Weight losses usually are accompanied by strength losses.
Yeah I kind of noticed that unfortunately. My strengths seemed to be swapped around. I've always been a sprinter like in high school and college track, and have always felt explosive. After I started this last bout of weight loss, I hit my local biking loop, and that spring in my legs was gone, don't feel as explosive while climbing hills while standing up and such, even though I had been doing squats and leg extensions. I ended up being about 10 minutes slower than I had been! But, I hadn't been riding in awhile either, and it was muddy, and really cold, so that's an unfair comparison. The reason I say my strengths swapped, was that slow twitch activities, such as spinning for long periods at 85-90 rpms and letting my lungs and cardio system do the work, seemed to improve. On flat ground on my road bike, since dieting, I'm just as fast as I ever was when I felt the fastest and most explosive last year after I had been training for a mountain biking vacation in Colorado all summer and was riding a $3,000 road bike, and I've only got a $600 one now. Same times. Crazy. Now THAT part, I really don't understand. The only thing I can think of is that maybe these bazillion jump rope reps have significantly improved my cardio system and it's showing up on rides where I utilize my lungs and heart the most.
I really think I just need to ride more, but it's just been total crapoloa weather the last couple of months, I can't seem to get out when it's at least halfway decent. As far as strength in other departments, I've actually improved. I've mentioned this before, but 3 months ago I couldn't hardly do anything at all. It was all I could do to pump out 25 push-ups, and even then I'd be sore for 3 days. Now I can usually do multiple sets of 40 or 50. Basically I'm doing 3 or 4 more times the number of crunches and pushups and reps of squatting 185 pounds and curls, and it doesn't make me sore hardly at all, so in those ways, my strength has actually increased. Actually I'm doing several more exercises than I used to as well, like tonight I just started doing bodyweight rows on my Smith machine. What I'm doing now in terms of working out off the bike would have killed me 3 months ago. I'm just afraid to up the weight for fear of getting big and start gaining weight. I mainly just want what I've got to be crazy strong.
Personally I feel like I've come a long way.
