Fitness questions and answers for June 20, 2005

Form & Fitness Q & A

Got a question about fitness, training, recovery from injury or a related subject? Drop us a line at fitness@cyclingnews.com. Please include as much information about yourself as possible, including your age, sex, and type of racing or riding. Due to the volume of questions we receive, we regret that we are unable to answer them all.

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.

Kelby Bethards, MD received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University (1994) before obtaining an M.D. from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 2000. Has been a racing cyclist 'on and off' for 20 years, and when time allows, he races Cat 3 and 35+. He is a team physician for two local Ft Collins, CO, teams, and currently works Family Practice in multiple settings: rural, urgent care, inpatient and the like.

Fiona Lockhart (www.trainright.com) is a USA Cycling Expert Coach, and holds certifications from USA Weightlifting (Sports Performance Coach), the National Strength and Conditioning Association (Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach), and the National Academy for Sports Nutrition (Primary Sports Nutritionist). She is the Sports Science Editor for Carmichael Training Systems, and has been working in the strength and conditioning and endurance sports fields for over 10 years; she's also a competitive mountain biker.

David Fleckenstein, MPT (www.physiopt.com) is a physical therapist practicing in Boise, ID. His clients have included World and U.S. champions, Olympic athletes and numerous professional athletes. He received his B.S. in Biology/Genetics from Penn State and his Master's degree in Physical Therapy from Emory University. He specializes in manual medicine treatment and specific retraining of spine and joint stabilization musculature. He is a former Cat I road racer and Expert mountain biker.

Since 1986 Steve Hogg (www.cyclefitcentre.com) has owned and operated Pedal Pushers, 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.They include World and National champions at one end of the performance spectrum to amputees and people with disabilities at the other end.

Pamela Hinton has a bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology and a doctoral degree in Nutritional Sciences, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She did postdoctoral training at Cornell University and is now an assistant professor of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia where she studies the effects of iron deficiency on adaptations to endurance training and the consequences of exercise-associated changes in menstrual function on bone health.

Steve Owens (www.coloradopremiertraining.com) is a USA Cycling certified coach, exercise physiologist and owner of Colorado Premier Training. Steve has worked with both the United States Olympic Committee and Guatemalan Olympic Committee as an Exercise Physiologist. He holds a B.S. in Exercise & Sports Science and currently works with multiple national champions, professionals and World Cup level cyclists.

Richard Stern (www.cyclecoach.com) is Head Coach of Richard Stern Training, a Level 3 Coach with the Association of British Cycling Coaches, a Sports Scientist, and a writer. He has been professionally coaching cyclists and triathletes since 1998 at all levels from professional to recreational. He is a leading expert in coaching with power output and all power meters. Richard has been a competitive cyclist for 20 years

Andy Bloomer (www.cyclecoach.com) is an Associate Coach and sport scientist with Richard Stern Training. He is a member of the Association of British Cycling Coaches (ABCC) and a member of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES). In his role as Exercise Physiologist at Staffordshire University Sports Performance Centre, he has conducted physiological testing and offered training and coaching advice to athletes from all sports for the past 4 years. Andy has been a competitive cyclist for many years.

I then eat again 1.5 - 2 hours later, either an energy bar or more fruit. It usually takes me until mid-afternoon to replace the 1500 calories I have used in the morning's training session. I am taking too long to replace the calories, or is enough that I have had a high carb meal within an hour of the training session? If I do need to replace the used calories more quickly, do you have any suggestions as to the types/quantity of food to be consumed for the first 1 - 2 meals after training? Thanks.

Hi there I have been diagnosed with 2 herniated disc between 4 and 5 , 5 and 6. I have been cycling for 10 years now and have had no problems until last year when this happened. I took some time off the bike and did some swimming over the winter to try to strengthen the back as well as other exercises, but nothing seem to be working and is only getting worse. Now my problem is that I live in Japan and am finding it hard to get a good physio so I need to do things myself, can you suggest what would be best to do? I'm 173cm tall and weigh 68kg I do about 10 races a year, as they are expensive over here, I don't know what category I would be in I usually race age group, I'm 32 years old. Thanks for your time.

