I have been reading threads left and right in this forum. I do enjoy the forum very much but it leaves me with this question. I have read that after a time of doing the same exercise or routine for too long the body adjusts and the effects are not the same, as say just starting the exercise. So I have been actively spinning for 3 months, does this mean after biking 6 months, my body would adjust to it, to the point where I wouldn't be burning the calories anymore. This just baffles me and makes no sense to me. I still sweat like a hound, I still get sore, I still increase the ressistance, I am lost anyone have any data to support this. I understand that the body will at first be surprised and will need to adapt and build to endure the exercise, but why would it over time actually decrease the amount of calories burned etc? Maybe adding the ressistance is the key issue. Not sure anyone have any thoughts on this. I would appreciate it.

Like Free weights, as long as you continue adding ressistance, you would still be pushing yourself. Or in my case, add miles or added resisstance to my routine continually. Steve where you at man, I need some knowledge.

Nope, you'll still be burning calories. Activity is activity and requires energy expenditure.

An argument can be made that the more trained you become, the more energy you can expend.

Lyle McDonald said it best with this:

Your body adapts to a stress... have it be resistance training, cardio, etc. It doesn't like doing things it's not used to doing so it adapts to better handle the increased stresses you place on it. This just means you have to progressivly challenge the body if you want to get a positive training effect (increased muscle, better conditioning, etc, etc.) This does not mean you stop burning calories.

Steve, your my hero mate ty. I really appreciate it.

Yeah I never got that. If your getting stronger than you should be increasing resistance or doing it much faster.

I'm not sure I entirely understood what was said in this thread, so let me take a crack at this and see if it has any relevance.

Theoretically if you're doing the same exercise over and over at the exact same pace, and losing weight and what have you, doesn't it take more energy to move 300lbs from point A to point B than it takes to move 250lbs from point A to point B? So if you were spending less energy trying to move yourself from Point A to point B, you'd be burning less calories, which is part of why you need to add resistance to burn the same amount of calories that you had been burning before?

I don't know exactly if what I'm trying to say is accurate, or even understandable though.

Well sure, in that case where body weight is changing, you'll be burning less calories as weight decreases if you maintain a constant intensity.

But what I said was in the context of "all things remaining equal."

I wasn't disagreeing with you. I just got a little confused about what you were saying. I'm not a quick study

I know you weren't disagreeing, silly.

Here's an awesome blog entry from Lyle McDonald's blog (Lyle McDonald Speaks) this very topic... eerily actually.

thanks steve and Lyle, excellent info. Exactly what I was looking for, thanks for going back to the dead thread.

That's what's awesome about spinning compared to other aerobic exercises. You get better and don't know it. One day it's the end of class and you're taking all the resistance off when you start to wonder if the knob is broken because it just keeps turning! I loved that when I used to spin.