The Whale Shark is the biggest nonmammalian vertebrate* on the planet, rivaling the dinosaurs for size. How do you feed yourself when you’re that huge without loading up on carbs all the time? Easy, you swim around with your mouth wide open for 22 hours a day and hope enough food swims in there to take the edge off the hunger pangs. Cyclists face a metaphorically similar challenge when it comes to loading up the lungs with enough air to support our ravenous hunger for more V.
While the civilized person doesn’t normally wander about with their jaw agape as though missing a chromosome, the Velominatus – the most civilized of Cyclists – always rides with a slack jaw. Better for gulping down air while helping yourself to heaping portions of The V.
The sad reality is that when riding uphill, one can either suffer or one can climb off. There is nothing in the middle, no Option C. There may be some (perceived) degree of control over how intense the suffering is, but one of the most important discoveries a Cyclist will ever make is that riding uphill at a moderate pace is almost as hard as riding uphill à bloc. The question becomes one of sustainment of the effort; how much oxygen can be supplied to the blood so the muscles can keep firing. The answer is that you can be as strong as Hercules but if you don’t concentrate on your breathing to get as much air into the lungs as possible, it won’t be very long before Scotty is calling up from the engine room with some bleak news.
Enter the Whale Shark breathing technique: open you mouth wide, and hoover up as much air as possible as you make your way uphill. Ullrich was a champion of this approach, dropping the jaw like the loader on a tractor, cramming air down the hatch and into the furnace. His fellow countryman Tony Martin has taken over the mantle with possibly the most realistic Whaleshark impersonation I’ve ever seen. But this is a technique as old as the sport itself; even the most casual browsing of a photo archive will show riders from all eras riding with their mouths hanging wide open.
The idea here is improve your breathing while avoiding looking like a yawning chimp. Here are a few pointers.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Whale Shark/”/]
*Nonmammalian vertebrate? Do we need that distinction? Are there any competing nonmammalian invertebrates? I’d hate to run into a 21 metric ton bug.
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@Puffy
You'd be surprised. I've got you beat in the skinny department (188cm, 67kg), but regular, cycling-specific gym work has done wonders for hard efforts. Pushed 6x6min at 300W for the first time last week...
@tessar
Depends on what you're training program looks like. Of course there are a thousand opinions but mine is simply that time in the Gym replaces time on the bike so I get my strength work done on the bike. Specificity...
If I was a track, bmx or short course rider I might be looking at gym work differently.
@Puffy
Specificity doesn't mean "to become a faster cyclist I must only cycle" - that will only lead to stagnation and a fitness plateau. Specificity means that each workout should be targeted towards the goal of becoming a better cyclist.
And "strength work on the bike" is not strength work. It's cycling.
Look at any modern pro. Any. From the stage-racing skeletons through domestiques, Classics hardmen and TT and Sprint specialists, they all pay their dues and spend time during winter at the gym, doing bike specific exercises. Many continue deep into the season. Why? Because cycling alone can't stimulate the muscles the way weight work does, and they need that: Whether the goal is to sprint faster, fatigue less, or produce more power out of their lean, 55kg body. For us average joes, it's all the more important for our daily lives and health.
Today was my First Ride Back since this article was posted. I tried the Whale Shark technique, and while I think it helped, it seems today I was more akin to the Remora - the suckerfish which latches on to the shark for a free ride and protection.
I usually get a mouth full of bugs when I try the whale shark... then its hard to look casually deliberate while hacking them out...
@1860
Rule #5 and eat the fuckers.