Regarding:

> > I don't see any fat-burning benefit from other
> forms. And it can
> > decrease muscle.

and...

> I would have a problem bench pressing Monday
> and doing
> something like racketball the next - I would think
> my muscles would
> shrink.

How can that be? I've known very muscular athletes
(read gymnasts) and very muscular construction workers
who work their muscles hard every single day and do
not seem to suffer from decreases in muscle. No doubt
they are not as big as some bodybuilders, but they are
not lacking in muscularity (or strength) either. They
are certainly not doing what is necessary to
*increase*
muscle, but why are they not losing strength and/or
muscle with their increased activity?

Another way of looking at it: Most weight training
experts will tell you that a muscle grows primarily
because of increasing demands being placed on it. The
body overcompensates by increasing the muscles mass so
it can more easily handle the increased loads. In
light of this, how can placing a lesser load on the
muscle cause it to decrease, especially if the muscle
is still being trained (let's say on alternating days)
by the heavier demands. Certainly the low level
activity cannot be pushing the muscle into the
overtraining zone since overtraining is caused by
placing too much increased demand on the muscle in too
short of a period of time? (I'm using the overtraining
term in the strict bodybuilding sense here. I realize
you can also overtrain at aerobic exercise, but I
assume we're not talking about that here).

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/