The Second World Congress of
Cycling Science Carl D Paton1,
Will G Hopkins2, Sportscience 18, 26-28, 2014 (sportsci.org/2014/WCSS.htm)
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This conference brought
together coaches, sports scientists, medical practitioners, students and
researchers to share cycling specific knowledge. The host city was Leeds in
the UK, to coincide with the Grand Depart for the 2014 edition of the Tour de
France. The conference, on July 2-3, was held at Leeds Metropolitan University
but organized by sport scientists James Hopker and
Louis Passfield from the University of Kent. Attendance
was relatively light, almost certainly because of an unfortunate overlap with
the annual conference of the European College of Sport Science. However the
conference did feature many of the big names involved with cycling science
and had the added benefit of the attendance of a number of highly regarded
international cycling coaches and professional team directors. The interaction
between scientists and practitioners from the sport is something rarely witnessed
at conferences and definitely something to be promoted. The conference included 36 podium and 27
poster presentations of original studies. There was a disappointing dearth of
practical applied research, especially given the audience at the conference.
Again maybe the overlap with the ECSS conference was the problem. We have
focused this review on those studies with some observable outcome in terms of
practical use, making it the shortest yet published at Sportscience. Personal
impressions of the conference are reported by the author who attended (CDP),
while the summaries of the abstracts are the work mainly of the other author
(WGH), who opted to go to ECSS. Our pick of the best original research: the two
training studies. The
conference abstracts have been published in a special
issue of the
open-access Journal of
Science and Cycling.
Download a PDF of the complete book of
abstracts, or link
directly to each abstract via the first-author's name at the end of each of
the summary paragraphs below. With the exception of Iņigo
Mujika's presentation on periodization, the
symposia do not have abstracts. Symposia
Parallel sessions
combined with big distances between rooms led to some tough decisions on
which symposia to attend and rather a lot of rushing about. Highlights were
the presentations by Uli Schrober,
Iņigo Mujika and David
Martin. Uli is the founder and owner of SRM power
meters and gave a short history of how he developed the first and now ubiquitous
(amongst professionals at least) power meter. Iņigo
gave a well prepared presentation (available at this page on his website) on the various forms of periodised training and tapering procedures required to
bring elite cyclists to top form for major competition. In addition Iņigo delivered an interesting symposium with Bent Rønnestad and David Martin addressing the often debated
merits of resistance training for the endurance cyclist. To close the conference,
David gave his usual enthusiastic take on the role sports scientists play in
preparing athletes for major events such as the Tour de France, and he introduced
the audience to a contemporary ecological concept referred to as a trophic cascade. The impact a sport scientist
can have on a high performance cycling program was discussed by comparing the
embedded sport scientist to an apex predator in an ecological food chain. Unfortunately
I missed the end of Dave's presentation to attend presentations by the TDF
teams in the Leeds arena next to the conference venue, where there was a
massive turnout of ~10,000 enthusiastic attendees. Using Tour de France terminology
for recognizing outstanding performances, I would award the yellow jersey to
Andrew Philp and his colleagues for their presentation on the role nutritional
status in enhancing mitochondrial adaptations, while Carsten Lundby got the polka dot jersey for his enthusiastic
questioning of the efficacy of altitude training for performance enhancement
(but see Reviewer's Comments). Acute Effects
The authors claim
that you use your oxygen more efficiently, by a massive 4.5% on average, when
you climb hills in the standing vs sitting position, in the lab anyway.
This finding is not consistent with that of an earlier study, in which
"gradient or body position appears to have a negligible effect on
external efficiency in field-based high-intensity cycling exercise" (Millet et
al., 2002). This discrepancy needs to be resolved
before you spend more time standing on the pedals. Bouillod Small changes in crank
length
did not produce significant changes in efficiency of 12 road cyclists. It's
hard to tell how definitive this outcome is, or whether there was any
evidence of individual differences, because no data were provided in the
abstract. Ferrer-Roca A correlation
between leg length and orientation of the trunk in the seated position
isn't that interesting in itself, but the author pointed out that
"riders with a longer leg length gain a performance advantage through
being able to rotate further forwards", thereby reducing drag. Crank
length might be involved. Brooke While not the
major aim of this study (an investigation of vibration effects in mountain
biking), it appears that bigger wheels (29" vs 26") are better for
mountain-bike performance, supporting a similar study presented at the ECSS conference and the
anecdotal observation that most elite MTB riders now opt for bigger wheels in
competition. Macdermid The crossover was
performed with only four male and two female international track sprinters,
but it looks like finishing a standard warm-up with 4× four complete crank
rotations against high resistance (a high inertial load) could enhance sprint
performance 4 min later. Munro No
data were shown, but beetroot juice apparently had little
effect on performance of three 30-s sprints in this crossover of eight active
males. That makes beetroot juice or the nitrate it contains even less likely
to enhance such performance in competitive cyclists. Byrne Tests and Technology
If you use a static
bike
fit,
the usual knee angle of 25-35° should be adjusted to 30-40° to make it
consistent with a dynamic fit. Corbett An expert
biomechanist can model the energy expenditure of one cyclist drafting
in the slipstream of another and thereby predict the best time for the
trailing rider to start the final sprint. The model is very theoretical and
does not yet take into account any cooperation between two cyclists to stay
ahead of the peloton. Dahman Will monitoring
training
measures of fitness, fatigue and freshness with a power meter and TrainingPeaks
software to predict how you will perform in a competition? Not for most road
races and time trials, because there were no useful relationships between
these measures the day before the competitions and measures of maximum mean
power (from 5 s to 20 min) in the competitions in this 6-month study of 20
male and 4 female competitive cyclists. The maximum mean powers were too unreliable,
and it may also be important to rethink the validity of the training measures
used for longitudinal tracking of form. Ferguson If you can access
a treadmill big enough for a bike, you can calibrate a power meter by comparing the
difference in power output at two inclinations with the calculated difference
based on the inclinations, the speed, and combined mass of rider and bike.
