Nature Valley Grand Prix St. Paul Criterium, When Numbers Alone Can Lead You Astray

Sometimes, looking at numbers can give you a realistic idea of how hard an event is.  Using Intensity Factor number from Training Peaks helps us to understand and quantify the difficulty of the event.  Coupled with the Training Stress Score, and normalized power an experienced exercise physiologist and coach can realistically estimate how tough any particular ride or race was.

But what happens when the numbers just don't add up?  For each event, Source Endurance consultants make it a point to engage every athlete in some way to get a report/ debriefing of how it all went down.  This usually occurs during the scheduled consult.

A few weeks ago Shadd Smith competed in the Nature Valley Grand Prix (NVGP) Stage Race.  Following each stage Shadd would upload his data where it would be examined and scrutinized.  The numbers tell one story.  However, when coupled with the daily race summaries provided by Shadd, an entirely new layer of data comes to light along with some new realizations of the limits of human physiology.

In the picture below, you can see the non-smoothed race in its entirety.  The first thing that comes to mind is that it looks almost like there are attacks the entire race.  But wait, is that true? I've drawn two lines; one at Shadd's threshold and the other is at 600W.  This wattage seems to be a good measure of how many top-end efforts an elite athlete makes.  To put it in perspective, an amateur race with nine +600W efforts in 5 minutes can cause a irreversible split in the field. 

At the NVGP, Shadd produced around 15 of these efforts per every five minutes for over an hour.  All while the United Health Care Team (UHC) rode "tempo" on the front, meaning that not only was the field not splitting, Shadd was actually just sitting in the wheels, a testament to the difference between amateur and professional racing.

Towards the end of the file, you'll see where Shadd was finally unhitched, along with nearly every other rider in the field as UHC began the lead out.  This led him to ask the question, "if the normalized power from the race was significantly less than my threshold power, why did myself and so many guys get dropped?"  Indeed, even with those high power spikes, the normalized power was only 299W for the entire race.  Let's investigate..... 

Below you see a smoothed version of the same race.  Notice how the speed and power are very cyclical, indicative that not a lot of attacking is going on.  Rather, because of the UHC escort, the race was just fast, all the surges were mostly likely accelerations coming out of corners as well as the energy required to improve position.  You can see that toward the end of the race, the pace begins to edge upward.  With the accumulated fatigue from the day's efforts, this proved too much for many riders, amateur and professional.

But....

His output numbers for the event are well within his ability level, by the numbers.  How would it be possible to gap off that many excellent riders?  To get a better view, we'll examine the non-smoothed, zoomed in view of a ~5min block of the stage.

Confirming the previous conjecture, it does appear that cyclical peaks and valleys are a product of the race course which required slowing for turns, then accelerating back to speed.  However, you'll notice the large bit of time where the is no power production, or very little. That little bit of rest, that coasting is a godsend in the short term.  The opportunity to recover just a bit makes the prospect of what is to come just a bit more bearable.

However, the coasting is also the root cause of why so many PRO and elite riders were sent home that evening with a time loss.  In order to coast for ~38% of the race and maintain a normalized power of 299W, there must be some hard efforts, and many of them as you'll note from the amount of time spent over 600W.

This brings me to the issue of recovery.  For every effort, there is a required recovery period.  As the intensity rises, recovery time increases.  However, at some point, or perhaps always, this recovery time appears to increase exponentially or at least in a non-linear fashion.
For example say at an intensity of 200W the recovery time is at a 1:1 ratio. 
300W, 1:1.5
325W, 1:2
350W, 1:4
375W, 1: 8 and so on....

This could explain how a race that appears very benign "by the numbers" was in fact one of the hardest races Shadd has ever completed.  However, without the race summary from him and the post race consult, any coach and many exercise physiologists would have a difficult time understanding this race and why the athlete, Shadd would find such a race so hard.



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Does Fat Actively Restrict Improvement in Muscle Force Generation? The Body Weight-Muscle Mismatch

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS. Link to original article here:

Recently scientists at Penn State sewed tiny weighted vests and slipped them around the middles of healthy laboratory rats, hoping to discover how animals’ muscles respond to changes in body size. The vests increased the animals’ weight by as much as 36 percent. After five days, the scientists found that the rats’ muscles contained increased amounts of certain proteins involved in the generation of muscle force. The muscles were redesigning themselves to be stronger.

