{"id":1805842,"date":"2026-03-03T04:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T01:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1805842"},"modified":"2026-03-03T04:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T01:50:17","slug":"why-vismas-deadliest-weapon-for-taking-down-pogacar-could-be-a-breathing-sensor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1805842","title":{"rendered":"Why Visma’s Deadliest Weapon for Taking down Poga\u010dar Could Be a Breathing Sensor"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-2.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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Jim Cotton<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Updated March 4, 2026 01:37AM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Breathing sensors were hyped as potentially \u201ctransformational\u201d last year when Visma-Lease a Bike began tinkering with the breakout new training tool.<\/p>\n

Twelve months later, it seems that Tymewear breath monitors are living up to the enormous expectations.<\/p>\n

Visma-Lease a Bike\u2019s head of performance Mathieu Heijboer told Velo<\/em> that access to breathing data has revolutionized the way his team trains.<\/p>\n

And more specifically, ventilation markers might have given the Dutch Bees a new laser-guided weapon for its super team war with UAE Emirates-XRG.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving breathing data has been a big development for us,\u201d Heijboer told Velo<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the first real measures of physiological load we\u2019ve had since the introduction of heart rate monitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd ventilation data tells us a lot more than heart rate alone,\u201d Heijboer said. \u201cIt\u2019s really helping us interpret training.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Breathing sensors provide riders with a measure of strain that can only be matched by metabolic testing in a performance lab. This \u201cventilation\u201d data is free of the uncertainties of heart rate and a more telling gauge of effort than power.<\/p>\n

Some believe these wearables could mark a new chapter in the history of endurance training.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Jonas Vingegaard, Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot, and Wout van Aert have been strapping the distinctive double-disc sensors to their backs ever since V-LAB partnered Tymewear this time last year.<\/p>\n

Breathing sensors provide a new benchmark<\/h2>\n
Vingegaard\u2019s Tymewear sensor can be seen beneath his jersey as he rolls to a stage-win at the 2025 Vuelta.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tymewear sensors use strain gauges to measure the volume of air exchanged at the lungs. This allows athletes to pinpoint two of their most crucial physiological markers \u2013 VT1 and VT2.<\/p>\n

These \u201cventilation thresholds\u201d map directly to the lactate thresholds that define the efficiency of an athlete\u2019s endurance engine. An athlete\u2019s lactate thresholds underpin their every training zone, workout program, and pacing chart.<\/p>\n

Lactate \u201ctipping points\u201d have \u2013 until now \u2013 only been measured by testing in the lab or at the side of the road with fiddly and disruptive pinprick tests.<\/p>\n

Tymewear effectively eliminates this black hole by putting real-time metabolic tracking onto the open road.<\/p>\n

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And better still for Visma-Lease a Bike, a green light from the UCI means they can be used across the racing calendar.<\/p>\n

Visma\u2019s performance guru Heijboer explained to Velo<\/em> that his trainers are primarily using Tymewear data for post-session analysis. It helps staffers identify an athlete\u2019s weak points and plan future sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at the data whilst riders are doing efforts, like VT1, tempo, or threshold. It\u2019s interesting how ventilation \u2018behaves\u2019 and what we learn from that about the load on the body,\u201d Heijboer told Velo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also telling riders to watch their ventilation data whilst they\u2019re training, so they can learn their body better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s surely only a matter of time before a ventilation score fills a primary data field on every rider\u2019s head unit.<\/p>\n

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A new ventilation-guided weapon to whack Poga\u010dar<\/h2>\n
The Tymewear VitalPro mounts a breathing sensor and heart rate monitor onto one chest strap.<\/span> (Photo: Courtesy Tymewear)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tymewear CEO Arnar Larusson told Velo<\/em> that ventilation data has delivered on its \u201ctransformational\u201d promise for Visma-Lease a Bike.<\/p>\n

The powerhouse Dutch team has embraced a whole new training philosophy based on ventilation data.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRiders at Visma are all doing VT1 training now,\u201d Larusson told Velo<\/em> in a recent call. \u201cThis work at the end of the fat burning plateau is where Poga\u010dar and UAE talk about Zone 2 training.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what Poga\u010dar has been doing for several years \u2013 identifying the VT1 limit and then pushing it up with longer intervals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until now, Visma was notorious for following a highly polarized training model. You could call it \u201cVO2s or cruise.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now, there\u2019s more focus on VT1.<\/p>\n

UAE Emirates-XRG became a squad of highly durable, fatigue-resistant victory-munchers by centering its training around gruelling \u201call-day-difficult\u201d workouts that hit the very same physiological zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Tymewear we now have a more accurate idea of the VT1 threshold, so we can track this better,\u201d Heijboer confirmed.<\/p>\n

