 Hey what's up everyone welcome to another video my name is Dylan and I'm a cycling coach at CTS and today we're going to be talking about cadence. Is there an optimal cadence that you should be riding at or is your freely chosen cadence best? What about for training? Will training at lower or higher cadences lead to more fitness gains? All that and more coming up. If you're new to this channel I make weekly training, racing and gear related videos going over tips and tricks that I've learned in my 12 years of training and racing experience and as a cycling coach at CTS. If you want to learn how to get faster or just more about the science of training in general then be sure to subscribe and if you have a training question or a topic you'd like to see me cover in a future video then be sure to leave it in the comments section down below. I do my best to get to all the questions in the comments. It's not uncommon for cyclists to try to manipulate their cadence to improve their performance and oftentimes this discussion is sparked by pros who have an abnormal cadence for example Lance Armstrong in the 2000s and today Chris Froome. It's easy to look at Chris Froome spinning his brains out, elbows flared and head pointed straight down at his stem and think man if I want to ride like Chris Froome I gotta get my cadence up. Also maybe losing enough weight to look like an alien wouldn't hurt. But while changing your cadence or manipulating your cadence and training actually lead to better performance. In this article on the effect of cadence on economy of uphill cycling they took nine experienced cyclists and had them perform three different tests up a 10% grade. In one they pedaled at 84 rpm in a sitting position and another they pedaled at 41 rpm in a standing position and in the last they pedaled at 41 rpm in a sitting position. They found a significantly lower heart rate VO2 and ventilation while sitting at a high cadence concluding that a high cadence is more economical. This confirms what many people believe which is that spinning at a high cadence is superior however somewhat surprisingly these results aren't typical. This study on the effect of cadence on time trial performance took 12 well-trained cyclists and had them perform a five mile time trial at their preferred cadence high cadence or low cadence. They found that the low cadence condition performed the best and that the difference was substantial over the high cadence condition. The literature is filled with these contradicting studies. It seems that for every study that shows a benefit to high cadence there's another one that shows a benefit to low cadence and then still there are some that show no difference at all between the two. This study on the effect of cadence on efficiency in cycling concluded that pedaling cadence did not have a dramatic effect on efficiency and there's also mixed evidence on the notion that pedaling at a higher cadence saves your legs. In this study on the effect of cycling cadence on knee extensors they took eight well-trained triathletes and had them perform three tests at their freely chosen cadence and then their freely chosen cadence plus 20% or minus 20% which ended up averaging to a cadence of 69, 86 and 103 for the three tests. What they found was that the muscular activation levels did decrease after the tests however it didn't matter what cadence the test was performed at. The decrease wasn't significantly different. So why isn't there any consensus here? Well part of it may be because there's huge individual variability in preferred cadence for example muscle fiber type may have an effect. You may have heard that predominantly slow twitch riders prefer pushing a big gear at a lower cadence or you may have heard the exact opposite that they prefer a higher cadence. Well the truth is even this isn't that simple. In this article on determinants of optimal cadence they stated that at higher cadences the reduction in force required to maintain a constant power favors the recruitment of slow twitch motor units. However as contraction velocity increases slow twitch units become inefficient as they move beyond their optimum contraction rate while fast twitch units become increasingly efficient at higher cadences. Basically slow twitch fibers like the lower force needed at a high cadence but they don't like actually moving that fast. This being said if you prefer a higher cadence it's more likely that you have more fast twitch fibers than someone who prefers a lower cadence. In this study on muscle fiber types effects on cadence they found that the energetically optimal cadence was found to be higher in a model with more fast twitch fibers than a model with more slow twitch fibers consistent with predictions from the experimental literature. If you're watching this video and thinking that I've made things a lot more complicated and cleared absolutely nothing up then you're right it's a complicated subject. However the answer to the question of what cadence should you ride at couldn't be more simple. The optimal cadence for you to ride at is whichever one you prefer to ride at and this isn't necessarily one number. Your preferred cadence changes with terrain climbing and how much power you're producing. In fact the reason you see pros choosing a higher cadence a lot of the time may simply be because they're producing more power. Going back to the article on determinants of optimal cadence they stated that it should be noted that while optimal cadence may not differ between experienced and inexperienced cyclists at low power outputs optimal cadence moves right words 