Last summer I would wear my camelback (72 oz) and take a large polar water bottle with Accelerade mixed w/ water. My fear was to be without water.so I always had plenty of water with me. I have started using just water bottles. This year I have changed to Hammer Heed (1.5 scoops) and Hammer Endurolytes (1-2 scoops). Last Saturday at Roadkill Rally I took a large polar bottle w/ drink mix (Heed drink mix) in one, one large polar w/ Hammer Endurolytes and one another small bottle w/ Hammer Endurolytes. It was a 60 mile ride and I stopped and got water at a rest stop (filled my small bottle). By the end of the ride I had consumed all the bottles plus the water from the rest stop. I started getting the chills about 1.5 hours into the ride. During this time I was riding as hard as I could. I was trying to stay with the lead group and did so for awhile. When I got dropped I still tried to keep riding hard. The ride took us 3.5 hrs. The chills seemed to come while I was trying to go up some of the hills.

The issue of "under-recruitment" of glutes and quad requires more explanation. The perception of under-recruitment has a basis in fact. When you pedal with PCs at low power (yawn), most of the work being done is lifting your leg on the pedal stroke recovery. Once lifted, you conceptually are just "tossing" your leg back onto the pedal for the downstroke. There really isn't much actual pushing you have to do. Gravity does the work.

I wandered around the house and found a chair (actually the toilet) where in a sitting position, my thighs and arms were in a position similar to on the bike (at the top of the pedal stroke). I put a scale under my feet and tried to weight my hands (on a stool in front) and butt like it feels on the bike. Not scientific or particularly repeatable, but good enough for conceptualization. I'm 186 cm and 75 kg, mostly leg and thigh, and it appears each leg is about 14-15 kg. That's the equivalent of ~250W just to lift the leg. There's a lot of simplification here but go with the concept.

Once you exceed your "weighted power", then you become aware of normal pushing down on the pedals...except of course you don't lift the upstroke leg with the leg that's on the downstroke. While I suffer at a measly 200W to get my cadence up, it really isn't any harder to pedal at 300-325W (more like I used to). The upstroke power doesn't change (lifting your leg is lifting your leg), but the downstroke power increases and, voila, no more under-recruitment.

This also explains my initial PC impression that I had to dial up the power on the Cardgirus to pedal the damn things at all. On my first PC workouts, I was just trying to spin (easier than recovery), but my legs weren't used to the "opposite logic" of working on the upstroke and basically coasting on the downstroke (letting gravity to its thing). On normal cranks, when you're just spinning/coasting, it's clear to me we're significantly "back-weighting" the upstroke. The downstroke leg is pushing harder than it needs to, but since the total demand is very low, you never notice.

I am a cat 4 masters 35+ racer from New England who was diagnosed with graves in 1999. In 2002 they performed radiation treatment to knock down my T gland; the doctor advised me I needed to do a lot of vigorous exercise. I have been racing since; admittedly it took a long time to get back in shape, but I'm doing ok in the cat 4 races and training races and am starting to be able to finish the (much) harder masters 35+ races with the field. So why is it that someone with Graves won't do well in cycling? I can ride 5-6 hours a day no problem, etc. I ride 15 hours a week and commute to and from work and race 2-3 times a week from March through December. Admittedly I don't have a sprint, but I thought that was because I don't train much for sprinting - I'm more interested in personal bests in stage races like the Longsjo and Green Mountain. Please let me know as you have really whetted my curiosity.

I just pulled the interior part of my right quad muscle about 24 hours ago. It's very tender to the touch and limits how far I can stretch my quad when walking. I've never had a muscle pull like this before. My question is, I have a 24 hour mtb. race in 6 days. Will I have enough time to recover and ride this race? I'm 36, and I'm in good shape. I was planning to take this week off anyway, do you think this is the right course of action? And what could I do to help speed up the recovery? Thank you.