According to Larusson, this was the chink in Visma\u2019s armor that weakened its grip on the WorldTour hierarchy.<\/p>\n

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\u201cUntil now, VT1 seems to have been a blind spot for Visma, or a place where they didn\u2019t do a lot of training,\u201d Larusson said. \u201cThe thinking is that some of the durability issues that they were having last season can be addressed by introducing more of this type of training.<\/p>\n

\u201cTymewear is guiding that change for the team,\u201d he said. \u201cIt helps riders understand where VT1 is and guides their training with that marker.\u201d<\/p>\n

A useful new tool or just another data point?<\/h2>\n
\"Visma
Can a new training tool help Visma dethrone Poga\u010dar and Van der Poel?<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Visma\u2019s ventilation-guided programing shift hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed in the cliquey WorldTour community. Poga\u010dar\u2019s classics domestique Florian Vermeersch was discussing it only last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI now hear from many Visma riders that there is a shift to Zone 2 training there,\u201d Vermeersch told WielerRevue.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays, racing is so fast from the very beginning that it is important to have as much \u2018spare\u2019 as possible at the end of the day so that you can pedal hard again,\u201d UAE racer Vermeersch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s less about the absolute peak wattages now. That\u2019s why more teams are starting to move on to that type of fatigue resistance training,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But is a new data point and tweaked-out training program enough for Visma to dethrone UAE in 2026?<\/p>\n

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Tymewear founder Larusson\u2019s excitement must be taken with a dose of salt.<\/p>\n

The true litmus tests will arrive when Visma-Lease a Bike hits the finish lines of Flanders, Roubaix, and the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

Tymewear breathing sensors are not a simple solution<\/h2>\n
\"Visma's
Visma\u2019s head of performance Heijboer acknowledged difficulties getting to grips with data from breathing sensors.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Visma\u2019s early findings from using Tymewear are a fascinating insight into the potential of real-time ventilation data.<\/p>\n

If it revealed a weakness in one of the world\u2019s most scientifically advanced teams, its impact elsewhere could be huge.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not to say breathing sensors are some Silver Bullet.<\/p>\n

Heijboer admitted even the expert physiologists at V-LAB had to grapple with the nuances and quirks of a whole new dataset.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s been easy to adopt this data, but it is very insightful,\u201d Heijboer told Velo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing for us in this case is that we always get feedback on how a rider felt during the race or training,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s helped us to better interpret the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That wasn\u2019t the only problem.<\/p>\n

Tymewear had to retrofit its breathing sensors onto the heart rate monitor straps supplied by Visma-Lease a Bike\u2019s tech partner, Garmin. The squad\u2019s existing affiliation rendered Tymewear\u2019s 2-in-1 VitalPro heart rate and breath sensor product off-limits.<\/p>\n

Breaking down ventilation data for the masses<\/h2>\n
\"Tymewear
Tymewear has been improving both the breath sensor and the partnering software package. <\/span> (Photo: Courtesy Tymewear)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tymewear fully launched last fall, and Larusson promised it\u2019s not just for pro athletes with the world\u2019s best trainers.<\/p>\n

The U.S. brand is working to close the knowledge gap for us humble amateurs.<\/p>\n

The Tymewear app is layered with algorithms that guide athletes through ventilation-based training without the need for an oversize text book.<\/p>\n

A software update that auto-detects ventilation thresholds and eliminates the need for a baseline test is also due for release sometime this year. Think TrainerRoad\u2019s rolling functional threshold power model, but for ventilation scores.<\/p>\n

Larusson also said that battery and build issues discovered in early production batches have been resolved, and the proprietary breath sensor has been finessed with a bunch of firmware updates.<\/p>\n

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There are also plans to expand Tymewear\u2019s partner integration capacities beyond the Garmin ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Hook-ups with Wahoo and Zwift, and the introduction of an ERG mode, are in the works.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got a VitalPro at Velo HQ for testing right now. Stay tuned for the full review.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jim Cotton<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Updated March 4, 2026 01:37AM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-training\/visma-tymewear-breathing-sensors-level-uae\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-2.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated March 4, 2026 01:37AM Breathing sensors were hyped as potentially \u201ctransformational\u201d last year when Visma-Lease a Bike began tinkering with the breakout new training tool. Twelve months later, it seems that Tymewear breath monitors are living up to the enormous expectations. Visma-Lease a Bike\u2019s head of performance Mathieu Heijboer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1805842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1805842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1805842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1805842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1805842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}