In a separate group of obese rats, however, no such changes were evident. The rats were heavy, generally exceeding the weight of the animals wearing vests, and they continued to pack on ounces during the experiment. But their muscles did not show the same increases in the proteins that improve muscle power. The obese animals were not getting stronger as they became heavier. They were in danger of becoming too fat to move.


How muscles recognize changes in body weight — and why sometimes they don’t — are questions that are likely to have relevance for people, and not just lab rats. Studies have found that “individuals who are extremely overweight often complain that moving is difficult,” said James H. Marden, a professor of biology at Penn State and co-author of the rat study. It’s possible that their muscular strength is not keeping pace with their growing body size.

But why there should be such a mismatch between body weight and muscle strength is unknown. So Dr. Marden and his colleagues began, a few years ago, to study how different creatures deal with changes in their body size and what that might suggest about the human body. They began their work with moths. Flying creatures obviously must deal accurately with body mass or risk plummeting from the sky.

As it turned out, moths are quite good at gauging what they weigh. The bigger the moth, the more its muscles showed activity from one specific gene, the troponin T gene, that expresses various proteins that help muscles to contract. In general, the more of these proteins that a muscle contains, the more forcefully it contracts.
Even when the scientists artificially increased the insects’ body weight, using the simple expedient of gluing lead shot to the moths’ abdomens, the insects’ muscles responded quickly and appropriately. Within days, the troponin T gene in the moths’ wing muscles was pumping out more of the proper proteins to make the muscles stronger. The lead-laden insects had no trouble staying aloft.

But the situation was quite different when the scientists started looking at animals that were fat. Moths don’t become obese, but certain strains of lab rodents do. “We wondered whether there might be a relationship between obesity and the action” of the troponin T gene in muscles, said Rudolf J. Schilder, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State and lead author of the rat study.

There was. When they biopsied the leg muscles of rats bred to be fat, they found that the chubby animals’ troponin T gene seemed to malfunction. Their muscles contained some of the proteins needed to increase muscle power, but not all of them — and none in as much profusion as in lean rats, even those of a comparable body weight. “The fat rats’ muscles seemed to think that the animals were much smaller than they actually were,” Dr. Schilder said. Their muscles hadn’t come to terms with how fat the animals had become.

Dr. Schilder emphasized that he and his colleagues do not think that troponin T activity, although it is an important marker of muscle function, explains everything about how muscles respond to changes in body weight. The process almost certainly involves a host of other genes and physiological reactions, he said.

It also is not known what mechanisms cause the troponin T gene to malfunction in fat animals, although fat itself is an obvious suspect. “Fat is a very physiologically active tissue,” Dr. Schilder said. “It produces hormones and biochemical messages” that might well disrupt how the troponin T gene functions. Through continuing experiments at his lab, Dr. Schilder hopes to discern more about the role that fat plays in muscle genetics and how much body fat must accumulate before troponin T activity is affected.

But perhaps the most pressing unanswered question about body weight and muscles is what this research means for people. “It’s impossible to know at the moment,” Dr. Marden said, since human studies have not been conducted. But his group’s findings are “suggestive,” he said. “It seems likely” that there are changes in troponin T activity in obese people’s muscles and that, as a result, “it really is physiologically hard for them to move,” he said.

If so, he continued, “we may need to rethink” some exercise programs and suggestions for obese people. “Maybe we should promote activities that require less muscular strain,” he said, like a swim instead of a walk.

“No one is trying to rationalize” remaining heavy, he added, but his group’s work does indicate that misapprehensions about the extent of one’s weight problem may run deep. At the cellular level, muscles and genes may be unable to “understand,” he said, or accept how much a person weighs, a delusion with which many of us, in our minds, can sympathize.

Short term weight gain seen when traveling

Recently the question has been posed: Why do athletes tend to gain weight on travel days and is there anything that can be done to minimize it?  It usually seen on travel days and goes away over the next day or two after the travel is complete. This can pose a problem for performance as it can make the athlete feel “sluggish” and “stale” on the day of competition.  In that respect, we will give it some time on this blog as it is something to worth addressing.

Cause:  

Ultimately, the issue at hand is due to water retention. Unless the athlete truly makes an effort of it, there won’t be any weight gain due to fat.  Also, there is the increase of stress when traveling as the athletes’ normal life (diet and schedule) change. 

Some findings, and how they relate to athletes…

Dietary Sodium. 

It’s well documented that in the American diet, sodium consumption runs rampant.  Sodium has effect of holding water within the body as it stimulates the kidneys to re-uptake it.  This leads to “cankles” and the bloated feeling in athletes. 

