 Is there an optimal pedaling cadence for riding a bike and does doing either low or high cadence training have any positive impact on performance cadence? Opinions on this training metric are all over the map. Some people think that we should be pedaling faster. Some people think that we should be pedaling slower. Some people think that we should train by pedaling faster or slower. And some people just look at whoever just won the Tour de France and try to do what they did, which some years is pedal fast and some years is pedal slow. And then there are people that think that none of this matters and all this time spent thinking about cadence would be better spent just riding your damn bike. Literally my exact thoughts anytime I watch one of your videos. Today, I'm going to attempt to get to the bottom of this cadence question. This is a topic that I've covered before on this channel, but it comes up so frequently that I feel like it's in need of a refresher and it never hurts to look back over the research. So let's start with the first question. Is there an optimal cadence for cycling performance? Fortunately, there is a fair bit of research on this topic. It just seems to come to a wide variety of different conclusions. For example, take this study on the effect of altering cadence on time trial performance in a five mile time trial subjects rode at their preferred cadence and then 10% above and 10% below their preferred cadence. Interestingly enough, it was actually the low cadence that produced the fastest times and was the most economical. This is probably a bit of an unexpected result. I can't count the number of times I've heard somebody say spin to win. And yet I don't think I've ever heard somebody say grind to win. Just doesn't have the same ring to it. That being said, the supposed low cadence that these subjects were riding at was 83 RPM, which is actually a pretty average cadence. On top of that, there was a lot of individual variability in the results with only 58% of subjects actually getting their fastest time with low cadence. Shoot, 17% of the subjects actually got their fastest time with the high cadence. So telling these riders to use a low cadence during a race or when they're trying to perform their best would seem like a mistake. And as I said, the confusion doesn't stop at this one study. The results from cadence research is kind of all over the place. We do have studies to show that a higher cadence is preferable as well as research showing that cadence doesn't really make much of a difference. I do think that the high individual variability in preferred cadence is important to keep in mind here. We all know riders that spin away at 110 RPM like it's nothing and then riders that slog around at 60 RPM. And while that may be painful to look at, telling either one of these riders to change what they're doing would at the very least take a lot of mental energy on their part. There may be some physiological reason for this difference in preferred cadence between people. For example, you may have heard that riding at a higher cadence taxes your cardiovascular system more and there's certainly evidence that suggests that this is the case. This study found that oxygen uptake, heart rate, stroke volume, cardiac output and blood pressure were increased with a higher cadence and vascular resistance was decreased. This seems to be caused by a more effective skeletal muscle pump which increased muscle blood flow and venous return at that higher cadence. This could explain some of that variation. Some people have more developed cardiovascular systems and hence they may prefer that higher cadence. There's also evidence suggesting that pros tend to prefer a higher cadence which would seem to support this notion although even they will change their cadence based on the terrain that they're riding. For example, this study showed that pros choose a significantly lower cadence on the climbs than on the flats. This is another potential confounding variable. If you have a way of measuring cadence on your bike, I'm sure you've noticed that your cadence tends to be lower when you're climbing and research confirms this to be the case. This is true of the terrain and it's also true of how hard you're riding. There's evidence to indicate that the higher the power output, the higher a rider's cadence tends to be. This may be the reason why pros tend towards a higher cadence. They put out more power and hence a higher cadence is required. This gets us into a chicken and egg type conundrum which came first. The higher cadence which caused the higher power output or the other way around. The pro is able to ride at a higher power output which requires a higher cadence. Looking to this review article on optimal cadence, they state that the optimal cadence moves rightward with increasing power to the point where experienced cyclists may exhibit higher cadences simply because inexperienced cyclists are unable to operate. Basically riding at a higher power output caused pros to ride at a higher cadence, not the other way around. So when somebody says you need to spin in order to ride fast, well this suggests that it's actually the opposite you need to ride fast in order to spin. Well, let's just hope that durian rider doesn't watch this video. I mean, will you look at these disc brakes absolutely atrocious? There's also some question around muscle fiber type and whether or not that has any effect on one's preferred cadence. This article explains that the reduction in force at a higher cadence favors slow twitch fibers. However, as contraction velocity increases, slow twitch units become inefficient as they move beyond their optimum contraction rate while fast switch units become increasingly efficient at high cadences. This essentially means that slow twitch fibers like the fact that less force is required at a higher cadence but they don't like actually moving that fast which kind of muddies the waters around this whole notion that if you're a slow twitch rider then you prefer this and if you're a fast twitch rider you prefer that. There's also a lot of people that make the assumption that a higher cadence is more efficient and that this is reason enough to strive to ride at a higher cadence but the research doesn't seem to support this either. For example, this study testing a wide range of cadences from 50 to 110 rpm as well as preferred cadence using both experienced cyclists and non-cyclists found that cadence did not have an effect on efficiency which stayed pretty constant at 24% regardless of cycling experience or fitness level. However, I should also note that riding at a lower cadence has been shown to eat up more glycogen because of the higher force requirements. So that was a lot of information. Maybe some of it was useful, maybe some of it wasn't but what is the ultimate conclusion here to this optimal cadence question before we move on to the question of training at different cadences. Going back to this article they conclude by saying that a single optimal cadence for all cyclists does not exist or indeed a single optimal cadence for an individual