The WattPlan Podcast · Episode 42 · 9 min
Cycling after 50: what actually changes?
Next episodes: How often should you take a recovery week? · Strength training for cyclists, without a gym · Which VO2max intervals actually work?
Read the transcript
James. This is the WattPlan Podcast and I'm James. Family, a day job, building WattPlan, the odd podium when the right people stay at home, and a frankly silly amount of sports science. Today's one is for everyone who's started getting dropped by people half their age. Does cycling fitness just fall off a cliff after 50, or are we doing it to ourselves? Lyra's our AI research voice, and the studies are all in the show notes.
Lyra. It falls, but far more gently than the cliff people fear, and how far you fall from is down to training. Your VO2max, the most oxygen your body can use, drops by something like seven to nine percent a decade. Endurance-trained men lose about the same share as everyone else. They just start a long way higher, and stay there.
James. Seven to nine percent a decade. That sounds like a lot when you say it out loud.
Lyra. It's real, but it's slow. The biggest pooled look at it is a meta-analysis in the American Journal of Physiology from 2000, by Wilson and Tanaka. They gathered 242 studies covering more than thirteen thousand men, and split them into sedentary, active and endurance-trained groups. Endurance-trained men lost about 6.8 percent of their VO2max per decade. Sedentary men lost about 8.7. And the gap between those groups wasn't big enough to call a real difference. [2]
James. Hold on. So training doesn't slow it down at all?
Lyra. It doesn't stop the clock, no. What it does is decide where on the clock face you sit. A fit 60-year-old has lost a similar share to an unfit one, but from a far higher starting point, so they're still well clear. And there's a detail in that paper that matters for anyone training by heart rate.
James. Go on.
Lyra. Maximum heart rate fell with age at the same rate whether the men trained or not. So if your zones were set from a maximum you measured ten years ago, they've drifted. Your easy rides may be harder than you think.
James. Right, I genuinely can't remember when I last tested mine. But here's what I actually want to know. Is the drop the age, or is it that we ride less hard as we get older?
Lyra. That's the right question, and it's where the best news is. Plenty of riders keep the long easy miles and quietly let the intervals go, because they hurt and life's busy. So the question is whether intervals still work at our age. The clearest test of whether intensity still works in older riders is a 2022 randomised trial in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, by Tangchaisuriya, Tanaka and colleagues. [4]
James. What did they do?
Lyra. Fifty masters road cyclists, aged 35 to 49. For twelve weeks one group just did steady riding. Another did the same steady riding plus two interval sessions a week. A third did the intervals with blood flow restriction cuffs on. VO2max and peak power went up in both interval groups. Steady riding alone didn't raise them. Every group improved their 40 kilometre time trial, though, so the base miles weren't wasted.
James. But 35 to 49. That's not really us, is it? I'm asking about people in their fifties and sixties.
Lyra. You're right, and I'd rather say that plainly than stretch the trial. Nobody over 49 was in it. It's the nearest evidence we have in masters cyclists, and it points one way, but it isn't proof for a 62-year-old. What it does tell you is that the response to intervals is still there in your late forties. Whether it's as big at 60 is a question nobody has tested properly.
James. Okay. Then the thing everyone says about getting older is recovery. You need more days off. Surely that bit's true?
Lyra. It's true that you'll feel it more. Whether your legs actually perform worse is a different question. Fell, Reaburn and Harrison, writing in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness in 2008, put nine well-trained veteran cyclists, average age 45, and nine young riders, average age 24, through a hard 30 minute time trial on three days running. [5]
James. Three days of that. Brutal. And the older lot fell apart?
Lyra. That's what everyone expects. In fact neither group's time trial performance dropped from day one to day three. What changed was how the veterans felt. Their soreness rose far more than the young riders', and only they reported more fatigue and poorer recovery. Their legs did the same job. They just felt worse doing it.
James. So the soreness is lying to me.
Lyra. Not lying, but it's a poor judge on its own. It's one small study of riders in their forties, so don't over-read it. The practical bit is that after a hard day, judge your next session by how the session itself goes, not by how your legs feel at breakfast. And still take an easier week every few weeks, whether or not you think you need it.
James. What about strength work? Everyone over 50 gets told to lift.
Lyra. That trial has a quiet answer. In the masters study, muscle size and knee strength only went up in the group wearing the blood flow restriction cuffs. Steady riding and ordinary intervals didn't add muscle over twelve weeks. So if you want to hold on to muscle, riding alone probably won't do it. The article has a small trial of heavy leg work in endurance-trained people in their fifties, if you want the detail.
