Which is better for building an elite aerobic foundation in the shortest amount of time: running, stationary biking (EX: Echo Bike), or rowing? Which one is going to be the best bang for your buck and easiest to complement other training?
If you don’t know already, the best way to increase your aerobic capacity (max sustainable pace) is to incorporate both long, steady workouts and high intensity intervals. Source
In Crossfit you must train with high intensity intervals in order to produce explosive power when speed is necessary, and long, steady-state workouts are trained for when you will be required to move for long durations.
Examples of these in Crossfit would be:
High intensity interval training (HIIT) is needed for FRAN
Steady-state is needed for EVA
For best results you can not neglect one or the other, they are two different systems and must be trained separately.
RUNNING
The one major clear-cut advantage that running has over rowing or biking is that it requires you to support your own bodyweight. This will always be a benefit that the other two can not match simply because technically you can never fully rest.
Moving your bodyweight through space quickly is not as easy as it sounds, just think of how tiring burpees are. MURPH is an entirely bodyweight workout and it destroys people every year, weighted vest or not.
Also, by increasing your bodyweight artificially by wearing a weighted vest you can increase your VO2 Max much more than running without one.
“Those experimental subjects who used the added load during every training session had a lower 2 mmol lactate threshold, improved running time to exhaustion, improved vertical velocity when running up stairs and an increased VO2 during submaximal running after the added load period. It is concluded that the additional loading increased anaerobic metabolism in the leg muscles during submaximal and maximal exercise. An increased recruitment and adaptation of the fast twitch muscle fibres is suggested as the principal explanation for the observed changes.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00417768
Supporting your own bodyweight makes running not only a great way to increase your aerobic capacity but also a lot of bodyweight movements. When sitting down on a bike or a rower you lose this benefit.
Related: The Benefits of LIQUID I.V. For Athletes
STATIONARY BIKING
Perhaps the greatest benefit the bike has over running or rowing is its ability to increase your muscular endurance, or the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to sustain repeated contractions against a resistance for an extended period of time.
With muscular endurance, you’re building up capillaries in the muscle, which help get more blood in and out as you exercise.
That’s mostly why muscular endurance exercises give you better endurance. The increased blood flow helps bring nutrients into the muscle to keep it going. It also helps bring waste out of the muscle to promote recovery.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/73949-muscular-endurance-training/
The bike achieves this well because just like running you are in a constant state of motion with no breaks, however with the bike you are continuously pushing against a resistance by driving the pedals and handles.
The level of resistance on an echo bike or assault bike is also much different to that of a bike used in spin classes, both bikes above require you to move fast and push harder to get any work done while a spin bike can be adjusted for minimum resistance.
The entire time you are on the bike you are technically under tension and thus your body adapts to prolonged resistance.
Related: 7 Undeniable Benefits of The Rogue Echo Bike
Doing sprint intervals on the echo bike is without a doubt one of the best ways to improve your muscular endurance in a short amount of time as your body is constantly battling against resistance.
The echo bike comes installed with two interval options – 4:00 of :20 work and :10 rest, and 4:00 of :10 work and :20 rest. There is also an option to create your own custom workouts.
Other benefits:
- Low impact (good for knees and lower back)
- $200 less than the price of a rower
ROWING
You may be thinking since running increases your aerobic capacity and the bike builds your muscle endurance what could the rower provide that the other two don’t?
Don’t get me wrong running, rowing, and biking can all achieve the same results but we are looking at which ones produce them most efficiently.
With that being said rowing has the distinct advantage of insane BACK DEVELOPMENT, just take a look at this for proof.
If you’ve spent enough time in a regular gym there’s a good chance you’ve hit the seated cable row, bent over rows, and t-bar row while trying to build or define your back, the rowing machine is no different.
But the rower is not just for aesthetics, it also is very beneficial in improving the explosiveness of an athlete, primarily in the legs.
Related: The Exact Correlation Between Height, Weight, and Rowing Performance
Every pull requires you to push off explosively in order to turn the spinwheel inside the rower with the higher the damper setting the better.
The rower also complements lifts such as the clean and deadlift as the set up and positioning are very similar to each other.
Rowing is also by nature a strength movement, essentially a blend of a deadlift and a barbell row. That’s an ideal combination that everyone should do, hitting all the posterior-chain muscles that can easily get weakened by all the sitting that takes place in 2019 society.
https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/g19543037/4-rowing-workouts-that-burn-fat-build-muscle/
As a Crossfit athlete the rower is important to train on as it will most likely show up in the Crossfit Open whereas neither running or the bike has ever made an appearance.
Each of these modalities should be incorporated for a thorough conditioning program with one being implemented over the others based on goals trying to be achieved.
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