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Enduro Sport Science Conference
On April 29th and 30th I attended the
Endurance Sport Science Conference at
Birmingham University. It was very high
powered – the assumption was that everyone
there wouldn’t even know a rider that didn’t
have a pair of SRMs. Among the speakers were
advisers to Rabobank, Euskaltel, Quickstep,
the Australian Commonwealth Games and
Olympic Teams and the ‘celebrity’ speaker
was Chris Boardman, who was actually very
good, very down to earth, talking mainly how
he and Peter Keen approached his final one
hour ride where he beat Merckx’s record.
I’ll list some of the more interesting and
relevant bits raised:
- If you thought that going for three
days to the Alps to watch the tour would
provide you with useful altitude training,
think again. You apparently need between
200 and 250 hours at altitude of between
2000 and 2500metres to make any difference
and even then it doesn’t work for everyone
and the time after the altitude training
that the benefit is felt may vary from
instantly to three weeks. Boardman used a
hypoxic tent (actually a hypoxic bedroom
in his house, equipped with turbo trainer
and bike on which he trained) to simulate
this altitude over 200 hours and said it
had no measurable effect on his hour
attempt (and he and Keen measured
everything).
- There is a tendency to think that if
you have long legs you would go faster
using long cranks but if you are shorter
in the leg you should use shorter cranks.
A researcher from the University of Utah,
using cranks of between 145 and 175mms in
length, checked out the effect of short
legs with long cranks, long legs with
short cranks, in fact all combinations of
legs and cranks and found that there was
no theoretical way of determining optimal
crank length.
- For most people, it’s likely to be
worth a few seconds in a ‘10’ and rather
more in a ‘25’ if you take a strong slug
of caffeine before you race. As to how
strong and how long before the race, you
would need to experiment. Vic Barnett
always takes ‘Red Bull’ before important
races. No doubt a treble espresso would
have a similar effect.
- Contrary to what I’d always believed,
there are time advantages in taking an
energy drink during events of up to one
hour, which must mean ‘25s’. The
recommended dose would be 50 grammes of
maltodextrin in a 750mls bottle. (Maltodextrin
is what Allsports sell as Dynamight).As
maltodextrin is tasteless, you might want
to add some fruit squash, and a pinch of
salt to speed absorption into your
bloodstream. Also take a sachet of gel
before you start your race. I’ll have to
eat my words in a previous newsletter
about Camelbacks being for wusses, as to
use a camelback is the only way to keep
taking the odd sip of drink while
maintaining a streamlined riding position.
You don’t need to drink the whole lot of
your 750mls, perhaps 5 or 6 slurps over
the race.
- Regarding recovery drinks, it is
definitely worth using amino acids to
repair damaged muscles after races and
animal protein is the best source. Amino
drinks are not worth the cost – a glass of
whole milk (and it must be whole milk)
after you’ve raced is just as effective
and much cheaper.
- Placebos seem to be remarkably
effective for some riders so get your best
friend to give you a Smartie the day
before a race and convince you it’s
impregnated with EPO and you’ll go at
least a minute faster.
Dave Birch
20/05/06
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