Cyclingnews Fitness Q&A - June 8, 2011

Making sure your shoes are the right size and cleats are positioned corrected can make a big difference to your performance. (Image credit: Steve Hogg)

Topics: Resting HR, Creatine, Choosing the right cadence, Training and racing when ill, Racing prep, Correct bike fit.

The question I have is how important is a low resting heart rate to ones cycling performance? I have had a resting heart rate that averages in the low to mid 50's with the lowest i have had at 48 bpm. I have seen little to no correlation between performance and resting heart rate other than an elevated heart rate as increased training volume and decreased performance. No training I seem to do will lower it. Am I limited to how far I can go in cycling with a relatively high resting heart rate? It puzzles me because I can be faster than many people with lower resting heart rates and higher max heart rate. I assume that means I can't pump as much blood per minute as fellow competitors. What training do you suggest for attempting to increase heart volume? Is it even important?

As you recover better and improve aerobic fitness, your resting heart rate will decrease. Thus lower resting heart rate is better, so long as you are comparing to your own resting heart rate on other days. There is no strong connection between resting heart rate and competitive ability though, once you are down in the healthy athlete range (Say, below 54 bpm, just to pick a random number). I don't expect to find anyone with a resting heart rate in the high 60s winning races (write me if you know one) but there's no reason to expect a rider with a resting heart rate of 44 to routinely beat one with a resting heart rate of 48 or 50 either.

Creatine is a nitrogen-containing compound that is made in the liver and kidneys from the amino acids arginine and glycine. We make about 1-2 g of creatine per day and consume another 1-2 g per day in meat and fish. Skeletal muscle contains most of the body’s creatine, but there is an upper limit to the amount of creatine that the muscle will retain. Any excess creatine consumed in the diet or from supplements is excreted by the kidneys. For this reason, individuals who consume adequate amounts of creatine in their diet are less likely to derive any benefit from taking additional creatine than vegetarians whose diets are lacking creatine.

Creatine is not anabolic; it does not stimulate muscle protein synthesis or muscle growth. The rapid weight gain associated with creatine supplementation is due to water retention in the muscle cells. When the muscle cells take in more creatine, they also have to retain more water to maintain the correct intracellular fluid pressure. The extra water not only decreases the power to weight ratio (by increasing weight and not power), but it may impair muscle function and cause muscle stiffness and cramping. Because body water will shift from the blood to the muscle cells, sweating and thermoregulation may be impaired. Athletes who supplement with creatine must be especially careful not to become dehydrated—they should consume copious fluids and refrain from strenuous exercise, especially in the heat.

Creatine is used by skeletal muscle to make phosphocreatine. During maximal, anaerobic efforts, the phosphocreatine allows the muscle to generate a large amount of ATP very rapidly. However, there is only enough phosphocreatine to last 10-20 seconds. The idea behind “creatine loading” is that by increasing the amount of creatine in the muscle, there will be more phosphocreatine on hand to generate ATP.

If there is more ATP available for use during maximal, anaerobic efforts, then the muscle will have more energy and performance will improve. Creatine supplementation has been shown to improve performance in repeated cycling sprints and maximal weight lifting efforts. In other words, creatine does not increase maximal power or strength, but allows an individual to achieve their max during repetitive tests separated by short rest intervals. Creatine does not increase endurance performance because ATP is derived from aerobic metabolism of glucose and fat and not from phosphocreatine.

I am a 29 year old, Cat. 2 who has been racing for about 6 years. When I first began racing I was often called a pedal "masher" because I would sometimes turn a large gear, especially while climbing. Although I didn't keep any statistics over this period of time, I would imagine my average cadence was in the middle 80's. Recently people have commented that during criteriums I keep a cadence much higher than the other riders. After doing some research on the files in my Garmin I found in intense, flat crits my cadence is often above 95 rpm.

I will mention I used to put more hours on the bike early in my racing "career", and in the past year my weeks consist of 6-8 hours of moderate to high intensity training. I had heard Lance Armstrong changed his cadence after recovering from cancer because he lacked the strength to push a heavier gear. Do you think a lack of strength also could have influenced my increase in cadence or is there something I have overlooked? Would there be an advantage to lowering my cadence?

The short answer is - no! Don't lower your cadence! 95 is better than lower cadences for crits. My theory is that Lance claimed he had to spin "because he was weak" because he didn't want other riders to imitate him and get the advantage of spinning. Provided that you have trained yourself to spin smoothy, riding at 95 rpm or even 100-105 will generally mean more gradual fatigue compared to lower cadences. Higher cadence also means you can accelerate more quickly to keep gaps tight or jump on a wheel. Keep it up so long as it is working for you competitively. You can make more power at a lower cadence, but at the cost of increased fatigue, so shift up if you must, but only if you must.

