Rest Week Nutrition, Air Density, Smelling Salts and More – Ask a Cycling Coach 307

[DaveWh]

The segment on air pressure sounded a little familiar. There is a short thread on it here.

Barometric pressure effect on performance

Its raining today here in the UK. A lot. And I feel pretty rubbish, like I can’t be bothered to ride my bike. A couple of colleagues said they felt the same and so I did a bit of digging into being ‘under the weather’. As it turns out, there is a fair bit of evidence that low barometric pressure can induce symptoms such as sleepiness, fatigue, low blood pressure, headaches and migraines. Fair enough - that’s a good reason to explain how I’m feeling - nothing to do with the current high training …

Summary answer is that I think air pressure has a bigger potential impact on performance vs. what’s discussed in the podcast.

• typical variation in air pressure +/- 3.5%, for an overall swing of 7%
• 7% swing corresponds to 600m elevation change
• 600m change in elevation results in about 4% reduction in VO2max.
• all else equal, a 4% reduction in FTP