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Exercise physiology

Looking At Lance Through A Physiological Lens (press release)

Wednesday, June 29, 2005
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: exercise physiology, health news, Natural News


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Catch an athlete with clear potential early in his career, study his physiology over an incredibly eventful seven years including victory in the Tour de France, and you might uncover some incredibly important, indeed amazing facts about what training and dedication can accomplish.

What Edward F. Coyle of the University of Texas-Austin found out about Lance Armstrong was that from 1992-1999, the year of his first of now six consecutive Tour de France wins, “the characteristic that improved most (was) an 8% improvement in muscular efficiency and thus power production when cycling at a given maximal oxygen uptake.” Combining the increased muscular efficiency with a planned 7% reduction in body weight and fat leading up to each Tour de France race, “contributed equally to a remarkable 18% improvement in his steady-state power per kilogram” output, the Coyle paper reported.

The study, “Improved muscular efficiency displayed as ‘Tour de France’ champion matures,” appears in the June issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society. The research was conducted by Edward F. Coyle, Human Performance Laboratory, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, University of Texas at Austin.

*[Another study also appearing in the June issue of JAP reports on a different cycling approach: “Six sessions of sprint interval training increases muscle oxidative potential and cycle endurance capacity in humans,” by Kirsten A. Burgomaster and Martin J. Gibala, et al., of McMaster University, Canada. See brief report after the Coyle-Armstrong study.]

“Amazing, quantified changes that get more guys off his wheel”

An independent physiologist familiar with the study commented: “This study shows that long term training has a lot bigger effects than we thought. They followed Armstrong – a well-known hard trainer – and the changes in his efficiency over seven years are really quite amazing. We wouldn’t be surprised if some major physiological changes happened, but here’s a real quantified example.”

He added: “Generally there are two ways to improve efficiency: Train your maximum capacity to be very high, or train your sub-maximal capacity to be very efficient. In Armstrong’s case, he did both. In the lab they measured his performance against standard oxygen consumption and by the end of the study he was much more efficient utilizing the same amount of oxygen. But on the road,” he pointed out, “it means he can go faster and get more guys off his wheel.”

Effect of cancer, therapy nil

The period that started when Armstrong was 21 and just turning professional and ending at age 28 with his first TdF victory, also included his cancer diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy and recovery. About eight months after chemotherapy ceased (August 1997), Armstrong was tested in Coyle’s laboratory in the same manner as in his other four visits. The results showed that he “displayed no ill-effects from his previous surgeries and chemotherapy” and were in line with measurements expected from highly trained athletes during periods of detraining, Coyle added later.

The study notes that these findings could be “important because it provides insight, although limited, regarding the recovery of ‘performance physiology’ after successful treatment for advanced cancer.”

Muscular efficiency through possible fiber change: making it look easy

Coyle concedes in the study that the “physiological mechanisms responsible for the 8% improvements in (muscle) efficiency when cycling, as well as the stimuli that provided this adaptation, are unclear. The observation that both gross and delta efficiency improved to the same extent and also with the same time course suggests an improved efficiency of ATP turnover within muscle fibers during contraction.” (ATP, or adenosine triphosphate, is a nucleotide present that serves as an energy source for many metabolic processes.)

“One possible mechanism for increased efficiency is that (Armstrong) increased his percentage of type I muscle fibers, (indeed) we predict that he might have increased his percentage of type I muscle fibers from 60% to 80%,” the report said. “Interestingly, this magnitude of increase…is remarkably similar to our predictions made in 1991 based on cross-sectional observations of competitive cyclists.”

This change in muscle type may account for the apparent ease with which Armstrong seems to be pedaling, albeit at a high cycling cadence.

Whereas the lab tests were held constant at 85 revolutions per minute (rpm) for comparison purposes, Armstrong’s “freely chosen cycling cadence during time trial races of 30- to 60-minute duration increased progressively during this y-year period from about 85-95 rpm to about 105-110 rpm. This increase in freely chosen rpm when cycling at high intensity is indeed consistent with increase in type I muscle fibers because cyclists with a higher percentage of type I fibers choose a higher pedaling cadence when exercising at high power outputs,” the report said. “Although this may initially seem paradoxical, higher cycling cadence serves to both bring muscle fiber contraction velocity closer to that of maximum power and reduce the muscle and pedaling force required for each cycling stroke,” it noted.

As body matures, it gets “smarter”

Coyle said increased muscle efficiency means that “for the same amount of cardiovascular and lung stress Armstrong is producing 8% more power, and yet producing less heat. These results have shown us how to improve already highly trained athletes by aiming at efficiency, which is a muscle phenomenon. But it’s also nice to know,” he added, “that as you get older that your body becomes wiser in how it does its job and less wasteful in energy usage.”

Coyle added later: “There’s no doubt that Armstrong started with a strong genetic makeup, but he maximized his abilities and got where his is through dedication and hard training.”


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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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