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Serious improvement
Serious Cycling: Edmund Burke. Second Edition. Human Kinetics, 2002. 290
pages paperback, £16-99. ISBN 0-7360-4129-X
This is a serious improvement on the first edition. For a start it's bigger:
the pages are an inch bigger all round, there are more of them, and there are
three more chapters. The line drawings of the original (which were good) are
replaced by good photographs, of stretching, weights, position on the bike and
so on.
But that's not all. The book has received a radical makeover, with much new
material, and the updating of older stuff. In the original the physiology came
in a lump at the beginning; now it's dispersed relative to that activity which
most affects it.
The training schedules are now much more realistic. In the old version senior
women were down for a surely unachievable 5400 racing miles (Burke has always
preferred miles to hours). This has been replaced by a reasonable 2600. The
schedule for senior men is cut from 20,000 to what I actually used to do as an
amateur, around 14000 miles a year.
Nutrition now occupies two chapters, one on preparation, training and racing,
the other on recovery. Burke's approach is the 'traditional' one (though, of
course, it's only been traditional for about 20 years) of 60% CHO, 25% fat and
15% protein. There's little evidence that more fat and less carbohydrate help
athletes, who should maintain high levels of glycogen.
There is a proper emphasis on hydration, about five pages; notes on minerals,
especially iron, and trace elements like selenium; a couple of pages of advice
for vegetarians; and a recommendation of the modified carbo-loading regime
which avoids the depletion phase. A shorter section on recovery eating also
emphasises fluid replacement and glycogen restoration.
A new chapter on performance enhancing substances starts with a step-by-step
guide to evaluating the extravagant claims often made for them. Do they help
or are they just snake oil? Despite his own warning (which is completely
justified) Burke then goes happily on to recommend D-ribose, glutamine, HMB (a
metabolite of an amino acid), glycerol to improve hydration, medium-chain
triglycerides (MCTs), glucosamine, and even the very dubious Lcarnitine.
There's little or no evidence that any of these expensive food substitutes
confer any performance improvement. Burke's endorsement will probably increase
sales, but at least it's harmless.
But his warning that athletes should 'use androstenedione cautiously' (as
opposed to 'don't touch it with a barge-pole') reads like an endorsement of a
drug with harmful side-effects which is banned by the UCI and IOC. Did he
really mean to say that? His description of the dangers of EPO (six lines) is
vitiated by his account of its advantages (17 lines) and the news that we're
about to get it in oral form. Presumably he doesn't want to appear judgmental.
Why not? You ought to be against it.
Verdict: a lot of good stuff, especially on general training, and accessible
both to coach and athlete, but don't 'explore performance enhancers'.
Ramin Minovi
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