An interview with Jacky Maillot

Since the start of the truce caused by the coronavirus pandemic, words have already been given to the sport and performance poles of the Groupama-FDJ cycling team. Today, it is the medical pole’s turn, through the voice of its director Jacky Maillot, to raise the problems linked to the current period, and in particular to training on home trainer. The opportunity, too, to learn more about the functioning of the cog in the mechanics of the team.

Jacky, the rider have moved over to their home trainers for a week. Are there any risks inherent in this activity?

The first pitfall can be dehydration. When you do a home trainer one to two hours a day, you sweat a lot and therefore lose a lot of mineral salts. To avoid this, we have designed a card with the trainers to provide hydration advice to runners, on taking mineral salts and electrolytes. The second pitfall linked to the home trainer is to produce, notably through new software, somewhat unusual, intense and prolonged efforts due to the fact that we are caught in the game of racing. We reach fairly high intensity areas and the home trainer, unlike the road, does not allow a period of rest, “freewheeling”. If these efforts are combined with an insufficient intake of carbohydrates, for example, one can abuse his immunity. This is also the case with dehydration. Gold, during this period of viral epidemic, this is really the pitfall to avoid. We want to allow our runners to keep or resume good physical condition but without compromising their immune system, which is something to take into account as a priority now.

What are the pitfalls to get around?

In addition to being well hydrated, one must avoid making efforts on an empty stomach. When there is no intake of carbohydrate drinks and nutrients for the muscles and the intestine, it mistreats the body and secretes a hormone, cortisol, which is well known for its immunosuppressive effects. If we are not careful, and that we do 1h-1h30 of home trainer on an empty stomach in the morning to try not to gain weight, which is another problem in this period of confinement, we risk weakening his immunity and therefore to be very vulnerable in case of contact with the virus.

Does the risk of overtraining exist on a home trainer?

It is not necessarily a question of overtraining. On the other hand, the runner has his hydration supply habits on the road. However, on the home trainer, sometimes, he can forget them by saying that it will not last long, that there will not be too many intensities. Then he gets caught up in the game… And when you do intensities over long periods of time, this is where you have to be very careful about your intake of carbohydrate drinks and electrolytes. We sweat a lot, we lose a lot of iron, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and we can quickly unbalance his homeostasis, that is to say his metabolic balances, and in fact lead to immune deficiencies. In which case, we become very vulnerable to microbes. However, sn already knows that in ordinary times, the heavy training loads of the sportsman weaken the immune system. The risk of overtraining is not major with a home trainer because the saturation phenomenon is quite early. On the other hand, the repetition of very intense workouts can effectively abuse immunity.

What are the ideal conditions for practicing the home trainer?

It all depends on the context in which you want to practice it. When you just want to resume training and do workloads, you are not demanding on the conditions, it is especially necessary that the runner find some comfort, whether outside or in his garage. However, you must still ventilate a minimum if you are indoors, either by standing next to the window or by using a fan. Otherwise, you breathe confined air and this generates toxins more quickly. Body temperature rises very quickly. We know that after 45 minutes, it is already 38.5-39 ° due to the effort provided. Knowing that this type of effort is likely to be repeated, we should not create imbalances that could set in for several weeks and pay off later. For the moment, therefore, comfort is paramount, but it is possible that the runner will be placed in slightly more extreme conditions in a few weeks to accustom him to efforts in hot conditions. When we resume competitions, it will certainly be in summer, so we will have to be acclimatized. Finally, the brightness is not essential, but it is certain that it is more pleasant and mentally stimulating to make the trainer outside when the weather is nice.

Are there specific risks of injury?

You can actually put yourself at risk of injury, particularly tendinopathy, tendonitis, when you do not have a suitable diet. There is also a risk of tendino-muscular lesions when one does not hydrate enough. You also have to be careful about all the bike settings, which is also true in normal times. The runners give so many pedal strokes that the slightest defective adjustment can lead to pathologies, as well tendinopathies around the knee as low back pain and buttock pain. These are the usual risks, but they are further accentuated by the home trainer due to the fact that there are far fewer changes in positions. It is therefore clear that the pathologies mentioned above can occur more easily. The quality of the saddle is also very important, especially to avoid all lesions of the perineum, but also to stress all the gluteal muscles which are not being massaged at this time. We have also set up, with our physiotherapists, sheathing video sessions, general physical preparation but also and especially stretching. They are therefore reminded of the good gestures for stretching since they cannot benefit from recovery massage at home at this time.

