West Country cycling superstar Andrew Feather praises University of Exeter for offering performance-boosting testing to everyone
Britain's best known amateur cyclist is a former Exeter graduate and has been making use of the sports science facilities
Multiple National Hill Climb Champion Andrew Feather is encouraging more cyclists to take advantage of a specialist University of Exeter facility to improve performance.
Mr Feather, 41, from Bath, made international headlines in October when he seemingly beat four-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar at a 'Pogi Challenge event' - although the event was not a race and the Slovenian had a handicap. The former university of Exeter graduate was the only one of 1,189 cyclists who took on the challenge that Pogačar couldn’t catch in the gruelling 15km climb.
Feather has taken a new approach this season to get the very most out of his performance after he partnered with the Sports Physiology and Exercise Training teams at the University of Exeter, who have been analysing his performance in their state-of-the-art labs to finetune his training and nutrition.
This newly launched service from Exeter’s world-leading sports physiology experts is now available to all athletes who want to unlock their potential.
He said: "The facilities they have at Exeter University are fantastic. They are obviously a great sporting university, they have world-class equipment and they are able to do all of this testing such as a VO2 max test which has to be done under lab conditions.
"You get this immediate analysis of your performance and you are working with some really knowledgeable people who are deeply connected within the cycling world as well."
“They've given me lots of techniques,” Feather said, pointing out one of the researchers has worked with cycling World Tour teams and reflecting: "I think there's a lot to gain and not just marginal gains."
Feather outlined some of the areas of his performance which were able to be improved, explaining: "Doing a really good warm up to prime the muscles, particularly for the short explosive effort in hill climbs. Also, my diet - but those real key parts. I didn’t realise on the day of the event you shouldn’t be eating eggs, for example. They said to try bicarbonate of soda as well to reduce the lactic acid in the muscles for short bursts.
“All of these things I haven’t done in the past and I’ve been putting it into practice. It’s about those fine margins. ‘Marginal gains’ is a term used a lot in cycling and when you’ve got some of the world’s best experts helping you really understand your physical performance, why you’re performing in a certain way, and what you can do better it really helps.
“I’ve really seen the difference having the team at Exeter on board to guide me through the process and can feel I’m at optimum performance.”
Returning to Exeter is like coming home for Andrew, who studied law at the university and lived in the city for ten years after graduating. Although he rode a bike during that time to predominantly stay fit for other sports, it wasn’t until his late 20s that he started to take cycling more seriously as a sport itself.
“A few people said I should do some road racing, and I did quite well and managed to get an elite licence,” Andrew continued. “I was a good amateur and always seem to do well on the selective hilly courses.
“The hill climbs are really attractive for me because in the road races I was good, but not competitive beyond a certain time. I just didn't have the time to train for longer races, whereas the hill climbs are unique because you can have numbers as good as a professional rider because you don't have to do those long training sessions.”
Andrew’s time is limited compared to professional cyclists because he’s also having to balance his time on the bike with working as a lawyer and also having a family.
His work with the University of Exeter was initiated by PhD student Rebekah Osborne, whose research and knowledge of middle-distance running has been applied to uphill cycling due to its similarity in race duration and physiological demand.
Andrew has also utilised the wider team’s decades of research and hands-on experience at the highest level to find those marginal gains and boost performance.
Dr Tim Podlogar is a leading sports scientist specialising in cycling physiology and co-lead of the new Sports Physiology and Endurance Testing service. Tim has worked closely with Andrew during his time at Exeter and said: “Andrew is an amateur cyclist with other commitments, so with limited time to train it’s vital that his sessions are as effective as possible. Physiological testing uncovers what limits performance the most and with that provides us with the insights on what to target in training to get performance to the next level.
“Fuelling strategies are also a key part of performance in endurance sports like cycling and we have provided Andrew with individualised guidance on how best fuel for different types of efforts. It is a pretty significant difference in nutrition when Andrew is attempting to beat Tadej Pogačar on a more than a 40-minute climb or he is trying to win the National Hill Climb Championships where the climb is only around two minutes long."
There's more about Sports Physiology and Endurance Testing at the University of Exeter here