Heart Rate Response to Professional Road Cycling: The Tour de France

Abstract

The aim of the present investigation was to evaluate the heart rate response of 8 professional cyclists (26+/-3 yr; 68.9+/-5.2 kg; V02max: 74.0+/-5.8 ml x kg(-1) x min(-1)) during the 3-week Tour de France as an indicator of exercise intensity. Subjects wore a heart rate telemeter during 22 competition stages and recorded data were analysed using computer software. Two reference heart rates (corresponding to the first and second ventilatory thresholds or VT1 and VT2) were used to establish three levels of exercise intensity defined as phases I (<VT1), II (VT1 -VT2) and III (<VT2). The average total time spent by each subject in each of the 3 phases respectively was approximately 71, 23 and 8 h. The relative contributions of each phase were 70, 23 and 7%. The percentage relative contribution of each phase was significantly different (p<0.01) in each of the competition stages (time trials, flat stages, "high-mountain" stages and "medium-mountain" stages). Exercise intensity was particularly high during the time trials and high mountain stages. It may be concluded that during an endurance event such as the Tour de France, although the overall contribution of moderate (VT1 to VT2) or high intensity exercise (>VT2) is substantially lower than that of light, aerobic exercise (<VT1), a clear distinction must be made between the different type of stages (i.e. easy, flat parcours vs mountain stages or time trials) and the role of each cyclist in the team must be also considered.

Validity and reliability of the session RPE method for monitoring exercise training intensity

“…Our underlying assumptions in studies using the Session RPE method as the intensity component of monitoring training has been to use the Session RPE to replace objective measures of exercise intensity within the training impulse (TRIMP) approach originally developed by Fitz-Clarke et al 5 and Morton et al 18 and widely used by others. 6,7,12,14,15,21 The TRIMP approach is a very useful way of combining exercise intensity and duration into a single number representation of the stimulus for adaptation provided by any exercise bout, which has been limited by the absence of a simple method of expressing exercise intensity. During very prolonged exercise, the drift of Session RPE (or of HR) acts as a multiplier of exercise duration and suggests a much larger TRIMP than might have been calculated using the RPE or HR early during the exercise bout as a marker of exercise intensity.…”

Validation of an Instrument to Control and Monitor the Training Load in Basketball: The BATLOC Tool

“…The training loads completed during that period were determined by multiplying the session-RPE (CR10-scale) by session duration in minutes. These session-RPE values were correlated to the training load measures obtained from three different heart ratebased methods suggested by Banister et al [16], Edwards [14], and Lucia et al [25]. All individual correlations between the various heart rate-based training loads and session-RPE were statistically significant (r values from 0.50 to 0.85).…”

Maltodextrin's Effect on the Performance of Elite Mountain Biking Athletes During Simulated Competition and on Power Output at the Ventilatory Threshold

“…A substantial number of scientific papers have been published describing the relationship exercise intensity and the effects of various CHO supplements during road cycling [19][20][21][22][23][24][25], but there are few scientific papers focused on the effect of maltodextrin supplementation in pre-competition or laboratory testing nor how it modifies off-road cycling performance parameters. Recent studies have found that carbohydrate drinks (glucose, maltose and sucrose administrated at 0.65 g/kg before a performance test and then 0.2 g/kg every 15 min during every 1 h of testing), when compared to a placebo (maltodextrin in low doses), increased plasma glucose levels but did not enhance performance during the test (a 1 h test) after glycogen-depletion protocol initiated [26].…”