Coach Carter

I promised last week that I would update you on my trip to Edinburgh, and my attendance at the WCSS Cycling Science conference. It really was worth the 5am to midnight day – and for once a coffee fuelled day was very excusable: coffee on arrival at Gatwick, coffee on arrival in Edinburgh city centre (Starbucks on the Royal Mile), coffee throughout the day at the Carlton, coffee post conference (back to Starbucks on the Royal Mile), coffee at Edinburgh airport. I concentrated training block one might say!

Days like this are important for me: as a coach, I am not exposed to sport science on a daily basis, unless I actively seek it. It feels luxurious to have a whole day acting like a sponge: being the student again as I sit and soak up the words of wisdom from the expert speakers. It started with an interesting opening address by Pat McQuaid – getting his take on ‘motorised doping’ and the UCI’s biological passport system. This was followed by a more medical view of doping, present by Roger Palfreeman, who up until recently was the chief medical officer for British Cycling. His talk was fascinating – although I only have a peripheral interest in these matters (more as a cycling fan concerned about keeping the peloton clean), his explanation of the biological passport and the underlying physiology was one of the most enlightening presentations I have ever heard. His explanation of the new threats from skeletal muscle doping was particularly thought provoking – agents that don’t even require you to train in order to improve performance!

The afternoon was given over to thematic symposia and oral presentations of recent research. A wide range of topics were presented, these being the key snippets:

• A study on core stability training in 35 male cyclists showed improvements in 10 mile time trialling ability – so get out those Swiss balls!
• Two independent studies demonstrated clear patterns in power output over the course of a training year,
  • Elite cyclists demonstrate LESS variability in their training sessions than national level cyclists (53 vs 23%)
  • A cyclists ‘median frequency’ decreases over the course of the year i.e. within a given training session, you spend more time at higher power
• A presentation from the Australian Institute of Sport underlined that the coefficient of drag is not necessarily determined by a rider’s frontal surface area: arm position (degree of ‘bent-ness’); distance of gaze, handlebar height, and interestingly, cadence all determine the drag on the rider.
• A symposium on efficiency explain how key this parameter is for performance:
  • ~30% of the variation in power output can be explained by differences in gross efficiency (so how much oxygen you require per watt).
  • It appears that intensity of training might have just as an important part to play in explaining efficiency as does volume
  • The myths related to pedalling mechanics and efficiency were explained, and the most part ‘busted’ (for example, crank length has very little impact on efficiency)
• A symposium on pacing covered a range of topics:
  • How important the ‘central governor’ is in setting an athlete’s pacing strategy – knowledge of the race length and anticipation of conditions appear to set the effort long before we get feedback from the physiological systems
  • One of my PhD students at Brighton, Patrick Cangley, presented his work on varying power in line with optimising speed: a concept PBscience athletes are very familiar with! His paper was well received.

An information packed day, but I still had chance to catch up with fellow researchers I have not seen for a while, but also to meet new people. I had a nice chat with James Meyer, the inventor of the Quarq power measuring system. His talk was fascinating not just in explaining the technology, but also in charting his journey as an entrepreneur: I could relate to his feelings as he evolved from engineer to business owner, and the steep learning curve! The day reminded me how important ongoing learning is – and, I have come back with a renewed commitment to keeping on top of developments within the discipline of the sport science. I’ve started with some reading on heat and how it impacts performance – this has been at the front of my mind since the 10 and 25 mile time trial champs being under 30 degrees of heat.

A major work for Dan and me recently has been the development of the latest PBscience package. Until now, we have been focusing on one to one coaching. However, in order to reach a bigger community and to fill a clear gap in the market, we are about to launch a package that allows people who do not want the full supervision of a coach to prepare for performance with confidence – it will include a training plan based on sport science principles, initial lab testing and access to all the resources on the PBscience website. In getting this package ready, we have been putting a group of pilot testers through the scheme. This week we caught up with Kim, Jill and Chris to find out how they found the training and the mechanisms of delivery. Great to get their feedback, and great cake at “Local Roots and Boots” here in Eastbourne! You can find out more about this plan on the PBscience website: Dan and I are really excited, although we know it is going to be a busy summer ahead.

This weekend sees the National 50 mile Champs, so another working weekend for me – the event is across 2 days. It means I am taking my ‘break’ in the week next week. Not that cycling 330 miles from London to Paris is really a break! I doubt I will have the energy to post on the blog next week, so come back in a fortnight and I will update you on how Juliette and I get on.