Cyclingnews Fitness Q&A - June 22, 2011

Topics: Cramping at high cadence, HMB usage, MTB training, Hyrdration, Leg openers, Hand numbness, Flat footedness, +65 Training regime, Foot discomfort.

I'm a 30 year-old road and mountain bike racer in my 11th season of amateur racing. I'm 1.85m tall, currently weigh 93Kg and have been putting in 8 to 10 hours a week on average for the past few years all year around. I have a big build (similar to Magnus Backstedt), can average 41-42Km/h for a 20Km time-trial and can sprint quite well, but my time-trialling is better than my sprinting. My CP30 is around 320 watts when I'm in good race form and I tend to ride larger gears than most of the peloton. I usually train on my own and find I tend to do quite well in flat races in criteriums at a body weight similar to what I am right now. Although I have never raced a road race in the U.S., I would probably guess I am a Cat. 3 racer.

My average training cadence does not usually go above 75rpm (zero cadence included) and in most road races my cadence can average anywhere from 85-95rpm. I find I time-trial well when my average cadence is around 85rpm. I have been racing in China for the past four years. Recently, I have been making the top 20% in large road races in races that feature 100-150 racers, but I found that I lack the high cadences in the final bunch sprint just as the podium finishers. In this regard, I have been regularly motor-pacing and deliberately riding at cadences over 110rpm while motor-pacing in hope of improving my sprinting.

HMB is the abbreviation for ß-hydroxymethylbutyrate. HMB is a breakdown product the branched chain amino acid leucine. In a multi-step process that involves both skeletal muscle and liver, approximately 5% of leucine ends up as HMB. Leucine promotes skeletal muscle protein synthesis and inhibits catabolism. Because HMB is produced as a result of leucine metabolism, some researchers hypothesize that HMB is partially responsible for the positive effects of leucine on skeletal muscle. And, recent data from cell culture experiments suggest that HMB stimulates the biochemical pathways involved in protein synthesis and inhibits those required for protein degradation.

Not surprisingly then, use of supplemental HMB is popular among bodybuilders and athletes in strength/power sports to increase lean body mass and strength. However, as is often the case, controlled studies of the anabolic and anti-catabolic effects of HMB have given conflicting results with some suggesting that HMB increases muscle mass and/or strength and others showing no differences compared with a control treatment. These inconsistencies can be attributed to differences in how the experiments were designed, including HMB dose and duration, training status, sex, age, exercise stimulus and diet.

A 70-kg adult produces ~ 200-400 mg of HMB per day from leucine metabolism. Under conditions when skeletal muscle degradation is elevated, endogenous production of HMB may not be optimal. Human studies that have demonstrated positive effects of HMB have used doses ranging from 0.5-6.0 g HMB per day for 2-8 weeks with no adverse side effects. The suggested dose relative to body weight is 0.038 g per kg of body weight, e.g., 5.8 g for a 70-kg adult. In addition, to dietary supplements, HMB can also be obtained from foods such as avocado, citrus fruits, asparagus and catfish.

I am training for a high altitude (above 10000 ft), 50 mile MTB race coming up in mid-July. There are a lot of climbs on the course and the terrain is bad dirt roads and single track. I have been mixing up my training, with a lot of steep hills, some speed work, some longer rides at altitude (> 50 miles), and building up my weekly totals to about 200 miles. I am trying to take an hour off of my time from last year, when I struggled to do it in just over 7 hours. The winner last year took about 4.75 hours! I'm wondering how I can increase my pace significantly to at least break 6 hours and even compete in the top 200 riders. How are those guys maintaining such a high pace for so long on the steep terrain? I have been practicing on 20+ % slopes, but go really slow up them. Also, I can only go so fast down hills on that loose rock and still maintain safety. It would seem that the answer is to increase speed on flats, rolling terrain, and hills, but how can I get there?

