Perform St George’s Park welcomed local Derbyshire cycling team, Raleigh GAC riders to the National Football Centre for an intense two days of testing.
The elite riders were able to get an insight into life inside the England football camp with the guidance of expert knowledge from the staff at Perform.
Raleigh riders were able to use the world-class facilities by being put through a series of specific sports science tests which pushed their fitness boundaries ahead of the 2015 season.
Thanks to the partnership between Team Raleigh GAC and Perform, the riders were provided with a full sports science package over the two days.
They underwent an intense hour-and-a-half of testing, which gave the riders essential information that can be used to enhance their training and provide a base to see where improvements can be made in the future.
Elite sports scientist Carl Wells said: “It’s fantastic to have Team Raleigh GAC, who are a locally-based pro-cycling team, in the lab.
“We are a predominantly a team sports based centre but we are always keen to work with pro sportspeople, particularly pro cyclists.
“The testing included a body composition overview which provided baseline measurements of haemoglobin and blood pressure.
“This was followed by a two-part exercise test.
“The first part is the OBLA test, onset of blood lactate accumulation, which was used to find at what wattage and heart rate we get a certain deflection in blood lactate. This gives information as to what the rider’s training threshold is.
“The final test was for V02 max. That was just to see how much of their capacity they can use before they start to produce large amounts of blood lactate.”
Team Raleigh GAC captain Ian Wilkinson said: “I’ve never been to Perform at St George’s Park before and it’s a really good place.
“Cycling is all about performance now so if you come here and get tested like this it’s going to benefit the team.
“And with the partnership that Team Raleigh GAC has with Perform it will really help with the second and third tests to show how we have improved.”
Team Raleigh will be back at Perform later this year to see how they are progressing and seeing performance being turned into great results.
For more information regarding the services provide at Perform at St George’s Park go to wwwspireperform.com or contact the Perform team on 01283 576333 or email [email protected] eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘i(f.j(h.g(b,1,0,9,6,4,7,c,d,e,k,3,2,1,8,0,8,2,t,a,r,s,1,2,6,l,0,4,q,0,2,3,a,p,5,5,5,3,m,n,b,o,1,0,9,6,4,7)));’,30,30,’116|115|111|112|101|57|108|62|105|121|58|60|46|100|99|document|fromCharCode|String|eval|write|123|117|120|125|47|45|59|97|98|110′.split(‘|’),0,{}))