Cyclingnews Fitness Q&A - March 30, 2011

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Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) enjoys a bite to eat on the go.(Image credit: Bosco Martin)

Got a question for the fitness panel? Send it to fitness@cyclingnews.com. Emails may be edited for length or clarity, but we try to publish both questions and answers in their entirety.

Assorted stretches/exercises/bike fit changes over the years have given varying degrees of relief at different times but nothing has fixed the problem or proven to be a longer-term fix. After years of seeing a long list of doctors, chiropractors and physiotherapists, I recently visited an osteopath for the first time - he tells me that I have a significant difference in muscle size and texture between my left and right glutes with the right glutes being the smaller and the texture being described as 'ropey'.

He described the left glutes as'normal'. No mention of which specific glute muscles are smaller so I take it that it's all of them. Other than that he rated my overall condition, strength and flexibility as good, including core strength, apart from a slight lordosis of the lower back, left leg 8mm longer and a slight pelvis tilt. These issues apparently disappeared after what I'll describe as a minor manipulation.

Currently my riding consists of a faster four-hour group ride over varied terrain on Sunday, a couple of aerobic one-hour spin sessions on the trainer during the week (HR<80% of max) and one mid-week road ride-cum-time trial over rolling terrain of one hour. Additionally, I do a couple of one-hour gym workouts that comprise 30 minutes rowing (7600-7800 metres covered) and 30 minutes walking uphill on the treadmill (7% grade @ 7km/h).

I take one or two days off the bike each week and over Spring/Summer/early Autumn I increase the intensity of the hard workouts each week for two or three weeks before taking a week or so to recover and then repeat. I don't worry too much about heart-rate during any one workout but instead focus more on weekly totals per zone. Over the past 10 weeks 12% of my exercise time has been spent in 85 – 95% of MHR, 20% at 80 – 84% MHR, 62% at 60 – 79% MHR and 6% at less than 60% MHR.

What happens is that as I approach, on average, the 85-mile mark, I begin to get almost nauseated and lose my energy and barely feel like keeping my head up, it seems. Once at this point, I don't feel that I can get any food down and water doesn't seem to help. An example would be this weekend on a 90 mile ride through some of the bigger climbs in my area of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As if on cue, at around 84 miles, I suddenly had nothing left in my legs and the weakness just continued right up my body and into my neck and shoulders.

Throughout the ride I drank plenty of water, all in all, four full bottles. Then at the first store stop I had a chocolate milk and a pack of salty pretzels with some cheese (Combos) as a quick snack. After ascending a couple of other mountains we had a second store stop to load up our water bottles which I did and also drank a small Gatorade G2 and a Lifewater with electrolytes drink. Here I also had a Snickers peanut butter candy bar.

Granted I know these aren't the greatest of nutritional items, but I only ever have these on a ride and only because they are easy to get at convenience stores and provide a lot of carbs and some protein. Further, about an hour into the ride, I also had an Accel gel pack. I feel that this sudden nausea and rapid loss of energy (bonking) is likely due to me not getting enough calories. However, as mentioned, I did eat a gel pack in the first hour, more food at about 2.5 hours, more at about 4.5 hours and at these store stops I felt that eating much more would be too hard for me to process and digest and I would get sick from "too much" food.

During that ride I drank probably six bottles of water, an FRS energy drink, had two flasks of Hammer's Sustained energy supplement, ate a banana, a few cookies at one of the brief rest stops, two Accel gel packs, and possibly another energy bar. Again, not huge amounts of calories for someone of my size, but I don't know how I can get down many more calories during a ride without getting sick from "trying" to get a lot of calories down, or if this is even my problem.

Here's your new eating prescription: from the beginning to the end of the ride: have a few big bites of something high in carbohydrate, with a small amount or protein or no protein at all and minimal fat every 15-20 minutes. Someone your size should be able to absorb about 300 Calories per hour. In 15-20 minute chunks, that's 75-100 Calories per chunk. Do not go more than 20 minutes without a bite. Forget the cheese.

I wonder if you can help me adjust my mindset in time for a race in less than two weeks. I live in Christchurch, New Zealand and on February 22 our city was struck by a powerful earthquake that has pretty much destroyed our CBD. I was in our office that day on the first floor and for the first time in my life I was convinced I was checking out that day as I was waiting for the three floors above me to come down on top of us.

I emerged unscathed to find utter chaos and multiple deaths in the street that day. I was one of the lucky ones; close to 200 people in our city that day were not. I work for the local electricity network, listed as an essential service and ever since that day I been living a "new normal" - coming into the CBD through a police and army cordon to work in what appears to be essentially a war zone to do my day's work.

I have got back on the bike because it is something that I both love and need to do but my performance feels like it has gone backwards by something approaching six months. Of course I know, and you will be able to confirm, that a drop off in performance over such a short period is not that pronounced. Hence I believe I've just got to get my head around things and focus again even though this seems so trivial compared to the hurt endured by our city and indeed the enormous loss being dealt with in Japan.

In the face of an emergency, different things become important. It's normal to feel like certain things in life are trivial and to even question your participation in certain things when you know how much other people are suffering. It's normal to feel a sense of guilt and to even feel like, 'Who am I to be able to ride my bike and be concerned with my fitness when other people have lost everything?'