cyclist. Rather the cadence at which perceived exertion is minimized would seem to reflect the optimal trade-off between the most metabolically efficient cadence and the most mechanically efficient cadence. This cadence is not a constant and will change depending on among other factors workload, training adaptations, environment, and terrain. Certainly we could always use more research and who knows future studies could prove this to be untrue but in my mind that paragraph perfectly encapsulates where the literature is at on this optimal cadence question. Essentially the answer is don't overthink it. Well looks like you're screwed bro. The cadence that is the most comfortable for you is likely the cadence that will produce the best performance if for no other reason than that you don't have to waste mental energy trying to pedal at a rate that doesn't feel natural to you. And it's been shown that cyclists tend to naturally choose the theoretical optimum or energetically optimize cadence anyway. This preferred cadence will change based on the terrain that you're riding, how hard you're riding, and how fatigued you are. But none of that should matter. You shouldn't be overly concerned with what cadence you're riding at, you should just ride at a cadence that feels good for you. Alright now that we've covered optimal cadence let's talk about training. Is doing low or high cadence drills or intervals in training helpful for improving performance? Cadence drills are a fairly common prescription from cycling coaches and I'm going to be honest I think a lot of that is just because of tradition. It's a my coach prescribed me cadence drills when I was racing so now I'm going to prescribe them to my athletes type situation. Hmm well I never had a coach but if the fastest guy in the group ride tells me that he does something then it might as well be chiseled in stone because it's gospel now. There are countless more examples of this in cycling that I won't get into here but maybe a topic for a future video. That being said some traditions have a good reason for why they've stood the test of time and some don't. Where do cadence drills lie on that spectrum? Well it does appear that if we're comparing low cadence interval training to high cadence interval training then low cadence is probably more effective. In this study they had subjects do four weeks of training at either low or high cadences and the low cadence group saw a greater increase in testosterone and power output on the bike as well leading to the conclusion that low cadence training is probably more effective than high cadence training. This is not the only study coming to this conclusion and the reason is likely due to changes in testosterone and neuromuscular adaptations. Looking at the research you really struggle to find evidence that high cadence training is effective and whenever low cadence training and high cadence training are compared low cadence comes out on top. Now this is all well and good but I don't really care whether low cadence is better than high cadence I care whether low cadence is better than doing no cadence training at all. Fortunately we have studies that investigate that as well. This study tackling this very question had well trained cyclists do low cadence training or training at their freely chosen cadence for 12 weeks. Shockingly it was the freely chosen cadence group that saw improvements in performance while the low cadence group did not. This systematic review on the topic states that there is no clear evidence for training at a low cadence and that some studies even show a superior effect to training with one's freely chosen cadence. This may be a surprising conclusion to come to as I've said low cadence training is fairly common and some very high profile riders are reported to use it. If we go back to the purported benefits of low cadence training like increased testosterone and neuromuscular adaptations they sound a lot like the benefits of weight training and we don't have a lot of research comparing weight training to low cadence training but we do have some data that we can draw some tentative conclusions from. In this study for example cyclists were split into a weight training group and a isochinetic bicycle training group that trained by performing max sprints at low cadence on top of their normal training. What they found was that while both groups improved their max power at low cadences at a higher cadence of 120 rpm which is the cadence that most cyclists would want to sprint at the group that did the low cadence sprinting saw no improvement while the strength training group did. They also measured knee extension torque and found an improvement only in the weight training group so it turns out that actual strength training is better for improving actual strength not that surprising but perhaps what is surprising is the fact that strength training is also better for improving high cadence sprinting. Subjects in the weight training group also increased their power output in a 30 minute endurance test by 22 watts while the low cadence group increased it by just 14 watts. This was not enough to reach statistical significance but what it does suggest is that low cadence interval training is not better for cyclists than weight training by any means. The authors even go as far as to state that using high power isochinetic cycling training at a lower cadence can impair stroke efficiency and thereby reduce the increase in maximum power output during pedaling at a higher cadence. Now I don't think we have enough evidence to say that low cadence training is harmful to performance but the evidence that it's helpful or even the same as weight training just isn't there either. The forces are just so much higher when doing a set of heavy squats or deadlifts and it's really hard to emulate that on the bike. And let's not forget weight training has a ton of research to back up its effectiveness. Low cadence training? Eh, not so much. I do think that some of these studies that are showing some sort of benefit to low cadence training are picking up on the fact that doing low cadence work is probably better than doing absolutely no strength work whatsoever. However when I look at the research on weight training and the research on low cadence the answer seems pretty clear. Don't half-ass your strength work by attempting to do it on the bike. You should be going to the gym for that. Yeah but what if I actually carry a spare tube with me? Does that count? I mean come on that's a lot of extra weight. That being said I would like to see more research on low cadence training specifically just because it's not the best way to improve strength doesn't mean it doesn't have any benefits at all. Until that research comes out though I don't see a strong reason for including it in your training. Thanks for watching. If you want to step up your training then I have links to online training plans and coaching down in the description below. If you enjoyed this video be sure to give it a like, subscribe, and share this video with your cycling friends. I'll see you in the next one.