by the American College of Sports Medicine. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Copyright @ 2010 Different Effect of Cadence on Cycling Efficiency between Young and Older Cyclists MASSIMO SACCHETTI 1 , MAURO LENTI 1 , ALESSANDRO SCOTTO DI PALUMBO 1 , and GIUSEPPE DE VITO 2 1 Department of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, University of Rome, Rome, ITALY; and 2 UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, IRELAND ABSTRACT SACCHETTI, M., M. LENTI, A. S. DI PALUMBO, and G. DE VITO. Different Effect of Cadence on Cycling Efficiency between Young and Older Cyclists. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 42, No. 11, pp. 2128–2133, 2010. Purpose: We investigated the difference in the cadence–efficiency relationship between young and older competitive cyclists. Methods: Eight young (24.3 T 5.3 yr) and eight older (65.6 T 2.8 yr) competitive cyclists participated in two laboratory sessions. The first consisted of an incremental maximal cycling test to determine the freely chosen pedal cadence and the maximal power output at V ˙ O 2max and the second for the determination of gross efficiency (GE), calculated as the ratio of external work and energy expenditure (V ˙ O 2 ). The latter test consisted of 6-min cycling exercise bouts at 40% and 60% of maximal power output and at a cadence of 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120 rpm. Results: GE was lower in older cyclists than that in young cyclists at all cadences considered and at both levels of power output (P G 0.01). Peak efficiency was reached at 60 rpm in young cyclists (21.2% T 1.9%), whereas in older cyclists this was observed already at 40 rpm and was not different from that at 60 rpm (18.3% T 0.6%). The decline in GE with the increase in cadence was more pronounced in older than in young cyclists (P G 0.01) and was mitigated by the increase in power output more in the latter than in the former. These observations were in line with a lower freely chosen cadence recorded during the maximal test in older than that in young (P G 0.01). Conclusions: The present data indicate that the effect of cadence on cycling efficiency is different between young and older cyclists and that it seems more disadvantageous for the latter to use high cadences. This may help explain why our older cyclists chose to pedal at lower cadences than the younger. Key Words: MASTER ATHLETE, PEDAL RATE, FREELY CHOSEN PEDAL RATE, CADENCE–EFFICIENCY RELATIONSHIP, AGING C ycling efficiency has been extensively studied in the last century, either to understand the effect of ex- ternal workload on physiological stress or to better comprehend the factors influencing exercise performance. Indeed, efficiency is considered one of most important fac- tors affecting endurance performance in competitive cyclists (9,24). Among the several factors that have been considered to characterize cycling efficiency, power output, pedaling rate, and their interaction received particular considera- tion (14) also to try to explain why young cyclists normally choose to pedal at higher cadences than that characterized by the lowest energy cost in laboratory-based studies. An additional factor that has been linked to efficiency in cycling is represented by fiber type distribution. In par- ticular, a direct relationship between the proportion of type I muscle fibers and the gross cycling efficiency has been reported (11) and connected to a higher performance during a simulated 1-h time trial (21). Aging has a profound effect on muscle fiber type dis- tribution and properties (6,12,36) and has therefore the po- tential to affect efficiency. On the other hand, maintenance of high levels of physical activity can mitigate the effect of the aging process on skeletal muscle (13). Surprisingly, efficiency in the older population has not been thoroughly investigated; most of the studies available on older athletes, which have focused on running economy, have suggested that this does not significantly change with age (23,29). To date, only few studies have investigated cycling effi- ciency in older (65–70 yr old) (2–4) or middle-aged (around 50 yr old) (1) individuals, whereas the evidence concerning older cyclists is more scarce (31). Among these studies, one (31) reported a similar cycling economy in a group of 35- to 75-yr-old cyclists but did not consider the effect of cadence. Conversely, Bell and Ferguson (4) measured cycling effi- ciency at different cadences in young and older physically active but untrained women, but their findings might not directly translate to what is occurring in men who main- tained a high level of physical activity throughout their life, as it is often the case in older master athletes. With this in mind, we compared cycling efficiency in young and older competitive cyclists with a special emphasis on verifying the effect of cadence and power output because these are the two most important factors explaining its acute changes. The freely chosen cadence (FCC) during an Address for correspondence: Massimo Sacchetti, Ph.D., Department of Human Movement and Sports Sciences, University of Rome ‘‘Foro Italico,’’ Piazza Lauro De Bosis 15, 00135 Rome, Italy; E-mail: massimo.sacchetti@uniroma4.it. Submitted for publication January 2010. Accepted for publication March 2010. 0195-9131/10/4211-2128/0 MEDICINE & SCIENCE IN SPORTS & EXERCISE Ò Copyright Ó 2010 by the American College of Sports Medicine DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e3181e05526 2128 APPLIED SCIENCES