Cycling Science Podcast Richard Davison

In this episode I speak to Prof Gerry McCann who is a heart specialist with a subspecialist interest in MRI scanning; he conducts experimental research in people to better understand heart disease and clinical trials to assess the optimal investigation strategies and treatments for patients with, or at risk of developing, heart disease.

Professor McCann is the Cardiovascular theme lead for NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, the immediate past-chair of the British Society of Cardiovascular MRI research group, lead of the PhOSP-COVID cardiovascular working group and East Midlands Cardiovascular Clinical Research network.

Gerry and I actually studied together at Glasgow University and in this interview we discuss atrial fibrillation, or AF as it is known, as it relates to cyclists. There is some evidence that high volumes of endurance training like cycling may be a contributory factor the the development of atrial fibrillation therefore we discuss exactly what it is, what are the specific risks and potential treatments.

Ron Maughan obtained his BSc (Physiology) and PhD from the University of Aberdeen, and was based in the Medical School there for almost 25 years before moving to England. He is now semi-retired but is still a Visiting Professor in the School of Medicine at St Andrews University. He spent much of his career trying to understand the physiological and metabolic responses to exercise and the nature of fatigue, but has included many digressions along the way. He chairs the Nutrition Working Group of the Medical and Scientific Commission of the International Olympic Committee. He is a director of the IOC Diploma programs in Sports Nutrition, Sports Medicine, and Sports Physical Therapies. He organised the IOC Consensus Conferences on Nutrition in Sport in 2003 and 2010, the FIFA/F-MARC Consensus Conferences on Nutrition in Football in 2005 and 2011, and the IAAF Consensus Conference on Nutrition in Athletics in 2007. More recently, he organised the 2017 IOC Consensus conference on Dietary Supplements in Elite Sport. He has published extensively in the scientific literature and is author or editor of a number of books on sports nutrition and exercise biochemistry. Not only that he has inspired, educated and supported a large number of sport scientists throughout their career, myself included. In this episode we discuss a number of the core themes in sports nutrition and debunk a few myths. In particular we talk about one of his more recent publications. The 'IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete'. In particular to emphasise on of the key findings that "Supplements claiming to directly or indirectly enhance performance are typically the largest group of products marketed to athletes, but only a few (including caffeine, creatine, specific buffering agents and nitrate) have good evidence of benefits."

In this episode I explore the topic of ageing and cycling, an area that I have researched extensively myself. But in this episode I interview Ray Maranette who has established a Facebook group called the Academy of Octogenerian Cyclists that can now boast after only a short time in existence, over 1.1k members across the globe. While this interview is a departure from my usual interviews of research scientists it is a very good reminder that cycling has a huge amount to offer all of regardless of our age. The fact that The Academy of Octogenarian Cyclists has very quickly grown a strong membership from a wide range of backgrounds from the pure leisure cyclist to ex professional riders I suppose gives testament to the fact that regular cycling can help you stay fit healthy and intellectually alert into later life.

In this episode I interview Dr Nicki Winfield Almquist who is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. We discuss one of his publications 'The Effect of 30-Second Sprints During Prolonged Exercise on Gross Efficiency, Electromyography, and Pedaling Technique in Elite Cyclists' published in the [[International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance]]. https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijspp/15/4/article-p562.xml. This paper is one of the studies in his PhD and thus our discussion does expand to include some of his other work. 

In my interview with Chris Fennell we discuss the importance of optimising aerodynamic position for successful time-trial performance. Air resistance is the major resistive force for cyclists on level ground accounting for up to 96% of a rider's power output. Over the past few years the time-trial positions have become more extreme in the quest to reduce that all important drag factor (CdA). Reduction of CdA is most easily achieved by lowering the front of the rider to reduce the frontal surface area. While with it is possible to significantly reduce CdA this comes at a cost in terms of ability to produce and sustain power output. In addition we also know that time-trial intensity exercise reduces cycling efficiency and thus the focus of Chris's research was to look at these two factors in combination. So what happens to cycling performance during a 20 minute time-trial at 3 different torso angles 0 degrees, 12 degrees and 24 degrees relative to horizontal. In addition what happened to cycling gross efficiency over the 20 minutes in the three torso angles.
https://www.jsc-journal.com/index.php/JSC/article/view/607

In recent years there has been a significant interest in using nitrate supplements to enhance athletic performance with sports nutrition companies producing beetroot and cherry supplements to try and increase our nitrate intake.

In this interview with Dr Mia Burleigh I discuss why nitrate  supplementation might be good for cycling performance and then go on to discuss her work which also looks at the health benefits of nitrate supplementation and why this may be particularly important for the oral health of athletes who would regularly consume large volumes of carbohydrate drinks during exercise.