Abstract
Objectives
Competitive endurance athletes commonly undertake periods of overload training in the weeks prior to major competitions. This investigation examined the effects of two seven-day high-intensity overload training regimes (HIT) on performance and physiological characteristics of competitive cyclists.
Design
The study was a matched groups, controlled trial.
Methods
Twenty-eight male cyclists (mean ± SD, Age: 33±10 years, Mass 74±7 kg, VO2 peak 4.7±0.5 L·min−1) were assigned to a control group or one of two training groups for seven consecutive days of HIT. Before and after training cyclists completed an ergometer based incremental exercise test and a 20-km time-trial. The HIT sessions were ∼120 minutes in duration and consisted of matched volumes of 5, 10 and 20 second (short) or 15, 30 and 45 second (long) maximal intensity efforts.
Results
Both the short and long HIT regimes led to significant (p0.05) increases (mean ± SD) in VO2 peak (2.3%±4.7% vs 3.5%±6.2%), lactate threshold power (3.6%±3.5% vs 2.9%±5.3%) and gross efficiency (3.2%±2.4% vs 5.1%±3.9%) with only small differences between HIT regimes.
Conclusions
Seven days of overload HIT induces substantial enhancements in time-trial performance despite non-significant increases in physiological measures with competitive cyclists.
Citation: Clark B, Costa VP, O'Brien BJ, Guglielmo LG, Paton CD (2014) Effects of a Seven Day Overload-Period of High-Intensity Training on Performance and Physiology of Competitive Cyclists. PLoS ONE 9(12):
e115308.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115308
Editor: German E. Gonzalez, University of Buenos Aires, Faculty of Medicine. Cardiovascular Pathophysiology Institute, Argentina
Received: March 10, 2014; Accepted: November 20, 2014; Published: December 18, 2014
Copyright: © 2014 Clark et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. in supporting information file.
Funding: Dr. Costa would like to acknowledge and thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the travel scholarship which enabled his participation in this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Description
The study shows significant performance gains from high-intensity training in competitive cyclists.