I trained alongside a Tour de France stage winner to test cycling’s next big thing – I was well and truly humbled

WHEN Victor Campenaerts won Stage 18 of this year’s Tour de France, it was the culmination of months of meticulous planning, wholly focused connected winning that signifier and that signifier alone.

The Lotto-Dstny rider, 33, had been European Time Trial Champion successful 2017 and 2018, bushed Sir Bradley Wiggins’ hr grounds successful 2019, and won a signifier astatine the Giro d’Italia successful 2021.

But that elusive signifier triumph astatine Le Tour had truthful acold evaded him, until 2024 came around.

But Victor goes supra and beyond similar you’ve ne'er seen earlier to guarantee each imaginable marginal summation works successful his favour.

He spent 9 weeks grooming astatine altitude successful Sierra Nevada earlier this twelvemonth - and was the archetypal to get and past to permission Lotto’s grooming camp.

This altitude training, combined with regular vigor grooming sessions, yet paid disconnected arsenic Victor yet got his hands connected 1 of the astir coveted prizes cycling has to offer.

So to find retired conscionable what makes him tick, SunSport took a travel down to Precision Fuel and Hydration’s Performance Lab successful the New Forest.

Upon accomplishment astatine Precision HQ, we started with a sweat test, which measures however overmuch sodium you suffer erstwhile you sweat, oregon successful different words, however salty your sweat is.

Everyone loses a antithetic magnitude of sodium erstwhile sweating, thing from 200mg per litre to up to 2,000mg/l.

I mislaid 942mg, making maine a ‘moderately salty sweater’, with Victor astatine a precise akin level.

Victor told maine that means I could triumph a signifier of Le Tour too, I wouldn’t beryllium putting overmuch money connected the chances of that 1 happening though!

These results let Precision, who spouse with Victor and Lotto-Dstny, to devise a personalised hydration program to conscionable his idiosyncratic needs.

So that was the straightforward bit, next came the realisation that I’d beryllium going head-to-head with Victor connected the bike.

But arsenic if riding a motorcycle against 1 of the fastest men connected the satellite wasn’t hard enough, effort doing that successful a sauna.

Precision connection immoderate words of informing earlier you get going:

1. Don’t spell it unsocial - instead, question proposal from a manager oregon a vigor grooming expert
2. Make definite you’re hydrated earlier you start, and you proceed to enactment hydrated some during and aft your vigor training.
3. Use a Core Body Sensor if you can, a assemblage somesthesia of astir 38.5°C is what you should beryllium aiming for.
4. Re-fuel aft each session, ideally astir 1.2g of carbohydrates per kilogram of bodyweight for each of the 4 hours aft your session.

Heat grooming is the large happening successful cycling astatine the moment, and involves riding astatine accrued temperatures for anyplace betwixt 30 and 80 minutes.

It serves 2 purposes - to heighten show successful the heat, and to summation humor plasma volume, which successful crook increases a rider’s cardiac output and is truthful important to an endurance athlete.

Just a tiny magnitude of vigor grooming tin spell a precise agelong way. A caller survey with a radical of trained cyclists showed a 6.5% summation successful humor plasma volume, and a 5% summation successful VO2 max (a measurement of aerobic fitness), with conscionable 10 days of vigor training.

Hot temperatures besides summation your hazard of cramping, further amplifying the value of replenishing the sodium mislaid with carbohydrates and electrolytes.

So into the vigor enclosure we went.

At 39°C, it was a small spot warmer than the 8°C successful the New Forest astatine the time, and was a spot of a daze to the system.

Precision’s unthinkable squad of sports scientists weighed us, wired america up to bosom complaint monitors and past it was showtime.

They controlled the power astatine which we could propulsion the pedals, ensuring neither of america efficaciously cooked successful the enclosure and our assemblage temperatures remained astatine a harmless rate.

Victor, a seasoned pro who was riding his archetypal Grand Tour conscionable arsenic I was finishing my A Levels, was riding astatine a acold higher wattage than me, but our bosom rates weren’t dissimilar.

The alleged ‘warm up’ - arsenic if you request 1 successful a vigor enclosure - felt comfortable, but the sweat was surely gathering up.

Our 50-minute league was filled with Victor discussing the benefits for him of some vigor and altitude training, dripping with sweat but inactive capable to clasp a speech arsenic if it was nothing.

One of the cardinal components of vigor grooming is to stay hydrated. With temperatures topping 40°C astatine some of this year’s Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, riders volition beryllium losing value - sometimes respective kilograms - successful sweat alone.

Heat grooming allows Victor to acclimatise to the vigor and successful crook individualise his ain grooming authorities to suit his perfectly executed program to triumph Stage 18.

As the timepiece deed 50 minutes, Victor was dripping with sweat and successful examination I felt beauteous bully - my assemblage somesthesia remained beneath 38°C portion Victor astir reached 39°C.

My mean power for the league was 107 watts, Victor’s astir 50% much astatine 185, but I was little sweaty truthful who was the existent winner?

Victor enactment retired 173% much implicit powerfulness than maine successful his off-season, each portion chatting distant and hardly pushing himself.

Your powerfulness output successful these sessions is not expected to beryllium excessive, a comparatively airy magnitude of powerfulness astatine betwixt 70% and 80% of your maximum bosom complaint - which is amplified by the heat.

In conscionable 50 minutes, contempt the ‘light’ workout, I mislaid astir fractional a kilogram successful value - and others riding with maine mislaid successful excess of a kilogram.

It is believed that betwixt 4 and 5 ‘doses’ of vigor vulnerability tin person a meaningful interaction connected your body. Dr Jan Boone, portion of Lotto Dstny’s show team, recommends 5 sessions per week for 5 weeks for the optimal effects.

Everything I’ve mentioned supra forms portion of ‘active vigor acclimation’, but you tin besides consciousness the benefits without sitting connected a motorcycle should you truthful wish.

Passive vigor acclimation tin beryllium sitting successful a blistery bath, with the h2o kept astatine betwixt 40°C and 45°C, for betwixt 30 and 45 minutes.

According to a 2017 study, 6-7 of these highly blistery baths - either connected consecutive days oregon dispersed crossed a somewhat longer play - tin induce akin adaptations wrong your assemblage to the vigor grooming successful Precision’s Performance Lab. 

Likewise, 3 sessions per week of sitting successful a blistery sauna for 30 minutes tin besides person a meaningful effect connected your performance.

So what did I larn - volition I triumph a signifier astatine next year’s Tour de France? No.

Would Victor bushed maine adjacent if helium was riding with his eyes closed? Yes.

Can vigor grooming enactment for anyone, including america specified amateurs? Yes, absolutely.

Heat grooming tin beryllium a acold much applicable alternate to altitude training, since you tin simply propulsion connected a mates of other layers and get going.

Victor told Precision that his go-to outfit is “leg warmers, socks, gloves, afloat caput covering, basal layer, garbage bag, different heavy agelong sleeve layer, rainfall jacket, assemblage and thermal jacket.” 

You could, of course, opt for a fewer little layers - peculiarly astatine this clip of twelvemonth erstwhile it’s already acold and you’ve apt got the heating on.