Victoria Pendleton

 You might be forgiven for mistaking Victoria Pendleton for a long-distance athlete, so slender is her figure and small is her height, but do not be fooled by the extremely attractive exterior.

The 28-year-old is a ferocious winner, as her medals cabinet at home in Cheshire will vouch. Pendleton is the world’s supreme track sprinter, with world, Commonwealth and now Olympic gold medals to her name in the individual sprint, the event where two riders play cat and mouse with each other before a desperate dart to the finish line.

She most probably would have added golds in Beijing in the keirin and team sprint events, too, if the Olympic authorities had included them in the programme, but had to make do with “just” the one Olympic title.

Now she plans to go for more gold in 2012 at the London Olympics, picking up more titles at the World Championships and Commonwealth Games along the way, and few would bet against her achieving her goals.

“It’s the hatred of losing, more than the joy of winning, that keeps me going on, pushing myself harder and harder, and never being satisfied with myself,” she explains, by way of justifying a lifestyle that is big on practice and training, and small on virtually anything else. “But winning Olympic gold medals makes it all worth it.”
Her week is pretty much the same every week, beginning with a two to two and a half hour gym session on a Monday morning, which involved Olympic lifting, and free of weights. The trick is to gain the right amount of muscle mass, and not any more.

“I do mainly power clean and jerks, squats, upper body and core stability work, which all helps to make my cycling style more efficient,” Pendleton says. “The main exercise is the squat with just the bar, because the glutes and the quads are the most important muscles a cyclist has. I don’t use any machines in the gym, save for a leg press. Core stability is also massively important, because it is from your core that you generate all the power through your legs.

“The male cyclists don’t do any upper body work because they already have enough strength through their shoulders and too much upper body muscle reduces drag and makes you less aerodynamic. That said I need enough upper body strength to hold the handlebars firmly enough at pace without my body wobbling which, in turn, would cost me speed.”

The afternoon is all about explosive power, and the search for the best cadence, which is the number of revolutions in a minute or, in layman’s terms, the speed a cyclist can pedal. “The afternoon session is from 2pm to 5pm and in that time I will practice flying 100 metres. These only take six and a half seconds each, and I’ll do it five times, but on each occasions it is high cadence, and maximum power, so much so that you need the time to recover from each one. My event is all about sprinting, rather than stamina.”

 On a Tuesday morning Pendleton will spend 90 minutes out on the road. She tends to avoid the hills around Manchester, where her training is based, because she requires anaerobic exercise, which is short and intense, rather than aerobic exercise, which is longer in duration, but low in intensity.

“I stick to the flat on the roads and travel at a moderate 30K an hour because the hard work is done in the gym and on the track and if I went into the hills I wouldn’t be able to help myself but pedal hard and fast which would convert my muscle fibres away from how I want them, which is anaerobic, not aerobic.”

Wednesdays see another two and half hour free weights session in the gym, followed by two hours out on the roads, and she will return to the great outdoors on a Thursday morning, for a gentle one hour “recovery session” before re-appearing on the track for an important afternoon session.

“This session is all about acceleration, which is a key component for a sprinter, who either has to accelerate away from her opponent from the front, or accelerate past her from behind, from virtually any distance out from the finish line. I tend to do between four and twelve efforts on the track in the session, all at maximum effort again, and in times ranging from six and half to thirty seconds. It’s pretty painful stuff, but it’s got to be done.”

Friday mornings are back in the gym working primarily on her glutes and quads, and then the afternoon is spent on the track working with the motor bike you see used in the keirin event. “This session is all about high cadence, and high speed. You follow the motor bike around the velodrome, at speed, and in the bike’s slipstream. This may involved three to five 250 metre laps of effort at speed, then a couple of laps at maximum effort, and at very high speed, over 500 metres.

Saturdays are half days, featuring a two hour ride on the roads, and Sundays are very much a rest day. Rest is very much a part of the Pendleton programme.  
“There is no cross-training, and definitely no running,” she says. “Running makes you prone to injury, especially as cyclists have powerful leg muscles but weak tendons as a result. Whenever I’m not training I try and rest as much as possible. I even avoid going shopping as it means standing around which will impact on my training.”
What makes Pendleton stand head and shoulders above the best of the rest, apart from her willingness to train harder than anyone, is her ability to pedal at a high cadence. “You can work at it, but it’s mainly down to your natural muscle fibres, and the most important ingredient is to have speed of movement through muscle contraction. I’m not a strength athlete but I’m powerful for my size and weight and I can maintain high speed for longer than others.”

It is only when she approaches a competition, such as the Beijing Olympics last summer, or the 2009 world championships in Poland in April, that she eases up. “The sessions just prior to competition may be lower in intensity, with smaller gears and faster wheels to create less resistance.”

In general, though, it is punishment all the way. “There are some days when I can barely walk as a result of the previous afternoon’s work. Sitting down, or getting up from a chair can be murder. Sometimes my knees and joints are so sore I feel like an old lady, I don’t have much cartilage left in my knees which may lead to a re-construction, and I’m sure I’ll have considerable arthritis when I’m older. I’ve been reasonably lucky in terms of injuries so far, but typical cycling injuries normally result from crashing in races, with broken collar bones the most common.”

As someone who spent her final year at university studying nutrition and sports science Pendleton does not need to be told how to look after herself, either. “I’ll eat four or five pieces of Weetabix with two table spoons of sugar for breakfast, have a couple of protein shakes during the day, some tuna pasta for lunch, and chicken breasts, rice and vegetables for dinner, with plenty of fruit, although I’ll also have a chocolate biscuit from time to time, and even the odd curry. If you deny yourself completely you will end up craving. On top of that I’ll drink two litres of isotonic drinks riddled with electrolytes a day, plus at least two pints of squash in the evening.”

It is a very controlled lifestyle that Victoria Pendleton leads, and one that has led her to the very summit of her profession. “It’s a short career and I have to give it my best shot,” she reasons.
There is no doubt she is achieving her goals.