Also, it can and does have the effect of elevating blood pressure.  Many athletes will run blood pressures on the low side of “normal.” Elevated blood pressure increases the afterload of the heart, meaning that more pressure must be generated to overcome systemic resistance, which means that stroke volume is decreased, which decreases performance. Many on the road eateries have menus overloaded with sodium which leads to water retention via sodium’s chemical properties which can hinder performance.

Glycogen storage:

The USOC started has funded many studies looking at different strategies as ways for prolonging exercise/ training capacity.  They confirmed that Glycogen storage is in a 1:4 ratio, glycogen: water and will lead to some weight gain in the form of water. 

With that knowledge and that of athletes and how fast athletes can burn and thus synthesize glycogen, it is reasonable that the athlete’s “normal” diet is very rich in carbohydrates (CHO), which are then converted to glycogen and stored in the muscles and liver along with water, lots of water.  Some of the water retention isn’t so much retention as it is the athlete topping off the glycogen stores.  In short, the athlete is actually rested and ready to go.  In this instance the short term weight gain actually helps the athlete.

Treatment: advantages/ disadvantages

Diuretics:

They’re quick and as easy as eating tic tacs.  But the repercussions can be widespread, problematic and possibly illegal (I’m not up to speed on the WADA list). 

Common drugs- I could list some common ones, but Wikipedia is better! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diuretic

Foods-  Really?  Yes.  Watermelon, Green Tea, Tomatoes, Asparagus, Apple Cider Vinegar (stabilizes potassium), Artichokes, Cranberries, Parsley, Horseradish, Oats (silica).

Low sodium diet:

Sometimes it’s best to pack your own food and take it with you on long haul road trips so you don’t end up eating at Applebee’s or something equally as gross.  If you have to eat out, aim solely for the low sodium items, if you can.  Here’s a link to the restaurant nutritional info:

http://www.dietfacts.com/fastfood.asp

or the iphone app, just search “restaurant nutrition”

Compression Garments:

They promote circulation and re-circulation which prevents the blood from pooling and at least lets everything recirculate and return to the kidneys for reabsorption or secretion. They are very good for after events when athletes are dehydrated and orthostatically intolerant.

Flushing with water:

Also a good idea provided enough is consumed to make you urinate every hour-ish.  However, when driving all day, no one likes to stop that often.  And holding it that long on airplane is tortuous! Also, there’s the possibility of hyponutremia from drinking too much water.

Travel Schedule:

Perhaps the best way to deal with this is to get to the event site a day earlier, say 48 hours before the event is scheduled to start.  That gives athletes a chance to re-adjust and to “deflate.” Also, it provides the opportunity to do an actual ride the day before the race.  Many athletes tend to do better the 2^nd day, and if the first day can be done before the event, it could help.

Analyzing the Tour of New Braunfelds Criterium Sprint

Every now and then we'll have an athlete produce a break through performance that truly is worth talking about.  Jed Rogers sent me this file a while back his finishing sprint immediately stood out, mostly because it was definitely better than I expected to see for February.  Jed has worked hard in the last few months to overcome a 2010 ending injury which required a good deal of off the bike work just to get him back onto two wheels.  Since then, the focus has been on getting him able to reach the finish line.  Obviously, the best sprint in the world makes no difference if the rider can not get to the finish line.  Perhaps this makes the final two minutes of Jed's race even more intriguing because his effort proved the best of two worlds: a superb sprint with lots of power but also a lack of sprinter "sharpness" as shown by some miscalculations which ultimately derailed an opportunity for a February win.

Let's start by looking at the final two minutes of the race:

Final two minutes. Yellow: power (dotted lines every 250W), Blue: Speed (dotted lines at 30 and 35mph).

The first thing to notice is the steep ramp of the power output. This is fairly indicative of a field sprint.  You can see how the power fluctuates erratically as Jed battles and maneuvers to maintain his position.  But where things get interesting is the last 560 meters. 

The numbers of the last 2 minutes are fairly impressive in and of themselves but they are even more so when you examine them more closely in the context of the sprint.  For all you numbers folks: 

2min.

Work complete: 57kJ

Average Power: 482W

Average Speed: 31.2mph.

And the numbers of the last 35 seconds....

Final 35 seconds: 

Work Completed: 31kJ

Power (min, max, avg): 0, 1384, 910 W

Speed (min, max, avg): 30.8, 37.6, 34.8 mph.

