Category Archives: Comments about Cycling

Dehydration Isn’t So Bad in Athletics

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I’ve written a few posts about how the “Gatorade Effect” is engrained in all athlete’s brains.  I’ve heard Paul Sherwin say, while commentating, that a cyclist loses crazy power, up to 5% power for every 1% of body weight lose.  I knew that number was just plain wrong.

I don’t drink much.  Never have.  Lots of times it on purpose.  Losing water weight is losing weight.  It doesn’t matter whether it is fat or water, one pound is one pound.

Now there is a study, although a small one (just 11 guys), that shows that losing up to 3% body weight doesn’t affect athletic performance at all. Nothing.  Here is a link to the abstract.

The study was using 11 riders and they hooked up IV bags to the riders.  Some of the bags were real and kept the riders hydrated and others were fake, not rehydrating the riders at all.  They did this for psychological purposes.

They found out that there was no difference of power production with weight lose due to dehydration.  That goes against everything we’ve been taught the last 30 years.

I’ve done my own experiments and have never had any positive results over hydrating.  One year at the Professional Road Nationals in Philadelphia, we were staying in a nice hotel, right off the course.  The hotel had a scale in the bathroom.  I weighed myself right before leaving the room for the 160 mile road race.  I was 158 lbs.  It was super hot, in the 90’s and the same for the humidity.

I took bottles each lap, which was 10 miles and at the end, the last 10 miles of the race were the fastest of the day.  I felt great at the end, easily riding over 30 mph in the field.  So, I could produce normal power.  I did okay, don’t remember exactly, but was feeling super after 6 hours.

I’m sure I drank some cold bottles after, maybe a beer or two.  When I got back to the hotel room, I was 13 lbs light.  I weighed 145 lbs.  That is over a gallon and a half of water weight.  And I was riding fine at the end.  According to Paul Sherwin, I shouldn’t have been able to produce any wattage at all.

The same happened during MTB races.  When the USOC was trying to figure out the right cut off number for hematocrit, they came to MTB races and did a lot of testing.  Most of the riders were losing about 6-8 pounds of weight in a 2 1/2 hour MTB race.  And we could all produce power at the end.

Marathon runners don’t drink much either while running.  When they are grabbing those little Dixie cups, they aren’t getting much liquid into their bodies.  Actually, a study of marathon runners in France in 2009 showed that athletes who lost a higher percentage of body weight through dehydration ran faster than those that lost less.

I’d like to see more studies like this.  I go by the practice when you’re thirsty, drink.  This is how all the rest of the animals on the planet do it.  Not sure why it would be any different for us.

Hyper-hydration-water-630x420

 

Better Tell the Truth in When it’s all on TV

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A couple days ago in the Giro, Simon Clarke, from Orica/Greenedge, threw up his arms at the finish.  He didn’t win the race, he won the field sprint for 2nd.  Afterward, he tells the interviewer that he knew he was 2nd, but so excited about taking over the race lead, thus the Pink jersey, that he couldn’t control himself and celebrated.

But, he was fibbing.  At least I think he was.  If you watch the video below, you’ll notice that after the line, the Movistar rider, I think Giovanni Visconti, motions to Simon that there is a guy up the road and Simon grasps his helmet with his hands.  In this case, a picture is worth a 1000 words.

Simon should know by now, that the whole thing was live, on the internet, TV, etc., worldwide. You don’t get to say that you knew you didn’t win when your actions showed you didn’t.  And, really, is it that big of a deal?

I’ll answer that, it really isn’t much of a big deal.  I’ve never done it before, but I pay pretty close attention who is up the road and what place I’m racing for.  But, there are a lot of things going on during the Giro and maybe it is easy to get confused about whether the peloton is together?

Seems like with race radios, he would have known a rider was away, but maybe he pulls his earpiece out at the end.  Sometimes having something in you ear can throw off your balance a little, which would be pretty bad in a chaotic sprint.  Plus, who wants someone talking in your ear when you’re trying to negotiate a field  sprint at the Giro?

It is embarrassing, but just because you did an embarrassing thing, doesn’t mean you should lie about making the mistake in the first place.  It is somewhat understandable losing track of one single rider in a stage of a Grand Tour, but it really isn’t understandable trying to fabricate a story.

If Simon learns one thing here, it is better to just fess up and take the ridicule up front.  It really isn’t worth lying about, especially when it’s out there for the whole cycling world to see.