Influence of pacing strategy on O₂ uptake and exercise tolerance

Abstract

Seven male subjects completed cycle exercise bouts to the limit of tolerance on three occasions: (1) at a constant work rate (340+/-57 W; even-pace strategy; ES); (2) at a work rate that was initially 10% lower than that in the ES trial but which then increased with time such that it was 10% above that in the ES trial after 120 s of exercise (slow-start strategy; SS); and, (3) at a work rate that was initially 10% higher than that in the ES trial but which then decreased with time such that it was 10% below that in the ES trial after 120 s of exercise (fast-start strategy; FS). The expected time to exhaustion predicted from the pre-established power-time relationship was 120 s in all three conditions. However, the time to exhaustion was significantly greater (P<0.05) for the FS (174+/-56 s) compared with the ES (128+/-21 s) and SS (128+/-30 s) conditions. In the FS condition, (.)VO2 increased more rapidly toward its peak such that the total O2 consumed in the first 120 s of exercise was greater (ES: 5.15+/-0.78; SS: 5.07+/-0.83; FS: 5.36+/-0.84 L; P<0.05 for FS vs ES and SS). These results suggest that a fast-start pacing strategy might enhance exercise tolerance by increasing the oxidative contribution to energy turnover and hence "sparing" some of the finite anaerobic capacity across the transition to high-intensity exercise.

Effects of magnitude and frequency of variations in external power output on simulated cycling time-trial performance

“…While the aim of the present study was not to examine the effects of different starting strategies, inclusion of acceleration in the model necessitates defining a starting strategy for the variable-power trials. The adopted pacing strategy of starting with the positive (relative to baseline) power variation ("fast-start") was based on previously optimised simulations (de Koning, Bobbert, & Foster, 1999;van Ingen Schenau, de Koning, & de Groot, 1992) and self-adopted strategies (Atkinson & Brunskill, 2000;Foster et al, 2004b;Thomas, Stone, Thompson, St Clair Gibson, & Ansley, 2012); such an approach reduces the time spent at low speeds, (Hettinga, De Koning, Broersen, Van Geffen, & Foster, 2006) and maximally activates the metabolic machinery of oxidative metabolism (Jones, Wilkerson, Vanhatalo, & Burnley, 2008).…”

Relação entre a cinética do consumo de oxigênio e a estratégia de corrida em uma prova de 10km

“…Similarly, other studies (1,9,10) observed that the O 2 increases more rapidly in the beginning of the test at the fast exit condition when compared to the even pacing. When comparing the O 2 response in running events with different durations, Duffield et al (10) observed that the faster exit velocity would be related to lower τ values.…”

“…These findings confimr the hypothesis that a faster exit would be directly related to the O 2 temporal response. Additionally, some authors (9,10) suggest that this fast exit may favor performance both in high-intensity and short duration activities (9) and in middle-distance events (10) . Among the main factors which affect the O 2 kinetics, we highlight the training status (7,11,12) .…”

Comparing bioenergetic models for the optimisation of pacing strategy in road cycling

“…However, for the M-M model, it is also beneficial to generate a high power output at an early stage to decrease the level in , to increase the flow through , ultimately increasing the aerobic contribution to power output. There is empirical evidence showing that the time to reach is inversely related to exercise intensity [35,36]. In this way, a fast start leads to a higher average power output, which is, of course, beneficial to performance.…”