Final 35sec: Yellow: power (dotted lines every 250W), Blue: Speed (dotted lines at 30 and 35mph).

In the last few seconds of the race, Jed describes the sprint from his vantage point:

"I found myself at 550m or so and was way too far back so I had to make a move to get into position."  This is the initial acceleration from 30-34 mph that does not show here.  From there Jed was looking for a place in line to punch in, grab a quick 'rest' and sprint.  However, right as he was beginning to get settled a fateful series of events ended his chances of victory.

"Just as the winner was jumping, I had to stop pedaling, juice my brakes, and maneuver around in search of daylight to sprint."  This can be seen as the power curve nose-dives, along with a 4mph decrease in speed (12%).  But more importantly was that all of his relative forward momentum was gone and all the energy invested thus far to make that move happened had to be reinvested in order to hold even.  And hold even he did. 

"In the end, it was the top 3 of us, all frozen in place but all sprinting as hard as we could while not gaining on each other." Jed comes back with an incredible ~1400W effort after 3 previous 1000W efforts in the last 20 seconds.  This effort not only gets him up to speed fast but re-accelerates him beyond his 34.8mph to 37.6mph. That in and of itself is an amazing feat and not something that most bike racers are even capable of producing!

Jed finished 3rd in this race.  However, the things he learned will pay dividends forever.  Also, the sprint data provides some superb insight to what a sprinter of his caliber is capable of.

Keeping the Early Season Productive

Faced with abnormally high snow falls, shorter days, or wicked cold temps, keeping motivation to train is a mixture of art, motivation, and the ability to fool yourself in to thinking that you’re having fun.   So, how is this facilitated by the coach?  A bulk of this comes down to the athlete and their goals.  Individuals who peak for cross season are going to have different goals and structure than an individual who is looking to be flying in March and April.  Athletes with goals later in the year have the luxury of incorporating more cross training into their schedule.  Keeping in mind the training principal of specificity, activities that benefit cycling can be incorporated and still allow a change of pace.  Aerobic exercises such as cross country skiing are a great supplement to the schedule and allow athletes to still get to train outdoors.  Depending on the schedule we can start weaning from cross training to more bike oriented time in the spring.  Or, if there’s enough snow and the athlete wants another rig hanging in the garage, the snow bike is also an option.  This is similar to a mountain bike, but modified with extremely fat tires.  They provide great training opportunities if you can find an open area to ride.  Public places that allow cross country skiing in large open areas, such as local golf courses or a farm that turns in to a winter Nordic center, can offer a trail system for you to follow.  

 

But what if you don’t live in areas with snow or only want to ride?  The health club can have the answer. While some athletes may laugh at the thought of spin classes, they can be a great training tool. They don’t provide a great deal of overload and add a little “slop” to the periodization model since they are all over the place with intensity.  But, they prevent fitness loss due to detraining, and can provide stimulation for some positive physiological changes.  Plus, based on each athlete’s motivation and schedule, we have to consider what is the lesser of two evils —having greater control over the training and adding an increased risk to mental fatigue and burnout from strict trainer time and rides in bad weather, or sacrifice some of the workout quality a couple days of the week with possible increased focus on goal workouts.

Then, there are those who really need true saddle time on their own bike.  This could be due to daily schedules that are more conducive to solo training, personal preference, or the fact that the athlete’s goals for the season have key workouts during these winter and spring months. Often these individuals are relegated to “pretend riding” in the basement or garage.  The key to these training sessions is providing enough stimulation to avoid boredom.  Some individuals may not have a problem with this as a set of headphones and a power meter are something they enjoy.  The act of putting up the assigned wattage and the drive to see certain numbers provides enough stimulation.  Videos and other tricks are always good fallbacks.  But as a coach, the overall layout of the workout can have an effect.  If a peak is near, the athlete is doing hard and short intervals as part of a typical build.  These efforts are great for the trainer since it is a very controlled environment compared to the road, and the frequent changes in intensity provide variety.  With the short nature of intense workouts, athletes who aren’t close to a peak may also get these intervals.  But wait, doesn’t that go against periodization?  Yes, it does.  Often these intervals are not implemented during certain phases of an athlete’s build.  But, with the benefit of initial rapid progress, extra recovery needed between workouts, and a decrease in overall volume during these training phases, a period of high intensity can help break up the trainer suffer-fests.

