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Physiological correlates to in-race paratriathlon cycling performance

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journal contribution
posted on 2020-01-14, 12:06 authored by Ben Stephenson, Alexandra L. Shill, John Lenton, Vicky Goosey-TolfreyVicky Goosey-Tolfrey
The purpose was to determine the physiological correlates to cycling performance within a competitive paratriathlon. Five wheelchair user and ten ambulant paratriathletes undertook laboratory-based testing to determine their: peak rate of oxygen uptake; blood lactate- and ventilatory-derived physiological thresholds; and, their maximal aerobic power. These variables were subsequently expressed in absolute (l∙min −1 or W), relative (ml∙kg−1∙min −1 or W∙kg −1) and scaled relative (or ml∙kg − 0.82 ∙min −1, ml∙kg − 0.32 ∙min −1 or W∙kg −0.32) terms. All athletes undertook a paratriathlon race with 20 km cycle. Pearson’s correlation test and linear regression analyses were produced between laboratory-derived variables and cycle performance to generate correlation coefficients (r), standard error of estimates and 95% confidence intervals. For wheelchair users, performance was most strongly correlated to relative aerobic lactate threshold (W∙kg −1) (r=−0.99; confidence intervals: −0.99 to −0.99; standard error of estimate=22 s). For ambulant paratriathletes, the greatest correlation was with maximal aerobic power (W∙kg −0.32) (r=−0.91; −0.99 to −0.69; standard error of estimate=88 s). Race-category-specificity exits regarding physiological correlates to cycling performance in a paratriathlon race with further differences between optimal scaling factors between paratriathletes. This suggests aerobic lactate threshold and maximal aerobic power are the pertinent variables to infer cycling performance for wheelchair users and ambulant paratriathletes, respectively.

Funding

British Triathlon Federation

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

International Journal of Sports Medicine

Volume

41

Issue

8

Pages

539 - 544

Publisher

Thieme Publishing

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© Georg Thieme Verlag

Publisher statement

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal International Journal of Sports Medicine and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1055/a-1103-2001.

Acceptance date

2020-01-12

Publication date

2020-04-14

Copyright date

2020

ISSN

0172-4622

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Vicky Tolfrey. Deposit date: 13 January 2020

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