James. Let's make it practical then. Someone who's new to this, just started riding at 55. What do they do?
Lyra. If you're new to structured training, start with the habit. Ride three or four days a week, mostly easy, with just one harder session in the week, something that makes conversation tricky for ten minutes or so at a time. Get the rhythm first, and let the harder work grow from there.
James. And if you train with power or heart rate?
Lyra. Keep your hard sessions hard and spaced apart, and once you're past the base phase, make sure some of them are efforts at VO2max power, the sort of three to five minute intervals that leave you gasping. And retest your threshold heart rate or your maximum this season, so the zones match the heart you've got now.
James. And for the people still racing, still chasing a result in their age group?
Lyra. If you race, the hard sessions are non-negotiable, and so is the easy riding between them. The risk for an older racer isn't doing too much intensity. It's letting the hard days drift into medium days because everything feels tiring. Keep the hard days hard, keep the easy days properly easy, and add strength work if you can get to a gym.
James. And WattPlan. What does it do with all this for someone my age?
Lyra. It builds the plan around the days and hours you give it, keeps a couple of hard sessions in a normal week, and never puts its own hard sessions back to back. There's an easier week roughly once a month, so recovery is planned rather than left to how you feel.
James. And the strength side?
Lyra. If you lift, you can add your gym session to your schedule. It stays out of your Load, and the plan keeps its own hard rides off the day after. If you can't get to a gym, it can add short bodyweight sessions to your plan, which are a start, though lighter than the loads in the trials.
James. What can't the research tell us yet?
Lyra. Quite a lot, honestly. Most of it is in men, and most of it is in riders younger than the people this episode is for. The interval trial stopped at 49, and the recovery study at an average of 45. The big pooled numbers compare different people at different ages, rather than following the same riders for thirty years. So nobody can tell you how much one determined rider can hold on to.
James. So the plan for this week. Keep the intervals in, get my max heart rate tested before my zones lie to me any more, and stop letting sore legs talk me out of a session.
Lyra. Yes, and take the easier week when it comes, even if you feel fine. The riders who age best on a bike aren't the ones who suffered most. They're the ones who never stopped going hard.
Lyra. The full article and every study we mentioned are on the WattPlan blog, linked in the show notes. And if you've enjoyed this, follow the WattPlan Podcast wherever you're listening, so you don't miss the next one.
James. And if you want a plan built around the time you've actually got, get WattPlan on the App Store or Google Play. Thanks for listening.
Voices produced with ElevenLabs. James's voice is a clone of his own, Lyra is an AI voice, and James reviews every episode.
Cycling training after 50 changes less than most riders expect. A 2000 meta-analysis of 13,828 men found maximal aerobic capacity fell about 7 to 9% per decade whether they trained or not, and a 2008 review by Tanaka and Seals concluded that much of the decline in older competitors comes from training less and easier.
How fast does cycling fitness decline after 50?
Tanaka and Seals reviewed the records and physiology of older endurance competitors in The Journal of Physiology. Peak endurance performance holds until about 35, falls modestly until 50 or 60, then falls more steeply. The main driver is a lower VO2max, the most oxygen your body can use, with the lactate threshold falling alongside it. Economy, how much oxygen a given power costs, stays about the same in trained adults, so the engine shrinks while the drivetrain keeps its efficiency.
Two meta-analyses co-written by Tanaka put numbers on the VO2max part. They pooled 242 studies of men in 2000 and 109 studies of 4,884 women in 1997, splitting each into sedentary, active and endurance-trained groups.
| Group | Men, ml/kg/min lost per decade | Men, % lost per decade | Women, ml/kg/min lost per decade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 4.0 | 8.7% | 3.5 |
| Active | 4.0 | 7.3% | 4.4 |
| Endurance-trained | 4.6 | 6.8% | 6.2 |
In men, the differences between the three groups weren't statistically significant. In women, every group lost 10.0 to 10.9% a decade from about age 25, and the trained women lost more in absolute terms because they started far higher, at an average of 52 against 30 for sedentary women. Training doesn't stop the clock, but a trained 60-year-old still sits well above an untrained one, because they started higher and lose a similar share.
Maximal heart rate fell with age at the same rate in all three groups of men, so a heart-rate zone set from a maximum measured years ago drifts as you get older.
Is the decline age or less training?
Tanaka and Seals pointed at the training itself. In their reading of the evidence, much of the fall in older competitors is mediated by lower training intensity and volume, not age alone. A rider who keeps the easy miles and lets the intervals go is making the trade that lets VO2max slide fastest.
