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Comprehension:(Que No. 1 - 8) Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. Some words are highlighted. Pay close attention to those words.
Among a group of some of the greatest distance runners in history, none of the standard physiological measurements—VO2 max, lactate threshold, running economy—produced any seriously eye-popping values. To understand why these runners were so good, the researchers suggested, we might need another variable: fatigue resistance, which they defined as “the extent of the deterioration of the other three variables over time.” Interestingly, that same new variable pops up in a new analysis of power data from pro cyclists. An international research team led by Peter Leo, a doctoral student at the University of Innsbruck, and James Spragg, a British cycling coach, crunched the numbers from a group of elite and near-elite professional cyclists in a five-day race called the Tour of the Alps. The best predictor of race performance, competitive level, and event speciality wasn’t the raw power or heart-rate data—it was, once again, fatigue resistance.
The subjects in the new study, which was published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, came from three European cycling teams: Tirol KTM, Bora Hansgrohe, and Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec. The 14 participants from Tirol KTM were all under-23 riders competing in the developmental Continental tier of cycling competition; the ten participants from the other two teams were pros.
The power profile can tell you lots of useful things about your strengths and weaknesses as a rider. If you’re really good at sustaining sky-high power output for five-second bursts, that bodes well for your ability to win sprint finishes and cover sudden mid-race moves. If your 30-minute power is unusually good, that suggests you might be a climber or a time trialist. Overall, the power profiles turned out to predict almost perfectly what order the riders finished in and how far behind the leaders they were.
As you’d expect, the max powers are highest for the short bursts and lowest for the longer durations. For the pros, the lines are mostly bunched together on top of each other. That means that even if they’ve been riding fairly hard for a few hours, they can still surge for a minute or two almost as quickly as they could when fresh. It’s only at the highest level of fatigue, after 3,000 kilojoules of work, that their sprint performance starts to drop off noticeably. In contrast, the power profiles for the U23 riders are much more spread out. Even after just 1,500 kilojoules of work, their ability to sustain high-intensity efforts is noticeably impaired. In other words, it’s fatigue resistance that differentiates pros from U23s.
Among a group of some of the greatest distance runners in history, none of the standard physiological measurements—VO2 max, lactate threshold, running economy—produced any seriously eye-popping values. To understand why these runners were so good, the researchers suggested, we might need another variable: fatigue resistance, which they defined as “the extent of the deterioration of the other three variables over time.” Interestingly, that same new variable pops up in a new analysis of power data from pro cyclists. An international research team led by Peter Leo, a doctoral student at the University of Innsbruck, and James Spragg, a British cycling coach, crunched the numbers from a group of elite and near-elite professional cyclists in a five-day race called the Tour of the Alps. The best predictor of race performance, competitive level, and event speciality wasn’t the raw power or heart-rate data—it was, once again, fatigue resistance.
The subjects in the new study, which was published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, came from three European cycling teams: Tirol KTM, Bora Hansgrohe, and Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec. The 14 participants from Tirol KTM were all under-23 riders competing in the developmental Continental tier of cycling competition; the ten participants from the other two teams were pros.
The power profile can tell you lots of useful things about your strengths and weaknesses as a rider. If you’re really good at sustaining sky-high power output for five-second bursts, that bodes well for your ability to win sprint finishes and cover sudden mid-race moves. If your 30-minute power is unusually good, that suggests you might be a climber or a time trialist. Overall, the power profiles turned out to predict almost perfectly what order the riders finished in and how far behind the leaders they were.
As you’d expect, the max powers are highest for the short bursts and lowest for the longer durations. For the pros, the lines are mostly bunched together on top of each other. That means that even if they’ve been riding fairly hard for a few hours, they can still surge for a minute or two almost as quickly as they could when fresh. It’s only at the highest level of fatigue, after 3,000 kilojoules of work, that their sprint performance starts to drop off noticeably. In contrast, the power profiles for the U23 riders are much more spread out. Even after just 1,500 kilojoules of work, their ability to sustain high-intensity efforts is noticeably impaired. In other words, it’s fatigue resistance that differentiates pros from U23s.
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