I read a recent article about the late Xavier Tondo on this site and, apart from seeming like a thoroughly nice chap, one of his comments reminded me of an issue that I am always unclear about. He mentioned that he rode the Giro with a fever before being obliged to withdraw. Other pros have also discussed competing with sickness. Fabian Cancellara said he won the World TT champs with a 40degree fever and Pantani famously attacked the Tour de France peloton in the mountains, forcing a chase, before withdrawing once caught from the bronchitis he had been suffering with for a week. These anecdotes are far from isolated particularly when considering the grand tours.

I have always received advice that you never train with a sore throat, let alone a fever. I don't even go to work if I have a fever! One hears stories about elite athletes who train with similar symptoms and consequently suffer cardiac arrest. What should one do; is training under these circumstances acceptable especially given the contrasting demands of a mountainous Tour stage with a fever and a 2hr training ride at moderate intensity with a sore throat so not to lose fitness?

Now, I can predict that your response will be on the conservative side since this is an internationally viewable forum and the consequences of one person training on a sore throat and then suffering a heart attack, related or not to the symptoms, and linking it to the present issue could be litigation, and I respect this. But maybe you could present the response from a variety of hypothetical view points and so cover yourselves?

This is an easy one. Thanks for being concerned for our legal safety and all. I'm not concerned so much about people who train or race sick having heart attacks. Yes, that may happen, but it's rare enough not to be my main concern when thinking about racing sick. My concern would be that hard exercise when you are already sick will extend the sick time since cortisol which is released after hard exercise shuts down certain parts of the immune system. Riding hard with a fever means staying sick longer and possibly falling into a more serious illness.

For the serious bike racer, illness is a bummer because it interferes with training and racing. The rest of us don't like feeling sick but the bottom line deciding factor for a serious racer is how riding or not riding is going to affect performance in target events. After a big tour, the Olympics or Worlds, riders are going to take it easy for a while anyway. It doesn't matter change much if they stick in the race while sick. They are going to take time to recover from illness for from hard riding. Once the rider is sick, they are going to take some time off whether they try to finish the race or not. That means "staying sick longer" doesn't really change anything. On the other hand, if the rider is sick in the middle of the one big event they've been preparing for since last year, or maybe for their whole lives, pulling out while they can still pedal is a big deal.

The answer to your question depends a bit on your age how and how your local races are categorized. If you are in an age group where you'll be thrown in right away with the elite of your generation, you'll need to train a bit more. If they have a novice category for you, or for an age group not too much younger, you can train less. In general, most riders will find a fitness threshold somewhere between 8 and 12 hours per week, where if they train less than that, they feel okay on the bike and are faster than non-riders but slower than the racers, and if they train more they can keep up with the racers. You don't need to do just one 8-12 hour week and then you'll be ready to race. Rather you need to hit those numbers for a few months consecutively. Of course, the guys who win the bigger races in the higher categories are mostly training more than this as well.

What you do in those hours is important as well as how many hours you do. While you are building up, mostly doing rides at a very steady, very sustainable pace will work well. Riding every other day or more often works much better than doing longer rides separated by more rest days, though one longer ride per week seems to bring a lot of benefit, so aim to get one ride of 3-4 hours consistently once you have built up the volume. When you've been over eight hours per week for a month or two, it will be time to add intervals of harder effort.

I am wondering if I really need a bike fitting. Some background: I currently ride about 7,000 miles annually and can hold my own with a group but I am not a racer. I have ridden as far as 130 miles and experienced no pain during or after the ride other than some very slight pain below both kneecaps. Shorter rides reveal no pain whatsoever, no matter how tough they are. they only fit I received was a super basic setup from my LBS when I purchased the bike.

Scott Saifer (www.wenzelcoaching.com) is head coach, CEO of Wenzel Coaching.com and has been coaching cyclists professionally for 18 years. He combines a master's degree in Exercise Physiology with experience in 20 years of touring and racing and over 300 road, track and MTB races to deliver training plans and advice that are both rigorously scientific and compatible with the real world of bike racing.

Steve Hogg has owned and operated Pedal Pushers since 1986, a cycle shop specialising in rider positioning and custom bicycles. In that time he has positioned riders from all cycling disciplines and of all levels of ability with every concievable cycling problem. Clients range from recreational riders and riders with disabilities to World and National champions. He can be reached at: www.stevehoggbikefitting.com

James Hibbard progressed from the junior to the professional ranks as a rider and has over 15 years of competitive cycling experience. He is a former Collegiate All-American track cyclist, trained as a resident athlete at the United States Olympic Training Center, earned international medals as part of the U.S. National Team, and was a member of the powerhouse Shaklee and HealthNet Professional road cycling teams.

Carrie Cheadle, MA (www.carriecheadle.com) is a Sports Psychology consultant who has dedicated her career to helping athletes of all ages and abilities perform to their potential. Carrie specialises in working with cyclists, in disciplines ranging from track racing to mountain biking. She holds a bachelors degree in Psychology from Sonoma State University as well as a masters degree in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University.