You've told us you don't feel safe descending faster than you are descending already. Are you already about as fast as the faster descenders? If you are, you are probably making a realistic assessment of the conditions and the limits of what MTB riders can do. If other guys are descending faster than you and not crashing though, you have room to improve by working on your descending. If that's you, find some place to practice that is similar the challenging parts of your goal event.

You haven't told us about your height and weight. If you are much heavier compared to the most competitive riders your height, you can shave time on both the climbs and descents by getting lighter. On the road, heavier guys descend faster, but on technical descents, the faster folks can dance, and that means being light. Of course uphill speed depends on power-to-weight ratio, so if your power equals the other guy but you are heavier, you ascend slower.

Nutrition and hydration also have to be dialed for a multi-hour race. If you are drinking enough that your urine is lemonade colored rather than apply juice colored after a long ride, you are doing okay on water. If not, figure out how to carry and drink more fluid. You should also be consuming as much carbohydrate as you can absorb, and if that's less than about 250 calories per hour, you need to work on that, perhaps by changing foods or just getting used to eating. A big bite every 15 minutes works well for most riders.

Finally, training is important of course. 200 miles a week is a lot if it's dirt miles, but the guys who are winning are doing more than that if it's road miles. The top 200 guys are probably doing 15 hours or more per week. While we're on this topic, you'll build aerobic fitness much more effectively with steady miles done on the road than with the irregular sorts of effort you get on dirt, so do enough dirt to get the needed technical practice and the rest of your hours on the road. A 50 mile MTB event is strictly an aerobic endurance challenge, so the vast majority of your riding should be well below LT, with occasional forays up near LT or a bit over on one or two rides per week.

I just started riding a couple of years ago and can keep up with the local group ride. I am a larger rider at 6'0-185(10 percent fat). I have improved a great deal over the last 2 years but no matter what the temperature is I drink twice as much as most riders in the group and 3 times as much as some others. I am not someone who drinks a lot because you are supposed to stay "hydrated". I have deliberately tried to drink the same amount as the others on the ride but end up having cramps if I do. Is this common that some riders just require more fluid? Is there something I should be drinking to help drink less fluid during longer rides/races?

The ride is the acacia park sat and sun ride in Colorado Springs. I believe it is the fastest group ride in town as there are some pros that come to it when they aren't racing. The rides are fast but not beyond my ability. I am always in the first third of the ride and will win a number of the sprints during the course of the year(not bragging just answering your question). There is a stop for drinks around mile 30 and I'm always done with 2 bottles by then. Most riders have only drank one bottle and some riders have only drank half a bottle. Diabetes runs in my family but I don't have it. I have been tested for it a number of times throughout my life because I do drink so much more than others but every test has showed that I do not have diabetes. I know that I am not over drinking because I have never once had to use the bathroom during a ride, even on centuries. I try to keep my hydration level at 60% but that's on one of the cheapie scales from Wally world so I don't know how accurate it really is. The last thing is I ride an old steel bike from the 90's. It weighs about 25 lbs including the two bottles. Could it be that I am drinking more than the others because I am riding a heavier bike?

There are a few possibilities to consider. First off, do you hydrate before the ride? If other riders are starting with a full bottle in their bellies and you are starting to drink only as you start to ride, that would explain needing one more bottle than your partners over the length of a ride. I'm guessing you do have a bottle before the ride and you have another problem. Being larger and better insulated than some other riders on the ride (higher body fat percentage) you both generate more heat and have more trouble dissipating it. You are probably simply sweating away more water than lighter and leaner riders on the same ride.

There are a variety of exercises that could be called leg openers. The general concept is a long, gentle warm up followed by a short bout of hard work and then a long gentle cool down. For my clients, I usually make the total exercise about one hour and the hard work a 3-9 minute interval near LT, with the length depending on their strength and experience. Sometimes I'll have them do a few short but all-out jumps instead of the LT interval, depending on what sort of race is coming up and what has worked for them in the past.

