I have been reading a few books about sports science. This is the second book I read that makes this point. We are the first generation in the history of mankind to be able to enjoy high athletic performance late in life. It is important to mention and to be celebrated. This book is excellent as I think many beliefs need to be debunked as people are not always familiar with the latest science. The midlife cyclist by Phil Cavell (published in 2021) brings this into light.
The author is a bike-fit pioneer who did scientific research for his book while also speaking from his personal experience as a mature cyclist.
The bad news: we lose muscle fibres as we get older and can’t grow new ones. We lose the Type II ‘fast-twitch’ power muscles more than our endurance-based Type I muscle fibre. The average 80 year-old male uses 100% of their muscular strength to stand up from a chair. It is not encouraging for those thinking about getting back into exercising. Many people face incredible challenges. He reminds us that increasing the amount of cycling positively changes us at the cellular level.
He has 3 strategies to maintain a high athletic performance: don’t get fat, keep training levels high and keep going. He recommends one hour per day.
To those who fear frail bones he mentions that bones respond positively to loads and stress by increasing their mineral content by pulling in calcium content from the diet and bloodstream, provided of course that there’s enough available.
For the seasoned athlete, he mentions that they should drop one or two bike sessions for structured resistance training.
For those fearing dementia, he mentions that aerobic exercises are more effective than any currently approved medication in forestalling Alzheimer’s disease. Aerobic exercise is an antidepressant.
I learned that cycling reduces the risk of some malignancies (cancer).
The effect of aerobic exercise on the cardiovascular system is well known but he brings interesting information. Regular exercise reduces the risks of myocardial infarction by 50%. He mentions that female veteran athletes are reassuringly dull when it comes to adverse heart issues. Female athletes, unlike male, showed consistently low coronary calcium scores and a low incidence of plaques. In contrast, the male athletes had significantly higher coronary calcium scores. For men, cycling is positive up to 100 km per week. Coronary calcification increases quite steeply as you cycle into and beyond 150 km per week. All the way to 100 km per week, there’s no debate that the changes are hugely positive. Speaking from personal experience though, if high-level cycling into the middle-age is dangerous, why are we not dying in big numbers? He sees a paradox. More research is needed. The crucial point is that athletes tend to live longer, in greater physical and mental health than inactive folk.
He reminds us of the strongest indicator of risk that cardiologists use: blood pressure. Get your blood pressure checked regularly.
Middle-aged women and men can become well-conditioned athletes in just one year.
He discusses in detail different bike materials and different bikes. Steel, aluminium, titanium or carbon? It’s funny that he says we could probably justify each one of them depending on the weather, event or even our mood! Road bikes are classic. Aero-bikes are for speed. Cyclo-cross bike for mud. Gravel bike for all-round greatness and versatility. The track bike has no break and can ride in circles at max speed. Triathlon bike to ride against the clock. Mountain bikes are one of his favourite ways to ride a bike. The author comes from England. He does not discuss biking in the snow.
He mentions other interesting facts regarding food. Caffeine benefit performance. Optimal doses are 1-3 mg per kg of body weight, which correlates to only one cup of coffee. Alcohol has no health advantage at all. Alcohol impairs post-training recovery, compromises the immune system, decreases reaction time and impairs cognitive performance.
The midlife cyclist is excellent and a MUST read for those who choose cycling performance rather than “fade into infirmity”.