Is Neurostimulation Better Than Weight Training or Logging Miles for Gaining Strength?

When you’re a cyclist, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about declining performance as you age? We lose strength, right? There is a lot of talk about maintaining muscle power to slow down the aging process. And what if, ultimately, a more capable brain made us more efficient? Could neurological stimulation have an even greater impact?

By Jean-François Tatard – Photos: depositphotos.com/DR

The goal of this article is to try to show that neurological stimulation would strengthen the transmission force from the cortex to the muscles. And that it would therefore be even more beneficial than strength training itself in the anti-aging process. Even if these effects are not thought to last indefinitely, we can still believe that by multiplying the number of sessions and by repeating small, simple exercises that are easy to fit into a cyclist’s daily life, we could stabilize an effect that is more or less lasting and helps slow the decline in physical level.

Inevitably, in a world constantly searching for the smallest detail that might keep us from aging, a miracle cure is tempting. But what can neurostimulation actually bring, concretely? A few years ago I spoke with Baptiste Lacourt, a national athletics coach, who already said that it helped his athletes improve their concentration while performing their movements. And for him, who began looking into neurostimulation several years ago, the brain is the key. Indeed, neurostimulation shortens the time needed to build muscle strength. That is why it should be the first area we invest in to avoid declining too early.

A scientific study would be needed to back up what I am writing, with one group training with neurostimulation, for example, a group using a neurostimulation placebo, and a control group doing nothing. Put simply, if we observed significant improvements in the first group, we could say that this is indeed due to it and not to a combination of other factors. I remain personally convinced that cognitive sports training is one of the training methods of the future. We are already seeing it develop in the USA. In the NBA it has even become routine, and other examples, in tennis or Formula 1, show us that it is possible to train the brain to improve athletic performance on the field.

Cognitive Training for Cyclists

This method is fairly little known and therefore still rarely used in our sport, but to put it simply, it would consist of training and stimulating the athlete’s cognitive abilities, such as attention, perception, reasoning, decision-making, coordination and reactivity. Moreover, in certain professions, such as military personnel or elite commandos, skills such as situational awareness and fast, precise decision-making are of the utmost importance. These essential skills can in fact be significantly improved through specific cognitive training, as Laurent Combalbert, a former RAID negotiator, explained to me when he came to train us in high-pressure negotiation during a seminar at my company.

Why Develop Cognitive Abilities in Cycling?

What I am trying to show here is that cognitive abilities are involved in a range of physical and sporting activities and directly influence performance. They can help optimize situational analysis and maintain tactical control during a race, for example. They can also support better handling of emergencies, such as better bike handling in a fast descent or in the rain, or adapting more quickly to an opponent’s attack. Visually tracking moving objects around us and anticipating trajectories are other examples I can give you. But I am also thinking of emotional control and staying calm under stress or pressure. And finally, peripheral vision, which helps avoid crashes.

After that, it is a matter of determining each rider’s specific needs, also in relation to the level they race at: improving attention, peripheral vision, reasoning abilities… The idea afterward is to schedule short but regular sessions into the training plan, without it becoming a constraint. And perhaps sometimes outside the usual rides. The aim here would be to develop the cyclist’s cognitive abilities in real conditions, despite fatigue or under pressure. During that dedicated time, for example, one could work on explosiveness or do an exercise that trains quick decision-making. This could be standing-start sprints of 7 seconds, repeated 10 times for example, each separated by 53 seconds of active recovery.

To Conclude

Whether it is local competition or higher-level racing, or simply the process of slowing down aging, anticipation and decision-making are decisive qualities. And this comes through neurological stimulation that can be done on the bike but also in the gym or at home. As for transferability to the field when it is done off the bike, all the physiotherapists and neuroscience experts we know have told us that it is possible.

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