum as my body -- my body, the one I've got/stuck with -- simply won't perform well enough to drive the scooter significantly faster. I do the stretch forward and the pull through with the scoot with the foot but I'm not really going to pass that threshold I aspire to. I do maybe 20-30-40 km a week.

So I suspect that where I'm failing to thrive is in the amount of effort I'm investing in the LSD relative to my pulse rate/cardio demand.

This brings me back to why I scoot because I did it not only for generic exercise and transport reasons, but also for the fact that scootering is this great movement -- Crouching Tiger -- it's a very Zen move.

Tai Chi on wheels.

But off the scooter I'm experimenting with Interval Training -- I also box and lift kettlebells (been doing that for years) -- and find it really , um, refreshing. Shorter more demanding sessions.

And, in a perverse way, I'm getting more pleasure out of that approach now than I did with the old  routines I was trying to maintain. I now 'exercise' intensely every second day for a rather short period -- 4-5 minutes. It hurts. I'm gasping for air and life but hey I know it will end after each short interval.

So I got to thinking: maybe I can play with my kickbiking habits.

Ironically, here I am upping this other stuff but I'm doing it without much problem BECAUSE the base line core of my habit is rooted to the kickbike. It simmers away year in year out doing the internal good stuff.

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Answering my own question:

Could you give us a training schedule?If you want to be a fast on the scooter you have to kick fast. It's so simple! Interval training is very good: 10 x 2 km at an average speed of 30 km/h with 2 minute rest is a typical session for a fit athlete. Long aerobic rides are very important, such as 40-70 km with an average speed of 20-25 km/h. Most people tolerate no more than two hard Kickbike workouts or races within one week. It is important to have recovery days in between and do some other sports like running or swimming, for instance. Of course you can do some easy kicking on your easy days, too.