“Often a race is won by a mere fraction of acceleration that was generated in a performance lab or wind tunnel or a velodrome long before the race ever started. Cyclists are computer slaves; we hover over precise calculations of cadence, efficiency, force, and wattage”

-Lance Armstrong

It used to be you could read a bio of a bike racer and you might learn they were a Leo who favored classic rock, their grandmothers lasagna and horror movies. Nowadays you get hit with the numbers.

LT, VO2 max, O2 threshold, HR at LT, resting HR, max HR, watts per Kilo… you know the ones I’m talking about.

For the professional they will determine who carries the water bottles and who kisses the podium girls. For us they are kind of fun to look at and compare ourselves with our heroes or give us an objective means to measure improvement.

Some beginners have expressed confusion and annoyance at the lack of consistency in the duration of these endurance tests, some are for twenty minutes, some six, some an hour. Surprisingly the difference in your bodies ability to produce power varies comparatively little from five or six minutes up to an hour, about 25%. If our average racing cyclist can do 300 watts for five minutes he probably can do at least 225 for an hour. However from five seconds to five minutes he is likely to be able to generate three times more power. So a cyclist who produces 300 watts for five minutes can typically do over 900 watts at peak power or around five seconds. This gives an interesting clue to the genetic priorities in our evolution, namely speed over endurance. Granted there can be quite a bit of variation with in this generalization Check out Chris Boardman and Marty Nothsteins’ power for extreme examples.
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Resting Heart Rate
This is your body’s heart rate at rest, or your pulse rate taken approximately one hour before your normal waking time. This figure is one way to notice changes in your fitness and health levels. Resting heart rate is very much genetic. Pro tennis player, Bjorn Borg had a resting heart rate of 35 beats per minute. Borg was in fabulous shape. But Olympic track star Jim Ryan, also in great shape, had a resting heart rate of 75 beats per minute. Tracking your RHR can be a useful tool to determine if you are overtraining or not. After you are in mid season form, your RHR taken upon waking (or as you outline above) will be very consistent if you are getting enough sleep and recovery time. If however, your RHR jumps 10-15 beats or more it may be an indicator that you are not properly recovering from your workouts. RHR is not the be all and end all of indicators of recovery. It is simply a tool. It always has to be used along with other indicators to be a good gauge of recovery status. For example, if you were in the 2nd or 3rd day of a 5 day stage race you would expect your RHR to be elevated, just as the RHR of the pros are in the first few days of the TDF

Maximum Heart Rate
This is the maximum recommended number of times your heart can contract at any given minute. Here are two ways to determine this:
1. An easy, relatively accurate way to determine your maximum heart rate (MHR) is by using this age-predicted formula: 220-age=MHR (for men), 226-age=MHR (for women).
2. This next method is found in The Heart Rate Monitor Book by Sally Edwards. She suggests performing a sprint or series of sprints after warming up. Give all-out, extreme effort until your heart rate reading no longer rises and you approach exhaustion. The final number is your maximum heart rate. Obviously a heart rate monitor must be used and supervision by a medical professional should be observed. This method is definitely not recommended for beginners or sedentary individuals.For some reason beginners are anxious to learn their max heart rate but it is 100% genetically predetermined and will only go down (about 1 beat per year after you are 20, less if you exercise). In other words if you wanna do the test knock your self out but it aint gonna change. A much better idea is too concentrate on prolonging the amount of time you can spend at your LT.

Recovery Heart Rate
This is the heart rate typically determined two minutes after the cardio portion of your workout is finished. Determine your recovery heart rate (RHR) by counting your pulse for one minute. The only difference between recovery heart rate and resting heart rate is that your recovery measure is taken after exercise. Record this number frequently since it is another method of determining cardiovascular fitness. The quicker the number drops the better. Hinault’s heart went from 200BPM to under 100 in less than a minute.

Lactate Threshold
LT or Lactate Threshold is the exercise intensity at which you’re starting to produce more lactic acid than you can get rid of. “Onset of Blood Lactate Accumulation” or OBLA is the intensity at which your lactic acid reaches a value of 4 mmol, which is generally the level most people can tolerate for about a 30 min TT without blowing up. Its an important number because training at your LT can boost your ability to ride for longer with more power at threshold. Above that threshold one can make improvements and there are even over threshold workouts that Chris Carmichel and others provide but the body is simply not able to improve with the same efficiency that it can at LT. The theshold can be mesured in terms of watts or heart rate.

Anaerobic Threshold
First, what’s the difference between At and LT? Ask five different experts and you’ll get five different answers. A common answer is where the increase of blood lactate is maximal and equal to the rate of diffusion of lactate from the exercising muscle. Sounds a lot like LT to me some say it’s a little different some say it’s the same. Either way we don’t think you’ll screw up your season if you misplace the one initial for the other.

MSS
Maximum Sustainable threshold is similar to LT, the amount of watts a rider an sustain for about 30 minutes

VO2 Max
VO2 max is your maximal rate of oxygen consumption. It is a measure of your capacity to generate the energy required for endurance activities and is one of the most important factors determining your ability to exercise for longer than four to five minutes. Your sedentary VO2 max values are genetically determined. VO2 max values, typically expressed in ml/kg/min., can vary between 20 and 90 ml/kg/min. The average value for a sedentary American is about 35 ml/kg/min, while elite endurance athletes average about 70 ml/kg/min. The highest recorded is by a cross country skier at about 93. The best ever by a cyclist was, no not who your thinking, but Greg Lemond at about 91.

Watts

1000 watts = 1.34 horsepower. “Power” measures “force” times “distance” per unit of “time”. Example: Moving an object against a resistive force of 1 pound, for a distance of 10 feet, in 1 second takes the same power as moving it against a force of 10 pounds for a distance of 1 foot in one second, or against a force of 100 pounds for 1/10 of a foot in a second. For a bicycle, it is evident that, using different gear combinations, a cyclist can apply the same power input to either go at high speeds (long distances/second) against low counteracting forces, or at low speeds to overcome high counteracting forces.

The effects of doping: an epilogue

The following articles (partially reproduced) appeared in the London Times concerning Christophe Bassons.
July 17, by David Walsh under the headline “Racing clean, riding high”.

Vayer agrees that erythropoietin (EPO) has been the catalyst for seismic change in sport: “EPO allows the athlete to do things that are not humanly possible and it turns sport into a mechanical business. You run 10km at your maximum, the next guy comes along and runs at his maximum, and because he is taller and has a longer stride, he will go faster than you. It is no longer a result of psychology, of technique, of training, of thinking, of courage; you can have all these qualities, but against the guy doing EPO, you have no chance. There is a classic test in cycling – you put a rider on a home trainer and get him to his limit for 12 minutes riding at 325 watts [the power generated by the rider]. Then you go to 375 for four minutes, then 425 for another four, and so on. I did this with the Festina riders two days before the 1996 Tour and I discovered that the level of lactates produced at 325 watts was three, but when they went up to 375 watts the lactate level dropped to two. Can you believe that? EPO is fantastic, but it is not sport any more, it is a business and it is dangerous. As well as thickening the blood, EPO accelerates the development of cancerous cells.