The best evidence that intensity still works in older riders comes from a 2022 trial by Tangchaisuriya, Tanaka and colleagues. They randomised 50 masters road cyclists aged 35 to 49 to 12 weeks of continuous riding alone, or continuous riding plus two interval sessions a week, with or without blood flow restriction. VO2max and peak power rose in both interval groups, and 40 km time trial performance improved in all three. Riders in their fifties weren't in the trial, so treat it as the nearest evidence, not proof for every age.
Our view at WattPlan is that the hard sessions are the last thing a rider over 50 should give up. Keep two a week in loading weeks, spaced apart, and let the easy riding stay easy.
Do masters cyclists need more recovery?
They feel as if they do, and performance tells a more mixed story. Fell, Reaburn and Harrison put nine well-trained veteran cyclists, average age 45, and nine young cyclists, average age 24, through 30-minute time trials on three days in a row. Neither group's time trial performance changed from day one to day three. The veterans' soreness rating rose by 22 mm against 9 mm for the young riders, and only the veterans reported more fatigue and poorer recovery.
That is a small study of riders in their forties, so it can't settle the question for riders in their sixties. What it does suggest is that soreness on its own is a poor guide after a hard day. Judge the next session by whether you can hit its power, and take a recovery week every few weeks whether or not you feel you need one. Our guide to recovery weeks has the evidence on spacing and depth.
Should cyclists over 50 do strength training?
The trial evidence in older endurance riders is small but points one way. Louis, Hausswirth and colleagues gave nine endurance-trained adults with an average age of 51.5, and eight with an average age of 25.6, three weeks of knee extensor training, three sessions a week of 10 sets of 10 at 70% of their maximum. Strength rose 17.8% in the masters group against 5.9% in the young, and cycling efficiency rose significantly in the masters while only trending up in the young. The stronger the older group became, the more efficient they rode.
In the masters interval trial, muscle size and knee strength rose only in the group that added blood flow restriction to its intervals, so neither steady riding nor ordinary intervals added muscle over 12 weeks. Our strength training guide covers the exercises and how to fit them around riding.
What to do after 50
- Keep two hard sessions a week in loading weeks, one with intervals at VO2max power, and keep them a day or more apart.
- Take a lighter week after every three loading weeks, even when you feel fresh.
- Add heavy leg strength work two or three times a week if you can get to a gym, with loads heavy enough that 10 repetitions take real effort.
- Retest your threshold heart rate or maximum each season, so your zones follow your heart rather than your birthday.
- Judge recovery by the power in your next hard session, not by how sore your legs feel.
How WattPlan plans for a rider over 50
WattPlan builds the plan from the days and hours you give it and the Fitness you bring. In a loading week it plans up to two hard sessions, or one if you're new to training or ride fewer than four days or four hours a week, and a hard club ride or race counts as one of them. It never puts one of its own hard sessions next to another hard day. After every three loading weeks comes a recovery week, except straight before a taper or in the last week of a plan without an event, which holds the Load steady instead. The plan adds no hard sessions that week, suggests you sit in on a hard club ride, and, where the week allows, gives you two full rest days.
If you lift in a gym, add it to your training schedule as a strength session. It doesn't count towards your Load, and the plan won't put one of its own hard sessions on the day after it. Without a gym, WattPlan can add up to two short bodyweight strength sessions a week to your plan. Those are lighter than the loads in the trials above, so they're a start rather than a match for them.
Heart-rate zones are shares of your threshold heart rate. With only a maximum on file, WattPlan estimates threshold at 93% of it, so an up-to-date maximum or a threshold test keeps the zones honest as you age.
What we don't know yet
Most of this evidence comes from men, and from riders younger than the readers it's meant for. The interval trial stopped at 49 and the recovery study at a mean age of 45. The meta-analyses compare different people at different ages rather than following the same riders for decades, so they can't show how much any one rider can hold on to. No trial has tested how often riders over 60 should take a recovery week, or whether two interval sessions a week suit them as well as they suit riders in their forties.
Sources
- Endurance exercise performance in Masters athletes: age-associated changes and underlying physiological mechanisms, The Journal of Physiology
- Meta-analysis of the age-associated decline in maximal aerobic capacity in men: relation to training status, American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology
- Age-related declines in maximal aerobic capacity in regularly exercising vs. sedentary women: a meta-analysis, Journal of Applied Physiology
- Physiological adaptations to high-intensity interval training combined with blood flow restriction in masters road cyclists, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise
- Altered perception and report of fatigue and recovery in veteran athletes, Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness
- Strength training improves cycling efficiency in master endurance athletes, European Journal of Applied Physiology