Can’t hold any more! Cycling subjective experience at the limit of effort
Creators: name: Salas-Montoro, José-Antonio
name: Perez, Luis Ciria
name: Sanabria, Daniel
name: Díaz, Juan José Pérez
name: Benítez, Isabel
name: Zabala, Mikel
Publisher: name: OSF Registries
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Sports Sciences
subject: Sports Studies
subject: Medicine and Health Sciences
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences

description: Cycling involves challenging the physiological and psychological limits of the athlete in many situations. A paradigmatic example is the moment in which cyclists reach the limit of their effort, producing an abrupt decrease in intensity and eventually stopping the exercise in extreme cases. For instance, in real contexts, this so-called “task failure” happens when a ‘domestique’ is setting the pace of the bunch on a climb and they are not able to maintain that pace for longer. In laboratory conditions, task failure in cycling is induced by means of time-to-exhaustion and maximal graded exercise tests. In both instances, the reasons for stopping the exercise have been extensively studied from a physiological perspective (Åstrand &amp; Saltin, 1961; Bassett &amp; Howley, 2000; Duncan et al., 1997). If the availability of energy substrate is compromised (Hargreaves &amp; Spriet, 2020), or if there is a reduction in oxygen supply (Amann &amp; Calbet, 2008) metabolic acidosis occurs, and the individual is unable to maintain exercise intensity (Debold et al., 2016).

Physiology alone, however, does not seem to provide a complete explanation for the phenomenon of task failure. There are indeed theoretical approaches (Azevedo et al., 2021; Marcora et al., 2009; Midgley et al., 2017; Noakes et al., 2001) suggesting that task failure is a complex phenomenon that entails far more than just physiological capacity. Cognitive and psychological factors such as the continuous monitoring of task goals (Edwards &amp; Polman, 2013), affect (Hartman et al., 2018), and motivation (Edwards et al., 2018) seem to be also at play. For instance, there is evidence that individuals stop the effort before reaching their supposed physiological (e.g., cardiovascular and muscular) limit (Midgley et al., 2018). Moreover, physical exertion, as any other behaviour, is inherently linked to a phenomenological experience. However, despite numerous studies have addressed perception of effort (Armes et al., 2020; Pageaux, 2016), there is a significant gap in our understanding of other aspects related to the subjective experience linked to the moment at which the cyclist is unable to sustain the high-intensity effort. For instance, to which extent are cyclists aware of their heartbeats and breathing at the moment or right before task failure? What about awareness about their surroundings? do they focus on their physical sensations, or on their sport performance? Are there commonalities in the subjective experience linked to task failure between individuals? or does every individual have their own idiosyncratic experience?. The present study aims to address these and other issues pertaining to the subjective experience associated with task failure in cycling.

In Study 1, a large sample of cyclists with a licence issued by the Royal Spanish Cycling Federation will fill a questionnaire about their past experience of task failure. In Study 2, we will interview a small sample of cyclists of different categories (from amateurs to professionals) to deepen on their retrospective experience of task failure in both competition and training contexts. Knowledge gathered in Studies 1 and 2 will be used to tailor a questionnaire, including open questions, in which we will try to learn more about the subjective experience of the cyclists right at the moment after the ''task failure''. Experienced high-fit cyclists will complete the questionnaire right after a maximal cycling effort test. In summary, our objective is to offer a comprehensive depiction of the phenomenology intimately associated with task failure in cycling.