Power output and maximal oxygen consumption

Is the physiology of cycling really that complicated? To hard for us mere mortals to comprehend? Better left to scientist in their ivory white tower to come up with what is best for us athletes?! A middle approach here is best. Physiologist in their white tower haven't caught up to where elite endurance athletes have reached through experience. However, there are some things that we can learn about the body that a physiologist knows that can ground the experiential evidence of cyclist. In some cases even providing an illumined understanding of why some things elite cyclist or athletes do works.  By providing understanding, it would be the hope that you could then communicate these principals to a wider audience or group of athletes lessening their learning curve on the quest to become elite athletes. 

With that being said, anyone who knows anything about exercise physiology know about maximal oxygen consumption(V02). This measures the bodies ability to consume or intake oxygen.  Is this really the best measure of a persons ability to ride a bike at a certain power output?  Physiologists know that power at lactate threshold as a percentage of V02 maximum is a better measure of performance then V02 max itself.  Both these values can be measured in the lab by putting on a mask to measure gas fluctuations and also to prick the finger and measure lactate values.  Are these really the gold standards to measure athletic endurance performance or even measuring the limiting factors in endurance performance?   The power meter data collected from athletes show that there is a strong positive correlation between V02 max and power output. Instead of cycling power output increasing with a increase in V02 max IT IS VERY POSSIBLE THAT AS POWER OUTPUT GETS HIGHER VO2 MAX GETS HIGHER TO MEET THE NEW DEMANDS FOR OXYGEN CONSUMPTION.

If this is the case then V02 max should not be considered a limiting  factor in power output, but rather a predictive measure of a certain power output. According to Andy Coggan the correlation between the two can be predicted by the following equation: VO2 (L/min) = 0.0108 x power (W) + 0.007 x body mass (kg). So if maximal oxygen consumption is predictive not limiting factor how would you train to become faster on the bike?  The old adage holds true " to get faster you must go faster" . To truly understand this, you must understand how an organism adapts and becomes better through stress to the biological organism.  Now with this firmly held in mind it should become apparent that the muscular system plays a large role in endurance performance.  An analogy here would be that of the a car and its fuel system.  You can only give a car so much fuel before you have to figure out how to better utilize that fuel to have a more efficient car. Same applies to the human organism. You can only consume so much oxygen before you will need to figure out some way to utilize that oxygen efficiently.  You get the idea. The muscles have a range of fiber types that range from slow twitch to fast twitch. Fibers that produce a lot of power but fatigue quickly or fibers that fatigue slowly and are not able to produce as much power.  In order to go faster the muscle fibers must increase their resistance to fatigue. How does this training paradigm effect your training? check back next week for more information.