Originally Posted by
ofajen
Formenti has two papers on tissue saturation, that one from 2019 and an earlier one in 2015. He shows that your muscles tend to have less oxygen saturation at say 90 rpm versus 40 or 50 rpm. One takeaway from these papers is don’t pedal fast at lower work rates, because you are just making things harder for your body to maintain oxygenation.
I had seen that paper referenced in some articles about cadence, but I don’t have the full paper, and the abstract says nothing about maximum external power. Do you have a link to the full paper?
Here’s one that actually is measuring the power-cadence function, basically in a time trial context.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/159149503.pdf
See figure 4 for the modeled and measured Pmax as a function of cadence. This test is measuring maximum external power at a specified cadence.
I also like that other paper you mention, the one with the link. They compare riding a simulated three hour road race at two constant cadences, 80 and 100 rpm, it with variable load and then testing the subjects’ peak power after the ordeal.
The riders used 5-6% more energy doing the three hour ride at 100 vs 80. After the 80 rpm session they produced nearly 10% more peak power than after the 100 rpm session. But peak power was measured at their chosen cadence, which tended to be around 90 rpm.
Different protocols and different results. Mostly, I’m not riding at peak power and if at some point I’m riding at a cadence that affords 5-10% less peak power, I can still do my rides quite effectively.
Otto
Interesting study, thanks for sharing it. Taking capillary blood isn't the easiest to get accurate results. I used to do a lot of blood lactate testing with the main objective of moving my 2 mmol L-1 level up higher and higher in power. I would take three samples for each power and discard any anomalies, my testing done on a trainer. The study used 3, 3.5, and 4.0 mmol L-1 levels, which is getting well into Tempo as a start point. 2.0 mmol L-1 is generally about the AT or maybe just into lactate accumulation. It would have been nice to see 2, 3, and 4 used. I tested from 1.5 to 5.5 and it merely confirmed that I prefer lower cadence at lower power and higher cadence at higher power. If I could use 10% less energy to make the same power, it is less I would have to eat, so, my focus was a bit different and not as rigorous but I am confident in my results.