Rpm

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi guys,

Being relativley inexperienced in triathlon I have a question that I would like you to debate. I recently have come back from Brazil where I had the fortune of spending some time with Francois and Olaf ( who retained his title). Now having spoke with olaf he was telling me that he and his athletes that he coaches have a lot slower cadence than the 90-95 RPM that we get preached to adhere to in the UK. He listed the reasons why and when I got home people were still very mixed as to what to do.

I have quite a decent appreciation of exercise physiology and have my thoughts. What are yours.

The distance being Ironman, as that’s the true test

Best wishes

mark

2

These discussions are “a never ending story”. I you search you’ll find several discussions on this forum…

While 90-95 is recommended by most people/trainers, many others recommend a bit slower. Slower cadence reduces the total energy consumption, while faster cadence saves the muscles for the run. But there are also personal preferences depending on what the athlete has trained for and physics. While Lance Armstrong (due low muscle mass and high VO2) uses 95-110, Jan Ullrich (high muscle mass specific adopted to cycling) uses 75-90.