PPG (General Physical Preparation) therefore occupies an important place during this period.

Indeed, and in many ways. It is necessary to have sufficient sheathing on the abdominal, gluteal and lumbar level for two reasons. The first is injury prevention. When a runner is not sufficiently covered, his pelvis undergoes multiple movements with each pedaling effort which can cause pain, muscle and ligament, and become very disabling when he finds himself in the race. A lack of PPG can also cause pain in the gluteal muscles but also in small muscles called piriformis, which can potentially generate sciatica, which in addition to being debilitating is very complicated to solve. The interest of PPG is double at the moment because all these muscles (thighs, calves, glutes) are not massaged. The more we will be sheathed, the less we will use these gluteal muscles and the less we will have sciatic pathologies or gluteal pain. It is therefore important to maintain yourself well. We usually do PPG sessions during internships in December and January. Runners have less time afterwards, but many do so as maintenance. We simply seized this opportunity to make a reminder on the sheathing and stretching, which in addition to being useful, keep the runners busy. It also creates a certain dynamic between everyone and the medical service. but many still do it for maintenance. We simply seized this opportunity to make a reminder on the sheathing and stretching, which in addition to being useful, keep the runners busy. It also creates a certain dynamic between everyone and the medical service. but many still do it for maintenance. We simply seized this opportunity to make a reminder on the sheathing and stretching, which in addition to being useful, keep the runners busy. It also creates a certain dynamic between everyone and the medical service.

In the current situation, is your support for runners even more advanced than usual?

We made several things available to the runners, such as PPG and stretching instructions as I have just explained. We obviously remain at their disposal for any questions or requests, and we also offer them more psychological support. During this period, some runners may feel a little more vulnerable, which is why a psychotherapist and a mental trainer are there to help them if necessary. We also take advantage of this period to set up dietary support at two levels. Both for Conti and for the WorldTeam, we are starting to carry out nutritional assessments to correct certain things if necessary. At the same time, they are given advice on how to avoid gaining weight, which is also a problem because they exercise less. Habitually, they can go out for up to six hours, so the energy expenditure is major. On the home trainer, it is obviously less. Dietetics is important to, as a first step, maintain good health with a strong immune system during an epidemic. The nutritional quality of what the runner will eat during or outside of the effort will determine the state and the competitiveness of his immune system. This is something well known to the most experienced members of the team, to whom we simply give little reminders and suggest taking food supplements. For the youngest, whether they are Conti or WorldTeam, more emphasis is placed on good practices, support is more extensive. Emails have been sent to them to remind them of the importance of food supplements and certain nutrients in shaping a more competent immune system. We were able to start peeling their daily calorie rations to find out if everything was well balanced quantitatively and qualitatively.

In “normal” times, what is the position of the medical crew within the team?

When a runner has a health problem, ask him to contact me. There are then two cases. Either I can fix the problem and it doesn’t affect his performance, or the problem can affect his participation in a race. I then notify both the performance center and the sports management that the runner is unavailable for a certain period. Information must be brought in as quickly as possible. Then, it is up to me to correspond with the trainer and the sports director concerned to adapt, depending on the injury or illness, the training load, which can be zero or progressive. We communicate urgently when there is a scheduled competition and then come very constructive and regular discussions and exchanges between the three poles for the recovery of the runner.

How important is health to a strong athletic performance?

To be successful you obviously have to be in good health, this is the sine qua non condition. It is therefore up to us, within the medical center, to check it with the runners, while calling on specialists. But we also know that to be successful, you must accumulate significant training loads, but they can at certain levels be harmful to health. It is up to us to study and monitor all of this, which we do by means of questionnaires, interrogations and fairly extensive biological assessments. We are trying to study the markers that show that the impact of the workload is satisfactory, or too high. In the latter case, we contact the coach and the sporting director to indicate that such a runner is in a “yellow-orange” zone, that he must therefore ease off, let him skip this or that race so that he preserves himself and becomes competitive again. We must set up witnesses so as not to bring our runners to overtraining. Because once this zone is reached, it is a disaster for the runner with a stoppage of the competition from three to six months. Within the medical center, we must anticipate the impact of workloads on the health of the runner. As soon as it exceeds certain areas, it can be a source of injury, infectious diseases. I’ve talked a lot about the immune system, but that’s because it’s so important to us. A runner who catches an x ​​or y virus is no longer efficient. A completely harmless virus for everyone can have consequences for an athlete, several weeks off.