I was just watching the Dan Henderson Vs Ricardo Arona fight and I overheard the commentators saying that Arona could gas faster because he has more muscle mass which requires more oxygen when fighting.Is there any truth to this?If two people weigh the same but one is much more muscular and they both do the same amount of cardio does the more muscle guy gas faster?
No that is just a myth.
The anaerobic (without oxygen) system is only good at maximum exertion for 90 seconds. After that the muscles need oxygen and the activity becomes at least partially aerobic. So for the aerobic component more muscles=less cardio.
Look at the physiques of track athletes. With each increase in distance the event becomes more aerobic and less anaerobic. And you see a corresponing shrinkage in muscle size. So a 100 meter runner is more muscular than a 400 meter runner who is more muscular than a miler, etc.
More muscle absolutely equals less cardio. Arona is 20 lbs. heavier than Henderson so it would make sense that Henderson would have better cardio.
A fighter's maximum potential stamina is biologically determined. Some freaky muscular guys have insane cardio because they were "just born that way."
Obviously, training can increase "actual" stamina, but a fighter can never break their maximum threshold (not that anybody knows what that is until they are training like a champ)
I don't think benching can be used as an example of limits being tested. Lifts have been increasing mainly in the lifts that use the most gear. The gear is getting better not the people.
"Thats a terrible way of thining Todd. With advanced training techniqes and supplements the limits are endless imo."
any training technique, no matter how advanced, only raises the actual stamina, not theoretical. You simply get closer and closer to your true theoretical limit(if you were omniscient and knew what it was.)
Suppliments can modify the body, but even then, you reach a limit on how much you can change things. Without building someone a whole new set of cellular superefficent mitochondria or whatever energy system, they have a theoretical limit there too.
Thermodynamics is a bitch.
I'm not too sure that more muscle = less stamina. Some top Ironman triathletes have muscular bodies. Not Coleman or Baroni bodies but deffinately more muscular than marathon runners with similar times.
nickh,
Bullet Bob Hayes was just as fast, if not faster than any guy in the NFL now. He played in the late 1960s.
Give Jesse Owens a few cycles of THG and put him on a modern track with the newest Nike shoes and watch him annihilate a few world records.
Please re-read the second portion of my original statement. Because none of us know what our maximum potentials are, we should all strive to train as hard & as smart as we can.
However, that does not mean that all of us (if we train hard & smart) have the biological attributes to be champions. Contrary to what we tell kids everyday, you CAN'T be whatever you want.
I think RobRPM said it best