Cyclingnews Fitness Q&A - January 27, 2012

Torrential rain greeted the peloton on stage 1 of the Tour de San Luis. (Image credit: Luis Barbosa)

Topics: Cleat adjustment and knee problems, endurance racing, average heart rate, electrolytes, winter attire, cold knees

I am an avid club rider and have been riding for years with only minimal physical complaints. I was fitted for my bike with Specialized's process and was doing fine. However, I took matters into my own hands one day and moved my Look cleats from their original position (mid to front) to the back position. I did this because I read something about cleat position in an article somewhere and tried this to see how it felt. There were no immediate problems on the bike at all. However, off the bike was a different story. After riding this way for a month or so, I began to experience pain/stiffness in the back of my left knee when rising from a sitting position or from kneeling after a period of time. When I first noticed this, I didn't connect it to the cleat adjustment because of the amount of time that elapsed between changing the cleat position to the onset of pain. I had to think long and hard before I even connected the dots to this. I have since moved my left cleat position back to its original setting. The right cleat is still in the back position since I've not felt any discomfort. However, the pain/stiffness after sitting/kneeling persists behind the left knee. I can stretch my hamstring out and it seems to provide some temporary relief. I did all this back in the summer of 2011 but now, at the start of 2012 I'm still experiencing the same symptoms.

I'm sure there are numerous factors involved but maybe there is also something simple at work here. I recently completed a 12 hour endurance mountain bike event and my Garmin recorded these lap times and average heart rate for 10 laps (mins per lap/bpm). 56/159, 57/160, 57/157, 57/152, 59/148, 58/146, 59/145, 62/143, 61/141, 63/142. It shows a steady increase in lap times and a steady decrease in heart rate. I do not FEEL l like I slacked off more as the race continued, the later laps certainly felt more difficult than the early ones. There are pits stops after every lap, ranging 3-15 minutes each.

No, your heart doesn't get tired, but as your muscles fatigue it takes more mental effort to maintain the same power output. That's why you feel like you maintained or increased effort but still went slower. In order to make steady lap times in a long race, you have to go gradually harder. What's going on is that individual muscle fibers are making less contraction force as their fuel is depleted and their internal chemistry is changing, so you have to recruit more fibers. Recruiting more fibers means sending nerve impulses to more fibers, which is what you normally do to increase force, so maintaining cycling effort feels like working harder and harder. Your heart rate is dropping because you are not actually maintaining power, and your legs don't need as much oxygen to make less power. If you did maintain power and speed, you'd find that your heart rate actually increased a few beats with time passing due to an effect called "cardiac drift". Cardiac drift is a result of decreased blood volume and therefore less filling of the heart chambers prior to each beat. Less stroke volume means more strokes to deliver the same amount of blood.

Here’s how I knew it worked: Years previous at Everest cramping was always an issue at the end of the first day (about 16,000’). This time no cramping on the first day, of course I was fatigued but not like completely hammered out shit tired. Good on second day finished well, took 45 min out of my best time overall, did not make the podium though. The following weekend, as usual, I sponsor the Diablo Challenge, a local hill climb 800 + participants, and always try to make a good showing. Lost 2 minutes and 13 seconds to my best time. I was so fatigued from Everest the weekend before that I needed more time to recover. The year before I cramped badly at Everest yet the following weekend I had a personal best on our local climb race, the Diablo Challenge. The big difference between cramping tired and being tired from fully using all your reserves correctly is significant and requires much more time to heal and recover. You can’t get to the deep training if your electrolytes are not correct. Avoiding the cramping enables one to train deeper and get stronger without damaging tissues.

Ideally, you'd like to replace electrolytes at the rate they're lost in sweat during exercise. However, that's not possible for sodium because the rate of absorption from the gut is limiting. Nevertheless, the sweat concentration (and rate of absorption for sodium) are the basis for the recommendations. As you know, sweat losses are going to be highly variable among individuals and within an individual depending on acclimitization, environmental conditions, duration of exercise, etc. Although present at much lower concentrations that sodium, athletes who train for prolonged periods of time can lose significant amounts of potassium, magnesium, and calcium via sweat.

Based on the reported concentrations of these electrolytes in sweat, I recommend 500-700 mg of sodium, 80-200 mg potassium, 4-40 mg magnesium, and 30-300 mg of calcium in 1.0-1.5 liters of water per hour. Most of us do not get enough magnesium in our diets. And, in my experience with athletes who suffer from muscle cramps, increasing magnesium intake via food or a dietary supplement to the RDA often helps.

When the season starts, whether or not I've gotten out, it is likely that the weather will still not cooperate. Last year at a race in Albany, NY it was 22 degrees at the start. The course took us alongside the Hudson where the wind picked up making the temperatures even more oppressive. At this race as in all other races and training rides I rode in shorts. Is this an unhealthy decision? Sometimes my knees look a bit discolored after a ride but I have never felt discomfort or pain before, after, or during. Thanks for your help!

I've lived in upstate New York and you are right, it gets cold there and stays cold a long time. Cover your knees. I'm not promising you'll an injury if you don't, but a century or more of accumulated wisdom says its a good idea. I've had many clients who's knee problems are cured by keeping the knees warm, suggesting that if they had kept them warm in the first place, they'd not have had problems in the first place. Find some other way to show how tough you are.

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

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.