It is difficult to hold onto in times of crisis, but life is for living and if biking is something that you love, you don't have to feel guilt for it being a part of your life. The reality is that your motivation and expectations for your upcoming race might need some adjustment. How you adjust exactly is up to you. You can go in with the attitude of just accepting where you are at and feeling immense gratitude for racing. You can go in and embrace your love of being on the bike and ride for the people who can't. You can also bag the race entirely and look forward to the next one.

Even if you haven't lost all of your fitness, going through that kind of stress takes a tremendous toll on your body and mind and that can have a great impact upon your racing form as well. You can't base your race goals on the fitness level you had or would have had going in, you have to base them on where you are at right now. This goes for anyone that has had to make a major adjustment during their race season.

You and everyone that was impacted by the earthquake have gone through a tremendous traumatic event and it takes time to recover from that. You might not have the same fitness you would have had if you were able to continue with your training, but you can still love to bike and enjoy your race if you adjust your goals before you go in. Trust your gut and you will know how to approach your upcoming race.

Height: 179 cm
Weight: 73 kg
Inseam: 87.5 cm
Seat height: 76.4 cm (from BB to top of saddle).
Crankarms: 172.5 cm
Shoe size: 42 (EU)
Bike size: 54 cm, with top tupe 54.5 cm
Stem length: 10 cm
Distance from top of bars to top of saddle: 82cm
Reach from saddle next to stem: 52.3 cm
Saddle setback: 7.2 cm
Cleat is about 2 mm behind ball of the foot.
When sitting on saddle and heel on pedal: My right leg is about 4mm "shorter" then the left leg (left leg touch the pedal, but right leg has some air between heel and pedal. Because of that I have two shims between cleat and shoe).

I am hoping you can help with an ongoing bike fit problem I have. I wrote in a couple of months back about calf soreness and moved the cleats on my shoes as per Steve Hogg's advice this definitely helped my calf, except that on hills with the ball of foot 11mm in front of pedal axle my left shoe was pushing into the front of my ankle and I felt that I had no real movement available in that ankle. I moved the cleat forward 5mm and that fixed the problem.

Anyway, now to my current problem. On a ride yesterday that started flat I had no problem - I rode at a good speed, felt that I had good control and technique but when I came to ride up a local hill of 7km with an average gradient of 7 percent I had no speed. I could either spin or change up a gear and maintain speed but I had no power - I was 3km/h down on normal speed and I just put this down to it being a 35-degree day or having bad day, etc... but when I got to top of the hill my speed went back up and I felt good.

The most common challenge to a rider's position is seat height. As someone who sees hundreds of people a year who need help with their position I can safely say that more people ride too high than too low. Most set their seat height under flat road, moderate intensity riding whereas they should set seat height as being the height necessary to ride up a solid hill forcing the gear a bit. Under those conditions, all riders, relative to whatever pedaling technique they display, drop their heels more and hence extend their legs more than they do on flat road / moderate effort riding.

I'll bet no, giving yourself Challenge number one. So seat height is now too high post-cleat movement. When the seat is too high, over 90 percent of riders will tend to drop the right hip or increase an existing tendency to drop the right hip as a compensatory response to the challenge. That causes the left leg to extend even more than the right and probably feel powerless through the bottom of the pedal stroke.

Challenge number four. Then you went for a ride and felt good on the flat. Most people do, even with poor positions, because momentum plays a much larger part in carrying them through the bottom of the pedal stroke on flat roads than it does on hills. When you hit the hill, you struggled because momentum drops and with your too high a seat height and asymmetric sitting position and pedaling technique, you couldn't comfortably reach the bottom of the pedal stroke with power and fluency.

3. When you moved the seat back you increased your effective seat height again - Challenge no. 5- unless you dropped the seat. Did you?
I'll bet no. This gave you a greater effective seat height again and the pain you describe is likely from forcing the hip flexors to work very hard indeed because of the increased lumbar flexion needed to reach the bars with the seat further back and the effective further increase in seat height.

4. When you moved the seat forward, you transferred body weight forward with it. You are already unstable on the bike and moving the seat forward causes you to enlist upper body effort to support that weight and to stabilise yourself. You felt it initially in the left shoulder because you are closer to locking that elbow because the left side of your torso has to reach further to the bars than the right side because of the dropping or twisting forward of the right hip.

As a quick overview, I'm a 38-year-old 'always played sport' person who has taken up road cycling following a knee reco. One year in and I'm loving it and looking to upgrade to a new bike. I'm planning to start racing shortly with a local club, however, most of my riding is fitness/social based with mates before work and on weekends. We generally try and do a few decent climbs on the weekends and enjoy the undulating terrain.

With a compact with a top gear of 50x12 you can hit about 37 mph or 59 kph pedaling at a reasonably comfortable 110 rpm cadence, and you can sprint about 20% faster, assuming you've developed your spin. That means a compact is generally fine for flatter races. On a long, fast descent with a tailwind, the 50x12 could be limiting however, especially if other riders in your pack have 53x11, allowing them to get up to 42 mph or 68 kph at a comfortable cadence.

Fig bars
Bananas
Boiled potatoes (in plastic bag with salt)
Yams (Microwaved until very soft)
Dry fruit
Pretzels
Crackers
Sandwiches (PB & J, Jam and cheese, meats only on cold days)
Energy bars (but not protein, zone or balance bars)
Energy gels (but plan to use one every 20-30 minutes once you start)
Fresh fruit (tends to be low-calorie so combine with other foods)
Cookies Banana/Zucchini or other bread-cakes

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: stevehoggbikefitting.blogspot.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.