Mechanisms of performance improvements due to a leading teammate during uphill cycling

What is it about?

Abstract Purpose: This study aimed to identify the impact of a leading teammate in front of a cyclist on psychological, physiological, biomechanical and performance parameters during an uphill maximal effort. Methods: After familiarisation, twelve well-trained competitive cyclists completed two uphill time-trials (UTTs, 2.7 km at 7.4 %) in randomised order: one performed alone (control condition), and one following a simulated teammate during the entire UTT (leader condition). Performance (UTT time) and mean Ppower Ooutput (PO) were recorded for each UTT. For physiological parameters, mean heart rate and post-exercise blood lactate concentration were recorded. Psychological parameters (rating of perceived exertion, pleasure and attentional focus) were collected at the end of each trial. Results: Performance (UTT time) significantly improved by 4.2 ± 3.1% in the leader condition, mainly due to drafting decrease of the aerodynamic drag (58% of total performance gains) and higher end-spurt (+9.1 ± 9.1% of mean PO in the last 10% of the UTT). However, heart rate and post-exercise blood lactate concentration were not significantly different between conditions. From a psychological aspect, higher pleasure was observed in leader condition (+41.1 ± 51.7%), but attentional focus was not significantly different. Conclusions: The presence of a leading teammate during uphill cycling had a strong impact on performance, allowing higher speed for the same mean PO and greater end-spurt. These results explain why the best teams competing for the general classification of the most prestigious and contested races like the Grand Tours tends to always protect their leader with teammates during decisive ascents. Keywords: Power output, Rating of Perceived Exertion, Attentional focus, Aerodynamic drag, Pacing strategy, Climber.

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Why is it important?

Practical applications Uphill cycling performance can be improved thanks to the presence of a leading teammate. These results extend knowledge about competitive cycling performance and explain why the best teams always now deploy teammates to protect their leader during climbs in the most prestigious and contested races such as Grand Tours. As the first study to analyse the impact of a leading teammate on uphill cycling performance, this work has several limitations. Most importantly, the participants of this study were non-professional cyclists, and were not used to benefiting from this kind of strategy. It can be expected that Grand Tour champions, who are more used to following a teammate’s tempo, have specific psychological or pacing capacities that can help them to increase their performance more significantly in this condition. It would be interesting for future studies to analyse the impact of teammate presence on performance in that specific population.