REACH YOUR PEAK
Boost your performance with the latest sports science and tech findings
01 Roll and ride
You pedal. That’s what you do. But have you ever dug a little deeper into the pedal cycle? Visualised your sinewy lower-limb muscles generating increasing power through textbook souplesse? More specifically, focused on your legs’ capacity to reach their optimum via a pre-ride warm-up? No to all three? Well, it’s time to rethink your pedalling prep thanks to a recent paper in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine that looked at whether static stretching or vibration foam rolling “induced greater changes in range of motion, functional performance and stiffness of the hamstring muscles”. In other words, which would make you a stronger, more proficient cyclist?
First, some background. The hamstrings run down the back of your legs from your hips and cross behind the knee joint. They’re one of the main muscle groups used in the pedalling cycle, with the upper portion of the hamstrings playing a role in the downstroke or ‘push’ phase and the lower portion active in the upstroke or ‘pull’ phase.
Twenty-five subjects were recruited and over two sessions, separated by 48hrs, undertook a 5min warm-up on a stationary bike at 60rpm and just 60 watts. They were then randomly assigned to either a 2min bout of static stretching (SS, a slow, controlled movement that you hold) or vibration foam rolling (VFM, as the name suggests, a foam roller that vibrates). Before and after the intervention, they performed a battery of physical tests such as a counter-movement jump, plus muscle activation was measured via surface electromyography (EMG). This is where the muscle’s electrical signals are recorded by placing electrodes, in this case, close to the hamstrings.
What did they find? “The study showed that VFR leads to a greater hip flexion range of motion plus decreased stiffness in the hamstrings,” the joint Austrian and French team concluded. It’s time to dust down your vibrating foam roller then.
Takeaway Try warming up with a vibration foam roller or by doing dynamic moves and leave static stretches till after exercise
“VIBRATION FOAM ROLLING LEADS TO A GREATER HIP FLEXON RANGE OF MOTION PLUS DECREASED HAMSTRING STIFFNESS”
“ACCORDING TO RECENT RESEARCH, GREATER PARTNER TIME RESULTS IN LESS INFLAMMATION, JUST LIKE EXERCISE DOES”
02 Love to cycle faster
Seeking swifter recovery from your last Zwift session? Of course you are. And it can be done by spending more time with your beloved. Let us explain… C-reactive protein (CRP) is made by your liver and sent into your bloodstream in response to inflammation, so higher levels of CRP are associated with stress and an unhealthy lifestyle. Exercise has been shown to reduce CRP levels, especially by cutting body fat. Well, according to recent research in the journal Brain, Behaviour and
Immunity, greater partner time results in lower CRP levels, too, and a less-inflamed you. The scientists came to this conclusion after taking blood samples of 100 people three times over the course of a month and asking them to report how much time they’d spent with their partner in the previous 24hrs. CRP levels were lower with more physical contact.
Takeaway Take up tandem riding to take your relationship to a higher level and your inflammation to a lower one
03. Paracycling peak
Lifting the physiological lid on what it takes to be a world-class road cyclist has been the focus of many a journal in recent years by the likes of Ineos Grenadiers’ sports scientist Teun van Erp. But what about a world-class paracyclist? Recent research was undertaken into the training programme of a participant who “won individualpursuit silver and time-trial bronze in the C5 category at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games” [our Poirot-like research skills uncovered this was New Zealand’s Alistair Donohoe]. Donohoe trained for 1,039hrs over the year before the Games, expending 620,715 kilojoules of energy. Incredibly, 85% of that training was in zone one (lower than lactate threshold), 9% in zone two (lactate threshold to critical power) and just 6% at top-end zone three (over critical power). Heart-rate variability (HRV) measurements and heart-rate monitoring ensured Donohoe reached Tokyo in peak condition.
Takeaway Polarised training and HRV monitoring are proven methods to ride at your optimum
04. All about the power
In a similar vein, what does it take to make the step up from under23s to senior level? A team led by Peter Leo investigated the physiological characteristics required to graduate by splitting 20 subjects into those who did and those who didn’t. Those who made it had: a higher peak power output; higher 2min, 5min and 12min power outputs; higher training hours; greater climbing metres; and did a greater number of sessions.
Takeaway Power output is key if you want to make it to seniors
05. Oxygen Boost
Caffeine’s arguably the most researched, and proven, ergogenic in the world and its endurance benefits are derived, says much of the research, earch, from blocking sleep--promoting receptors in the brainn called ‘adenosine receptors’.s’. This delays fatigue and increases creases time to exhaustion. However, new research out of Brazil suggests that caffeinene does indeed improve performance, ormance, but it does it by keeping ing oxygen flowing through the arteries. They concluded this after measuring fatigue in 10 cyclists via changes in maximal voluntary contraction. Takeaway Two cups of coffee will deliver performance gains but be wary of raising your blood pressure and the jitters