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 caused them to ride at a higher cadence not riding at a higher cadence caused them to ride at a higher power. A review article on optimal cadence for cycling stated that relatively high pedal rates of 100 to 120 rpm improve sprint cycling performance since muscle force and neuromuscular fatigue are reduced however extremely high cadences increase the metabolic cost of cycling therefore prolonged cycling may benefit from a slightly reduced cadence of 90 to 100 rpm and further to this during ultra endurance cycling performance might be improved through the use of a relatively low cadence of 70 to 90 rpm since lower cadences have been shown to improve cycling economy and lower energy demands however it's important not to overthink this don't try to ride at a higher cadence during a one-minute effort and ride at a lower cadence during your endurance ride just ride at whatever cadence you prefer to ride at and is most comfortable for you back to the review article on optimal cadence they stated that it would appear then that a single optimal cadence for all cyclists does not exist or indeed a single optimal cadence for an individual cyclist 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 whatever cadence you prefer is your optimal cadence they've even done tests to show this in this study on energetically optimal cadence versus freely chosen cadence they concluded that results suggest that during prolonged exercise triathletes choose a cadence that is close to their energetically optimal cadence all right so no need to modify your cadence during a race or event to try to improve your performance but what about in training do high or low cadence intervals have any effect at all in this study on low versus high cadence on power output they took 18 cyclists and trained them for four weeks using intervals done at 60 rpm or 100 rpm and of course there was a control group what they found was that the high cadence group significantly improved their time trial performance on the flat while the low cadence group significantly improved their performance on both the flat and uphill time trial it makes sense that high cadence intervals might improve performance on the flat after all your cadence is higher when you're riding on the flats however it's interesting to note that low cadence intervals also increase performance on the flat as well as the climb from this study it might be concluded that manipulating cadence during training might be beneficial however further research on this is more mixed for example this study on low cadence interval training found no significant effects of the low cadence training on aerobic capacity cycling performance power output cadence gross efficiency or leg strength however training at one's freely chosen cadence did show improvement a systematic review on training at low cadence confirms this saying that selected studies indicate no clear performance enhancing effect of training at low cadences or even indicate superior effect from training at freely chosen cadences and the evidence for a benefit to high cadence training seems to be lacking as well for example in this study on low versus high cadence interval training the gains from high cadence intervals were even less than from low cadence intervals and further research confirms these findings so what can we conclude from all this well one thing's for sure more research needs to be done in the field of cadence and its effect on cycling performance some studies show that low cadence is better while others show that high cadence is better while still others show that your preferred cadence is your optimal cadence the reason for all this variation could very well be because there's a lot of variation amongst us in what cadences we prefer some of us are naturally grinders and some of us are naturally spinners and based on the small sample sizes from these studies it's very likely that they could skew one way or the other based on whether or not they happen to pick a group that naturally preferred a high or low cadence there also isn't even one optimal cadence for each individual person your cadence changes based on the terrain whether or not you're climbing or on the flat and probably most importantly how hard you're pushing the harder you work at those higher power outputs the higher your cadence will be as far as training at different cadences there may be slightly more evidence to suggest that training at a lower cadence is beneficial but data on this is far from conclusive this may be one of my most inconclusive videos to date but that's only because it reflects the current science on the subject if after watching this video you're left with more questions than answers like i am after reviewing the research on this topic then fear not because the solution or at least the solution we have based on the science is rather simple you shouldn't worry too much about cadence because whatever cadence you prefer is probably the right one for you wow you made us wait 10 minutes for that bro this video could have been like 30 seconds long thanks for watching and i hope you guys found this information helpful if you like this video be sure to give it a like share with a friend and subscribe and if you want to see more training and racing content be sure to follow me on instagram twitter and facebook and if you want to follow my training be sure to check me out with strava if you're interested in getting a coach if you sign up through cts be sure to use my code ctsdj to save 40 by waving the registration fee details are down in the description