No evidence of the effect of cognitive load on self-paced cycling performance

Abstract

Objectives: to test the hypothesis that cognitive load (low vs. high load) during a 20 min self-paced cycling exercise affects physical performance.Design: A pre-registered (https://osf.io/qept5/), randomized, within-subject design experiment.Methods: 28 trained and experienced male cyclists completed a 20 min self-paced cycling time-trial exercise in two separate sessions, corresponding to two working memory load conditions: 1-back or 2-back. We measured power output, heart rate, RPE and mental fatigue.Results: Bayes analyses revealed extreme evidence for the 2-back task being more demanding than the 1-back task, both in terms of accuracy (BF10 = 4490) and reaction time (BF =1316). The data only showed anecdotal evidence for the alternative hypothesis for the power output (BF10= 1.52), moderate evidence for the null hypothesis for the heart rate (BF10 = 0.172), anecdotal evidence for RPE (BF10 = 0.72) and anecdotal evidence for mental fatigue (BF10 = 0.588).Conclusions: Our data seem to challenge the idea that self-paced exercise is regulated by top-down processing, given that we did not show clear evidence of exercise impairment (at the physical, physiological and subjective levels) in the high cognitive load condition task with respect to the low working memory load condition. The involvement of top-down processing in self-pacing the physical effort, however, cannot be totally discarded. Factors like the duration of the physical and cognitive tasks, the potential influence of dual-tasking, and the participants’ level of expertise, should be taken into account in future attempts to investigate the role of top-down processing in self-pace exercise

The availability of task-specific feedback does not affect 20 km time trial cycling performance or test-retest reliability in trained cyclists

“…However, when HR responses were expressed relative to participants' maximal HR, these betweencondition differences were not observed. In further support that the higher HR response was explained by participants' maximal HR, Holgado et al 32 showed that an increased cognitive load during a 20 min self-paced cycling task had no impact on HR. Further, it is unlikely that trained cyclists 3,4 , who regularly interpret task-specific feedback during normal training activities (Table 1), would find the feedback provided in the current study cognitively challenging.…”

Effects of Acacia Honey Drink after Exercise-Induced Dehydration on Selected Physiological Parameters and Subsequent Running Performance

“…The participants were then required to perform a 20 min self-paced running time trial (Run-2), where the longest distance covered in 20 min was used to indicate endurance running performance. Other studies have also used self-paced time trial to determine exercise performance (Bradbury et al 2019;Holgado et al 2019;McGawley 2017;Ping et al 2018). The speed of running during the time trial was self-paced by the participants via a speed controller.…”

Agency Improves Working Memory and Accelerates Visual and Attentional Processing

“…There are no current reports about self-initiation modulation on the P200 component; however, earlier P200 latency correlates with better performance in WM tasks 34 . As for motor actions modulating WM, self-initiation has been explored 35,36 , but it has never been directly compared to passive conditions. There is, instead, behavioral evidence stating that task-unrelated voluntary motor acts worsen WM outcome 37 , suggesting that motor sequence execution shares cognitive resources with WM.…”