If you experience this discomfort often enough or long enough it is possible to end up with a permanent or semi permanent problem. Re: the cause(s), there are a number and they all relate to you having too much weight on your bars (because of seat too far forward, bars too low or too far away) OR some factor of position (seat too high, too far back or too far forward) that destabilises you and causes a lot of tension in the arms, shoulders,upper back or neck in an effort to use you upper body for stability. Does any of this strike a chord with you?

I'm flat footed and have always had some degree of foot pain (in my arches) when riding a bike. I took to riding to & from work about 7 years ago on a cheap mountain bike with your standard platform pedals and when my feet started to hurt I would slide my foot forward so that the pedal would be behind the balls of my feet and the pain would go away. Fast forward 5 years and I've upgraded to a new bike(s) with Shimano clipless pedals so no more sliding the foot forward for me. The cleat position is as far back as it will go which helps but I still get pain. I've developed a nasty habit of pointing my toes down when I pedal which seems to minimise my discomfort but I can't imagine that it would do my pedalling action any favours.

I see similar problems to yours reasonably often. The solution is the individually correct degree of arch support and wedging. Too much arch support, particularly hard arch support will cause pain as you have found. In addition, the cant of the foot needs to be ideal. Lastly, many people with flat feet who experience pain of the type you mention have very tight calves. Stretching them effectively and regularly can make a significant difference.

The single most important change you can make since you want to be faster and have better endurance is to increase ride frequency. Your 25-50 mile rides are long enough to help you improve fitness, but riding two days per week is not going to get you much faster than you are now. Add two more rides each week so that you are riding every other day or more often. The additional rides can be 45 minutes for the first week, then an hour the second week to get accustomed to more frequent riding. Assuming you respond well, after two weeks keep the additional rides at least an hour each, and longer is better up to the length of your other rides that you've already been doing. Keep all the rides at a mellow pace (no heavy breathing, no big hills, no leg burning) until you've been riding four days per week for at least two months. After that, you can add one harder day if you feel the need.

I regularly have discomfort in the front of my feet while riding in warmer weather. By warmer weather I mean about 75 F or above. I gradually develop a somewhat painful sort of numbness feeling in the region of my toes and the forward and inside bottom of the balls of my feet. Depending on the temperature---in particular, more quickly at higher temperatures---this feeling can set in after only forty-five minutes of riding. Eventually, especially on the left side, the fronts of my feet feel not only sort of numb, but also squashed against the soles of my shoes. Unclipping and dangling my feet for a few seconds will alleviate the feeling briefly. Riding over more varied terrain and with more varied accelerations also helps to alleviate or at least delay the onset of these sensations. Dismounting and standing for a bit alleviates the feeling fairly quickly; though, after a ride during which I had these sensation for a while, my feet continue to feel a bit out of sorts for an extended period of time.

Let me convey some further information that might be of use. I ride a 2003 De Rosa Merak, have used Speedplay X-Series pedals for quite a few years now, currently have Lake CX401 Speedplay specific shoes, and wear fairly thin cycling socks. I also experienced this pain with my previous shoes, DMT Flashes. When I last switched shoes, I had my bicycle refit concurrently, and this did not much affect these sensations despite better arch support from the new shoes and Varus wedging from the new fit. I keep my toes quite relaxed while riding and I have ample room to wiggle my toes in the Lakes. I have chronically cold feet (and hands). I do not experience this pain while riding in cooler weather.

1. Not enough foot over the pedal. If your last fit positioned your cleats so that the ball of the foot is over the pedal axle, the stress that this can place on the plantar fascia can load the metatarsal heads (base knuckles of toes) and compress the joints enough to pressure the nerves in that area and cause numbness and pain. Let me know what your relative cleat position is. Have a look at this
for info on how to determine what your cleat position is and to rectify if need be.

3. If your seat is too high, problems like this can occur with susceptible people. See here as well for more info. When subject to any challenge to their position, like too high a seat height, the rider will almost always compensate for that challenge asymmetrically. In this case the most common response is to drop or roll the right hip forward. That increases the distance that the left leg has to reach. I mention this possibility because you not that the discomfort is more severe on the left side.

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.