7. DURABILITY: THE FOURTH DIMENSION OF ENDURANCE PERFORMANCE

Photo by Rob Wingate on Unsplash

‘Yes, he is a good rider, but after 200 kms he fades away. He needs to level-up to finish on the podium in the most important classics’.

How many times did we hear journalists, sport directors, coaches and TV commentators speaking in this terms about a cyclist?

Among the olympics sports, road cycling is the one with the longest competition duration. The longest road cycling races (Sanremo, Flanders, Roubaix, Liegi, Lombardia, World Championships, …) last approximately 6 hours.

Traditionally, the physiological factors determining endurance performance are three:

1. VO2max, that is the maximum amount of oxygen that the body can use per minute.

2. Power at thresholds (like power at the first and second threshold, FTP, critical power)

3. Economy/efficiency of the movement

While these variable are usually measured at rested state, they are not stable but decrease over time during exercise. (1)

The ability to decrease as less as possible physiological parameters and performance over time has been defined ‘durability’, ‘fatigue resistance’ or ‘fatigue resilience’.

Is durability related to VO2max and power at thresholds measured at rested state or is it an independent (and so additional) dimension determining road cycling performance?

A study published by a Spanish research group lead by Pedro Valenzuela on International Journal of Sport Physiology and Performance in 2022 (2) tried to answer this question.

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WHAT DID THEY DO?

• They recruited 12 professional male road cyclist (mean VO2max: ~83.0) from a Professional Team (Caja-Rural).