 Is it faster to stay seated or frequently stand while riding, particularly on climbs? This is the question we'll be answering today by taking a look at the science. I'll also be discussing at what grade and intensity getting out of the saddle becomes advantageous and whether or not seated or standing intervals are effective at improving your performance. Welcome back to another video. Whether or not you should stand or stay seated while riding to maximize performance is a common question amongst cyclists and there's a lot of conflicting advice out there. I've heard arguments on both sides but usually they're not backed up by any evidence and are just based on how the person feels. See in my personal opinion and what I believe based off of my experience and how I feel just on what I know about myself and of course how I feel, just ride your damn bike and quit being such a nerd. And it's not too surprising that just like with everything in cycling we'll often look to what the world's top pros do for answers. This doesn't really seem to clear anything up though. Riders like Alberto Contador are famous for constantly being out of the saddle while climbing. Phil Liggett and Paul Sherman wouldn't stop talking about how he was dancing on the pedals every year when the tour came on. Meanwhile riders like Chris Froome stay firmly planted in the saddle at all times and Chris Froome's technique is about the furthest thing from dancing I can think of. What does the science have to say though? It turns out there's actually a fair bit of research on this question of whether or not you should sit or stand while riding to maximize performance so let's go ahead and jump into it to see if we can find an answer. We'll start with this study on the difference between seated and standing uphill cycling. In the study subjects rode both seated and standing on a treadmill at an 8% grade. What they found was that both VO2 and heart rate were elevated when subjects were standing versus when they were seated and in fact there was a 9B per minute difference in heart rate between sitting and standing. This is a substantial increase and if you're a regular heart rate user you've probably noticed that when you get out of the saddle your heart rate starts to rise. They also found that the flow rate or the amount of air that you breathe in and out increases during standing and they stated that this is likely due to the higher metabolic cost of standing. They conclude that climbing in a standing position may have a negative effect on cycling economy compared to climbing in a seated position. If you're looking to conserve effort during a race it would appear to be better to stay seated for as long as possible and only stand for short bouts to alleviate pressure points and possible muscle soreness. The results from this study seem pretty clear. Standing while cycling reduces cycling economy and this is far from the only study with these findings. In fact the majority of studies that look at cycling economy while standing and sitting come to the same conclusion. As we'll soon get into though there's a lot more nuance to this question and these submaximal lab tests might not be telling the full story. For example what effect might the grade of the hill have when things get steep could standing be beneficial? This study put this question to the test by having subjects use both techniques on a 4 and 10% climb. What they found was that on the 4% grade just like in the previous study heart rate and VO2 was higher when standing but on the 10% grade the difference disappeared and in fact perceived exertion was actually lower when subjects were standing. Cyclists have a natural tendency to stand when the grade gets steeper and this may be the reason and at steeper grade standing doesn't seem to be hindering you physiologically as much as it does at shallower grades. These tests were all done at a submaximal intensity but intensity is a very important piece of the puzzle. Just like we feel the need to stand when we hit a steeper grade we also feel the need to stand when there's a sudden surge in power. Could higher intensities lend themselves better to standing than sitting? This study threw intensity into the equation by testing sitting versus standing at 50 and 70% of maximal aerobic power. The study found that economy was still lower when standing but at the higher intensity the difference in economy was diminished. This may be partially explained by an increased activation of leg muscles while standing. While the study did show that at a higher intensity the difference in performance between sitting and standing is lessened it still suggests that sitting is the optimal strategy. However the study limited themselves to just two submaximal intensities. The question now is is there an intensity at which standing becomes preferred? This study and sitting versus standing for maximum performance has subjects performed sitting and standing tests at a 10% grade at different intensities ranging from 86% to 165% of power at VO2 max. What they found was that at the lower power outputs there was no difference in performance between sitting and standing. This is very interesting based off the previous study you would probably assume that sitting would produce a better result at least at lower intensities. However the previous studies were measuring things like heart rate in VO2 max and this study was measuring time to exhaustion. It is possible that despite heart rate and VO2 being higher you're able to last just as long when you're standing especially if your perceived exertion is lower as we've seen. And it's also possible that had they tested a much lower intensity like 50% of VO2 max power that we would have seen sitting surpass standing in this test. We're not done with this study though. Things get very interesting as the intensity increases. They actually found that subjects performed better when standing at the highest intensity and the intensity at which one should transition from seated to standing to be 94% of VO2 max power. When you get into higher intensities the