Even with the all the benefits a hard VO2 type block can provide on the trainer, in many cases it’s not ideal. Care must be taken to ensure that the intense workouts are challenging and within the realm of reason.  In the winter athletes usually can’t put up the same numbers compared to when the workouts were assigned in-season.  Often these early spring months require higher volumes at a lower intensity.  So, the goal is to find other ways to add variety.  As a result, lower intensity intervals will cycle through work and rest periods much more rapidly than during the summer months.  Rather than 10 minute intervals with 3 minutes rest, trainer sessions may have 3 or 4 minute efforts with 1 minute rest.  Or over/under sets are also prescribed.  They provide short periods at varying intensities.  With a brief decrease in intensity, large amounts of work  

In the end, each workout needs to have a particular goal. Often athletes peaking in the spring and early summer are in critical stages of their build where workouts that are not stressing a particular system are essentially a waste of time.  For others, however, the focus of a period may be keeping most of the fitness and making it to the warmer months.  Short term and long term goals as well the variety of resources can make for a wide variety of training programs.
- John Hobbs, Senior Consultant

Did the ITT Results at Cross Nationals Act as a Valid Call Up Method?

By now, most of us are home and the CX Nationals hangover is in full effect.  All the, "what ifs, could haves, and if onlys" have been recounted way too many times and, as we all return to the real world, or even the off-season, some lingering complaints and questions remain about the 2010 championship event.

Complaints at events of this caliber are typically equal in quantity to excuses but a few things are obvious.  First and foremost, every single one of the winners earned every thread of that stars and stripes jersey.  Congratulations to everyone!  Second is that the crowd was definitely something that American CX racing has yet to see.  Hopefully, Tom Schuler can keep that momentum rolling and Madison January 2012 will be even an even bigger spectacle to behold.

A consistent complaint that was heard throughout the week involved the Cyclocross ITT, the result from which dictated call up order for the national championship race although the ITT was on a different day, with different weather conditions.  Also, the ITT was run on a completely different course, which means different surface properties.  The possibility of different physical demands and handling skill sets affecting the outcome of the race loomed.

We looked at the new call up method and even called upon some statistical expertise with the hope of being able to answer a question that everyone asked at some point over the weekend: Did the ITT results at cross nationals act as a valid call up method?

In statistical terms, "is there a significant correlation between the time trial performance and race performance?"

In order to examine this question, only results from racers who completed both events could be looked at.  We accomplished this using voodoo magic and something called casewise deletion of missing data.  This removed the first row of call ups from the equation.  Also, it got rid of everyone that did not start the ITT as well as anyone who did not finish the championship race.  Remember that we're only looking at the validity of the ITT as a call up method.  If the ITT and the race aren't completed, then a necessary piece of data is missing in order to be considered.

Next we applied this analysis only to the races with more than 25 athletes completing both competitions.  The larger sample size leads to more precision in the calculation and thus better quality of information.

Results:  After using some spreadsheet ninja skills to work some super sweet math skills that a guy named Pearson discovered back in late 1800's we were able to come up with some results. First, all the races that we applied the above standards to showed significant and strong correlations.  The "p-value" of less than 0.05 is widely accepted in academic literature as a significant finding and the p  < 0.01 is even better. 

Men
Single speed: r = .85   p <  0.05
                                   
13-14: r = 0.91           p <  0.01 for all other races
15-16: r = 0.81
17-18: r = 0.90
30-34: r = 0.90             
35-39: r = 0.87
40-44: r = 0.87
45-49: r = 0.90
50-54: r = 0.80

Women
30-34: r = 0.66
40-44: r = 0.88

What does this mean?
Athletes that perform well in the ITT, are also performing well in the race when compared to other athletes who completed both events.

Ultimately it could be said that the different ITT day, weather, surface conditions and course difference did not matter.


Why does this happen?
Simply put, cyclocross is a combination of fitness and bike handling.  Those athletes that are superbly proficient in both of those general traits will excel in the sport and outperform those athletes who are not as proficient in both, or lack one trait all together. 

Wrapping up, answer the questions we posed earlier: Yes, the ITT has been shown to be a valid call up method and yes, ITT results and race performance are strongly correlated.

Of course, a control is needed for starting position in ITT performance. This could address the issue that start position could affect race performance.

And finally, don't forget the number one rule of statistics, correlation does not imply causation.

Special thanks goes out to Alyson D Abel, MS and her mad crazy spreadsheet ninja skills.