The world of cycling training is on the verge of a revolutionary shift, moving beyond traditional metrics such as power meters and heart rate monitors to focus on something even more fundamental: breathing. In a fascinating interview with Arnar Laursson, the founder of Tymewear, we explore how this cutting-edge respiratory monitoring technology is already being implemented by Team Visma Lease a Bike and how it could represent the most significant breakthrough in training technology since the emergence of heart rate monitors.

The Fundamental Nature of Breathing

At its core, breathing is the most basic and essential aspect of athletic performance. As Arnar explains, “If you try holding your breath, you’re not going to last very long.” This simple observation underscores the critical importance of respiratory function in endurance sport. While heart rate serves as a proxy for oxygen consumption and power output measures workload, breathing (specifically ventilation) is the fundamental process that coaches and scientists are truly interested in measuring within lab settings.

Understanding Ventilation Metrics

Tymewear’s technology monitors two key respiratory metrics:​

When combined, these measurements produce the flow rate in and out of the lungs. By tracking the expansion and contraction of the chest cavity, the system provides a highly accurate assessment of respiratory patterns, offering consistent daily measurements for each individual athlete.

Advantages Over Traditional Metrics

One of the greatest advantages of respiratory monitoring lies in its stability compared to traditional metrics. While heart rate can drift substantially during long rides and power output may decline with fatigue, ventilation remains remarkably stable for a given effort level. This consistency makes it a more reliable indicator of true physiological stress and exertion.

A study by Ed Manders and Dan Plews showed that during a 1–2 hour ride at VT1 (the top of Zone 2):​

This indicates that ventilation may offer a more accurate way to gauge and control training intensity.

Individualisation and Training Zones

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this technology is its ability to create truly individualised training zones based on each athlete’s unique respiratory patterns, rather than relying on population averages. As Arnar notes, “With ventilation, we can completely flip this whole model around,” moving away from heart rate zones based on broad statistical assumptions with significant margins of error.

Tymewear’s technology enables:

Implementation at the WorldTour Level

Team Visma Lease a Bike has fully embraced this technology, equipping both their men’s and women’s WorldTour teams with Tymewear sensors. A surprising insight from working with elite athletes is that their physiological responses are fundamentally similar to those of amateur riders. The difference lies in their vastly superior capacity.

Even at the highest level of the sport, the technology has highlighted the need for more accurate intensity calibration. Professional riders, despite their experience, can still fall prey to intensity creep during long training rides, making objective respiratory data vital for maintaining optimal training zones.

Future Applications and Implications

Though still in its early stages, the potential applications of this technology include:​

Conclusion

As the science of cycling training continues to evolve, respiratory monitoring represents a significant leap forward in our understanding of human performance. By offering more accurate, personalised data on stress and adaptation, this innovation could reshape how athletes train, recover, and compete.

The elegance of this breakthrough lies in its simplicity. As Arnar puts it: “It can’t be simpler than that. This is my fitness level. This is what I do to improve it.” In a world increasingly filled with complex metrics and analysis, perhaps the most transformative advances will come from getting back to the most fundamental elements of performance.

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