advantage shifts in favor of standing and if you look at other similar studies this conclusion seems to be supported. For example this study found that there was a negligible effect on efficiency but for short-term power production standing came out the clear winner. This study which tested sitting versus standing in repeated 30 second sprints found the same thing. Power was higher in the standing condition and standing has been shown to increase the initial speed and acceleration of a start by 10%. What might explain the reason for better performance when standing at higher power outputs? This study measured the upper body activity during standing and sitting at different intensities using an EMG and they found that the upper body muscles play an important role when riding at high power outputs. This suggests that being able to pull with the upper body while standing may allow you to eke out that little bit of extra power. See all the more reason to only do curls when you get into the gym. The main reason of course being so you can flex on everybody at the group ride who's got those little toothpick cyclist arms. This may be exacerbated since we're often dealing with a lower cadence and a higher force when standing. Cadence has been shown to drop when standing and when you stand up you'll notice this if you look at your cadence. It's even a good idea to drop a gear or two when you get out of saddle to compensate for this change in cadence and in fact an individual's preference for a higher or lower cadence may have something to do with their preference for sitting or standing because after all it appears 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. Essentially there is no one optimal cadence. Some cyclists prefer lower and some cyclists prefer higher and this preference may facilitate the need to stand or sit. Going back to the contador froom example, contador or mister out of the saddle rides at a lower cadence than froom and you generally see mashers standing and mashing and spinners sitting and spinning. One question still remains though and that is does training using sitting or standing intervals do anything to improve your performance? Unfortunately we don't have any studies that tackle this question directly however we do have studies that look into the effectiveness of low and high cadence intervals which may give us a glimpse into what the answer would be since sitting and standing seem to be closely related to riding at a low and high cadence. In this study on low versus high cadence they had subjects trained for four weeks using intervals done at 60 rpm or 100 rpm. 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. This makes a lot of sense. Low cadences are needed for climbing and in turn the ability to produce power while standing is also needed for climbing so to train specifically for that doing standing or low cadence intervals seems appropriate. However further investigation into this topic leaves us with more mixed results. 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 once freely chosen cadence did show improvement. A systematic review on training at low cadence confirms this stating that selected studies indicate no clear performance enhancing effect of training at low cadence or even indicate a superior effect of training at freely chosen cadence. And evidence for a benefit to high cadence training seems to be lacking as well. For example this study on low versus high cadence interval training found that the gains from high cadence intervals were even less than from low cadence intervals and further research confirms these findings. Again these studies don't address standing and sitting specifically. However they do seem to be the best bit of evidence we have in regards to the effectiveness of standing and sitting intervals. And given the lack of evidence it doesn't seem to make sense to include them in your training. That being said that doesn't mean that you shouldn't work on sitting and standing. Standing seems to be particularly effective when the grade gets steep or when high power outputs are needed particularly as you approach the O2 max. People will often ask me if they should stay seated during intervals and my answer is no. By no means should you stand for the entire interval either however the goal for most interval sessions is to do them at as high a quality as possible and standing to produce more power will only help with that especially when you get into high intensity intervals. And although standing seems to lower cycling economy at lower intensities getting out of the saddle every once in a while may actually improve performance. Going back to this study on standing versus sitting they state that alternating between seated and standing positions occasionally during sub-maximal cycling is likely to improve performance by postponing fatigue in principally active muscles. We've all started to feel stiff on long rides from being in the same position for too long. Don't avoid standing in these situations you want to relieve this as best you can. That being said from the research there's a good argument to be made that being able to stay seated at lower intensities may be beneficial in particular for conserving energy during a race or a long ride. This isn't something that requires any sort of specific intervals but something that you can work on on your long endurance rides by not giving in to every single urge to stand. While racing what you need to keep in mind is this. Staying seated when the intensity is low will preserve energy and if you're doing a race where aerodynamics plays a large role then sitting will put you in a more aerodynamic position. Standing is the optimal strategy for high-intensity bursts particularly as you approach the O2 max intensity and above and as things get steep generally around a grade of 8 to 10 percent. Thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video be sure to give it a like subscribe and hit the bell so you get notified every time I put out a video and share this video with your cycling friends. I'll see you in the next one.