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http://deportes.elpais.com/deportes/2012/08/16/actualidad/1345140099_731003.html
http://deportes.elpais.com/deportes/2012/08/16/actualidad/1345140099_731003.html
Impressive data.Starting the Tour from which part of Pamplona, tomorrow, and the way it does, with a team time, inevitably remind Miguel Indurain (Villava, close to Pamplona, July 16, 1964), the best cyclist in history in Spain. Over the encascados, profiled aerodynamic sets the Estafeta, a question also inevitably arise: What role would the Indurain today, 48 years and over 90 kilos, with less kilometer bike leg in its active period, and more than 15 in the first stage of the Spanish ronde 2012?
It would not be so much a melancholy-rhetorical question to answer open to the imagination, as a real question with a real and studied response.[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]"More than 14 years after his retirement, Indurain absolute values are higher than those of many young riders currently in the peloton," says Iñigo Mujika, a physiologist who submitted Indurain in 2010 to a complete stress test whose results against those of a study when his hour record 1994, just published in the[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE].[SIZE=10.5pt][/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]"The aim of the study was to check the decline in physical ability of a great champion and compare it to other published cases. [/SIZE]And although this decline has been between 12% and 20% per decade decline than in other published studies with other athletes, which is estimated at 10%, and have trained more after leaving the professionalism, Indurain absolute values are still higher than those of active cyclists. "
[SIZE=10.5pt]Their values are so high, could be added, allowing confirm years later than those who [/SIZE]had in his splendor , between 1991 and 1995, when he won five times the Tour and amazed the world, were those of an authentic phenomenon of nature, of someone with a unique genetic. "An almost unique case, as were Anquetil, Hinault or Bahamontes" says Pedro Celaya, physiologist who has worked with Armstrong; "a phenomenon".
[SIZE=10.5pt]When Sabino Padilla, his physiologist at Banesto, and Mujika subjected him to a thorough study to gauge their chances of breaking the record of the time in the velodrome of Bordeaux in the summer of 1994 (he succeeded: 53.040 kilometers), Indurain had 30, measured 1.88 meters, weighed 81 kilos and ... 24,000 kilometers in the legs that season (he had just won his fourth Tour and had also raced the Giro). [/SIZE]Then their maximum oxygen consumption (the parameter that indicates the physical capacity of a person, which marks the limit of its performance) was very high, 79 milliliters per kilo and minute; Maximum production was 572 watts (7.1 kilo) and lactate threshold (time from which it can not sustain the effort for more than a minute) was 505 (6.23 per kilo). Her heart at that time, the threshold, beating 183 beats per minute.
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[SIZE=10.5pt]Following the light of the calculations made in the record allowed Padilla and Mujika establish that the watts needed to produce Indurain to travel 53.040 kilometers in one hour were 510. Many experts, comparing with other recordmen as Merckx (380) Rominger (456) and Boardman (462), then raised their eyebrows, skeptical, leaving aside the power to weight ratio harmed Indurain (6.29 watts / kilo) vs. Rominger (7 watts / kilo) or Boardman (6 7 watts / kilo). [/SIZE]The best riders of today in their ascents studied in big turns, throw watts of this caliber: 6.73 watts / kilo meter in the mean time of Verbier, when he won the 2009 Tour;6.33 Cobo Angliru in 2011; 6.16 Froome and Menchov the same day: 6.29 Wiggins in last year's Tour; 6.36 Sastre at Vesuvius ...
[SIZE=10.5pt]The data of the stress test carried out in 2010 by Mujika serve to ratify, however, the incredible natural potential Indurain. [/SIZE]When subjected to the study, she weighed 92.2 kilos, was 46 years old and had just cycled this year, and discontinuously, about 8,000 kilometers. Nevertheless, maximum oxygen consumption was 57.4 milliliters per kilo and per minute; its maximum watts, 450, and the threshold of 369 (4 watts / kilo), and with a heart beating at 170 beats per minute.
[SIZE=10.5pt]"These are values that are now in cyclists, who have in their favor with the youth," says Celaya; [/SIZE]"However, today Indurain could not stand around, even losing weight, it plays against old age, an irreversible process that affects their ability to hormone production, muscle quality, the quality of the receiving ... In short, negatively affects their resilience, the basic parameter of cycling. "
