The next steps to peak fitness

Last time we imagined ourselves as a newly minted cyclist taking our first pedal strokes on the ambitious voyage from wholly sedentary to elite performance. After only a few weeks we’ve started to enjoy dividends, delivered largely by shifts in blood plasma volume and chemical upticks in the shape of performance-catalysing enzymes.

Thanks to millions of years of evolution, our brain has reacted by quickly dialling up what it can, and the early results are profound: power is up, heart rate is down and