Never stop pedaling: you are stronger than you think

For this year, we closed the column devoted to scientific research, edited by Mapei Sport with good news: even when we feel tired, our bodies still have a reserve of energy to draw from …

Do you feel powerless? Alternatively, you may still have some energy to release…

To say this is a study titled The Essential Exercise Stopper: Muscular Strain, Muscular Pain or Effort Perception? Published in 2018 on progress in brain research and conducted by experts from the Olgiate Olona (Varese) Research Center together with scientists from the Department of Biomedicine and Neurokinetic Sciences of the University of Bologna and Physical Education and Sport of the University of Valencia (Spain), Faculty of Sport and Exercise of the University of Kent ( UK) and the Personal Health Division of Philips Research in Eindhoven (Netherlands).

Study: energy reserve

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The ability to sustain high-intensity aerobic exercise is essential for endurance performance, so it is important to understand what the time-consuming factor (TTE) is in healthy, fit adults. Walter Staiano, Andrea Bosio, Hilma MD Mori, Ermanno Rampinini, and Samuel Marcora wondered whether discontinuation of high-intensity exercise was caused by muscle fatigue, muscle pain, or increased perception of exertion.

Subjects were tested on a cycle tachometer during a high-intensity static load test and pushed to the maximum effort possible. The results show that when the athlete voluntarily stops pedaling (the theoretical moment of maximum fatigue) in reality, he still has a fairly high exercise capacity. From a physiological point of view, at the moment of exhaustion, the athlete is still able to generate a force approximately twice that of the exhaustion. So it has been empirically proven that when you stop during intense exertion, it is not the lack of force to push the pedals so hard or the feeling of pain in the muscles involved in the pedal that prevents the exercise from continuing. The main causes of interruption or intensity reduction during a high-intensity effort are related to the perception of stress and its clarification through the psychobiological model. As Professor Aldo Sassi, founder of the Mabe Sports Research Center, reiterated, “No matter who wins the race, others do the fatigue test.”

The trick is to use the body’s spare energy

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It applies to all sports. When you’re “at your full power,” try to adopt the five-second rule proclaimed by Alex Zanardi: “When you realize in a race you’ve given everything, absolutely everything, wait another five seconds, because that’s where other people are. They don’t do it more » .