Tour de France: Lance Armstrong's workout

July 3, 8:30 AMSan Jose Fitness ExaminerAmy Rabinovitz

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Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong 
right, and his teammate Yaroslav Popovych of the Ukraine
ride during a training in Monaco Friday July 3, 2009,
ahead of the start of the 96th edition of the Tour de France
cycling race Saturday July 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

"I would love to be eternally young," Lance Armstrong told the Associated Press. "but I'm not. That's just the reality."

Yet, with the beginning of the Tour de France almost upon us, the world watches 37-year old Lance Armstrong.  And it is not just his cycling that fascinates us about the seven-time Tour de France winner, but his focus and dedication in all things including his fitness and workout.

• See more pictures of Lance Armstrong as he prepares for Tour de France
• Check out Kobe Bryant's workout (with slides)

Of interest to the world, Silicon Valley feels a special stake in watching Armstrong, knowing that the Livestrong Challenge is coming to San Jose  on July 12.  Just what can we learn from watching him?

Training by the numbers

Armstrong's steely determination - in all his endeavors including this  fitness routine -- is well documented: Men's Health did an article titled, Chasing Lance,  In addition to Armstrong's mental preparation, he approaches fitness with key indicators in mind.

"Back in the day, people trained on just their feelings," he told the magaine. "They cranked hard when they felt good and backed off when they didn't, without ever really understanding what made one day better than another. Now you have heart rate, altitude, lactic acid, all measured on one unit."  

Those hard numbers tell Armstrong when he's maxing out in training, and when he's fit enough to do his best in a race.

This approach alone is remarkable.  Most people, including athletes, expect their bodies and performance to verify the training instead of relying on metrics and measurements to build a psychological fortress from which to battle the competition.

Utilzing his unique physical abilities

Back in 1998, Armstrong's coach Chris Carmichael  realized ,

"Even overtaxed, [Armstrong's]  anaerobic power was so awesome that he could win almost any one-day race, but it could never sustain him for a three-week race. His own physical gift was burning him out. But his aerobic power was sustainable-and undertrained."

It is often under-reported that Armstrong, aside from his grueling strength, weight, resistance and endurance workouts, is uniquely built for the long-haul of endurance cycling, that he "possesses a large, strong heart that can beat more than 200 times a minute operating at maximum capacity and pump an exceptionally large volume of blood and oxygen to his legs—only around 100 other men on earth, who have been tested, have comparable abilities."  

This fact, from a University of Texas article, Man and Superman, also points out that "If a normal male college student were to train at a grueling pace for two or more years, the student’s maximum oxygen uptake would not increase above 60 ml/kg/min—[Education professor Ed] Coyle estimates that even if Armstrong became a couch potato, his would not dip below 60 ml/kg/min."

To be part of the Tour de France, or any endurance race, requires enormous amounts of strength and, again quoting Ed Coyle, there is huge reliance on "the size of the heart and its pumping ability, the number of blood vessels that deliver oxygen to leg muscles and the biochemical proteins in muscle that generate power and resist fatigue, or that ‘burn’ you feel, for example.

“Lance does have all of these things, but, equally important, he’s nurtured his ‘natural’ talent with a tough-minded, scientific approach to training, mental fortitude and that indefinable something we call ‘competitive drive.’”

More information about Lance Armstrong can be found on his personal site, Lance Armstrong.com and Livestrong.com