Very clever! Maier From the data
provided on the 3-min all-out critical-power test for nine well-trained competitive
cyclists, we calculated a 3-min all-out test had a prediction error (standard
error of the estimate) of 4.5% for mean power in a 10-min time trial. Our conclusion:
don't use the critical-power analysis of the 3-min test. Nicolo Measurement of a
cyclist's frontal
area
in real time with a system of two cameras might be useful for reducing
aerodynamic drag. Wheat Chronic Effects
A week of daily
90-min high-intensity
sessions
consisting of either short intervals (5, 10, 15 s) or long intervals (30, 40,
45 s) produced spectacular gains in 20-km time trial mean power (8.2% and
10.4%) at two weeks post-training compared with control in this randomized
controlled trial of 28 male cyclists. Paton In a controlled trial of 17 young elite cyclists,
maximal vs submaximal strength training for 9 wk produced gains in maximum mean power over 10 min (7.9%
vs 5.6%), 4 min (5.2% vs 4.7%) and 1 min (3.4% vs 2.3%) that did not clearly
favor maximal training. However, maximal mean power over 30 s (-6.3% vs
1.4%), 15 s (-0.8% vs 3.5%) and 5 s (0.8% vs 1.9%) showed that submaximal
training was superior. Smit A daily low dose
of fish
oil
for 8 wk apparently improved economy in a 5-min
time trial, but it didn't significantly change time-trial time (no data
shown), and in a preceding set of six 30-s Wingates
mean power was down by a non-significant 6.2% in this randomized controlled
trial of 26 trained males. More data are needed before you try fish oil for
performance. Hingley Maintaining a
high carbohydrate
intake during periods of intensified daily training (9 days) appears
to be important in offsetting mood disturbances and reducing performance
decrements associated with short-term over-reaching with competitive cyclists.
Killer Ingestion of sodium
bicarbonate
vs placebo prior to high-intensity interval training sessions
for 6 wk led to huge increases in incremental peak
power (10.6 vs 8.8%) and modest increases in time to fatigue (75 vs 55%:
divide these by 15 to get time-trial effects) in this controlled trial of 19
active men. The differences between groups were "not significant",
presumably because of large individual differences in the responses arising
from the initial low training status of the subjects, so it's unclear whether
it's worth taking baking soda before you train for endurance events. Magnitude-based
inference might help here. Hawke Reviewer's
Comments
I am a big fan of
sport-specific conferences that attract practitioners, coaches, sport scientists
academics and the commercial sector, because they encourage great interaction
and an opportunity for myths to be busted. These conferences also provide a
unique environment for introducing and discussing contemporary state-of-the-art
approaches to improving performance and health. Combining the conference with
the start of the Tour de France allowed many unique and busy presenters to
fit this event into their calendar. Complements to conference organisers for a very enjoyable couple of days. It's worth noting
that Dr Carsten Lundbys
unique views on the altitude-training dose-response relationships are not
universally agreed upon. For those interested in an alternative view read the
very insightful and comprehensive meta-analysis presented by Prof. Chris Gore
and colleagues from the Australian Institute of Sport (Gore et
al., 2013). There's nothing like a good debate and a
bit of controversy to attract some new PhD students to investigate some of
the many interesting questions associated with altitude training for elite
cyclists. Finally,
complements to Carl and Will for providing insights into the conference
proceedings. Interesting research findings and opinions are emerging at a
rapid rate in sport science. These peer-reviewed summaries of conference
proceedings provide practitioners with a time-efficient way to keep up to
date. Acknowledgements: the Eastern Institute of Technology
provided funding for CDP at attend the conference, and High Performance Sport
NZ commissioned WGH to co-author this report. Gore CJ, Sharpe K, Garvican-Lewis LA, Saunders PU, Humberstone CE,
Robertson EY, Wachsmuth NB, Clark SA, McLean BD, Friedmann-Bette B, Neya M, Pottgiesser T, Schumacher YO, Schmidt WF (2013). Altitude
training and haemoglobin mass from the optimised carbon monoxide rebreathing method determined
by a meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine 47 (Suppl 1), i31-i39 Millet
GP, Tronche C, Fuster N, Candau R (2002). Level ground and uphill cycling efficiency
in seated and standing positions. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise
34, 1645-1652 Published Sept
2014 |