In this episode I speak to Prof Gerry McCann who is a heart specialist with a subspecialist interest in MRI scanning; he conducts experimental research in people to better understand heart disease and clinical trials to assess the optimal investigation strategies and treatments for patients with, or at risk of developing, heart disease.

Professor McCann is the Cardiovascular theme lead for NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, the immediate past-chair of the British Society of Cardiovascular MRI research group, lead of the PhOSP-COVID cardiovascular working group and East Midlands Cardiovascular Clinical Research network.

Gerry and I actually studied together at Glasgow University and in this interview we discuss atrial fibrillation, or AF as it is known, as it relates to cyclists. There is some evidence that high volumes of endurance training like cycling may be a contributory factor the the development of atrial fibrillation therefore we discuss exactly what it is, what are the specific risks and potential treatments.

Ron Maughan obtained his BSc (Physiology) and PhD from the University of Aberdeen, and was based in the Medical School there for almost 25 years before moving to England. He is now semi-retired but is still a Visiting Professor in the School of Medicine at St Andrews University. He spent much of his career trying to understand the physiological and metabolic responses to exercise and the nature of fatigue, but has included many digressions along the way. He chairs the Nutrition Working Group of the Medical and Scientific Commission of the International Olympic Committee. He is a director of the IOC Diploma programs in Sports Nutrition, Sports Medicine, and Sports Physical Therapies. He organised the IOC Consensus Conferences on Nutrition in Sport in 2003 and 2010, the FIFA/F-MARC Consensus Conferences on Nutrition in Football in 2005 and 2011, and the IAAF Consensus Conference on Nutrition in Athletics in 2007. More recently, he organised the 2017 IOC Consensus conference on Dietary Supplements in Elite Sport. He has published extensively in the scientific literature and is author or editor of a number of books on sports nutrition and exercise biochemistry. Not only that he has inspired, educated and supported a large number of sport scientists throughout their career, myself included. In this episode we discuss a number of the core themes in sports nutrition and debunk a few myths. In particular we talk about one of his more recent publications. The 'IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete'. In particular to emphasise on of the key findings that "Supplements claiming to directly or indirectly enhance performance are typically the largest group of products marketed to athletes, but only a few (including caffeine, creatine, specific buffering agents and nitrate) have good evidence of benefits."

In this episode I explore the topic of ageing and cycling, an area that I have researched extensively myself. But in this episode I interview Ray Maranette who has established a Facebook group called the Academy of Octogenerian Cyclists that can now boast after only a short time in existence, over 1.1k members across the globe. While this interview is a departure from my usual interviews of research scientists it is a very good reminder that cycling has a huge amount to offer all of regardless of our age. The fact that The Academy of Octogenarian Cyclists has very quickly grown a strong membership from a wide range of backgrounds from the pure leisure cyclist to ex professional riders I suppose gives testament to the fact that regular cycling can help you stay fit healthy and intellectually alert into later life.

In recent years there has been a significant interest in using nitrate supplements to enhance athletic performance with sports nutrition companies producing beetroot and cherry supplements to try and increase our nitrate intake.

In this interview with Dr Mia Burleigh I discuss why nitrate  supplementation might be good for cycling performance and then go on to discuss her work which also looks at the health benefits of nitrate supplementation and why this may be particularly important for the oral health of athletes who would regularly consume large volumes of carbohydrate drinks during exercise.

• David Smith is a remarkable athlete and individual who from a young age had an overwhelming desire to be an elite athlete and compete at the Olympics. Things did not start well as he was born with club feet which required an operation, requiring him to have to learn to walk again. Not really the start of a promising career as an elite athlete or Olympian. Not only that he would go on to have to endure medical misdiagnoses, followed by tumours, blood clots, strokes and paralysis, a life of agonising pain and multiple further life threatening operations.
• Despite all of this David's story is one or remarkable determination and resilience which has resulted in a career as an elite athlete and a successful one at that as a 2x World Champion and London 2012 Gold medalist. These success coming as a member of the Rowing Paralympic team in the legs, trunks and arms adaptive mixed coxed four.
• To summarise he has to date had to endure 6 operations on the tumour in his neck and has come close to not surviving those operations on several occasions. On each occasion he has had to learn to walk again. After his 5th operation he is now significantly paralysed down his left side but this still does not stop him riding his bike. Yes having dabbled in several sports, winning Olympic Gold he says that his true passion is cycling and he loves the freedom that the bike gives him.
• This interview covers his life story, all of the ups and downs to where he is now, training on his bike 14-16 hours a week trying to build up his strength with an eye to the UCI World Championships in Glasgow in 2023.

In this episode I had the great pleasure of chatting to someone who I have known for about 25 years and has had a profound influence of cycling over the last 30 years. Uli Schoberer is the inventor of the first power cranks and founder of SRM. Since then SRM cranks have been considered the gold standard of power measurement and thus have been seen at world championships and in the pro-peleton for the last 25 years transforming our understanding of cycling performance. In the interview Uli gives as great historical account of the development of SRM right up to the most recent product the X-power pedals, SPD mountain bike pedals - the first mountain bike pedals to the market. Another first for SRM.

In this episode I chat to Daniel Cain who is putting his university degree to good use in inventing a brand new aero wheel platform (AIR). As a keen racer he recognised the limitations and cost of existing wheels on the market and came up with the concept of a base rim with interchangeable aero attachments to give you the full range of 50, 70mm and full disc options. The discussion with Daniel goes into detail on the aerodynamic characteristics of deep section rims and the special modelling software that he has developed to design his different covers. More details can be found at (www.streamlinecycling.co.uk) with pre-ordering opening soon.

In a slight departure from our normal format we are introducing a new technical innovation series  where we will bring interviews from  different inventors of technical innovation in cycling. On the Cycling Science Podcast we do not do simple endorsements or marketing of new cycling products products and we only interview people if they are doing something really innovative, breaking the mould or bringing something that is first to market. 

First we have Shokbox (www.shokbox.co.uk) invented by Martin Greene, this is a very interesting story where Martin recognised from personal experience that many of the bike boxes on the market had significant flaws and decided to do something about it. Martin tells us about the thought process that went into designing his new bike box by improving on all of the key important features that can be problematic in packing and transporting your bike in a bike box. 

For each of the new Technical Episodes I will post a longer article on the website www.cycling-science.com if you would like a bit more detail.

In this episode I look at the science behind the design of interval training in an interview with Arthur Bossi who is in the final stages of his PhD, that dreaded 'writing-up'. We specifically discuss one of his papers (details below) from his PhD which has just been published. Interval training is very widely used in all training programmes yet our scientific understanding is actually somewhat limited. Of course there are lots of coaches that swear by their own versions of training programmes however much of that is on gut feeling rather than based on any solid scientific research. Therefore this paper from Arthur is particularly important in that it gives a bit of a greater understanding of the physiological responses to a specific design of interval. Of course what it does not tell us is the longer term adaptation but at least we understand the physiological demand.

International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance

Optimizing Interval Training Through Power-Output Variation Within the Work Intervals
Arthur H. Bossi, Cristian Mesquida, Louis Passfield, Bent R. Rønnestadand James G. Hopker

https://t.co/AcyiawOFCI?amp=1