A rider usually knows something is wrong before they know what to call it.
The warm-up takes longer. The first effort is still there, but the second one is not quite the same. A gym number that should have moved does not move. Sleep happens, but it does not seem to repair anything. A cold stays longer than it should. A small injury clears, then returns. The rider can still train, still race, still look professional, but the body no longer feels as dependable as it once did.
For a while, there is always an explanation. Travel. Heat. A heavy block. A disrupted night's sleep. The unevenness of returning from injury. In elite cycling, all of those explanations can be true. The problem comes when the reason keeps changing and the pattern remains.
RED-S often appears in that space.
Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, still widely known as RED-S and now increasingly written as REDs in the latest IOC language, begins with low energy availability. After training and exercise have taken their share, the body does not have enough energy left to support normal function. Hormonal health, bone strength, immunity, mood, sleep, concentration, recovery and training adaptation can all be affected.
That is the part cycling still finds too easy to miss. The rider may be eating. They may not look underweight. They may even have gained weight. RED-S is not diagnosed by how an athlete looks in kit. It sits in the mismatch between the work being demanded and the energy available to support it.
Chloe Dygert's public account of her diagnosis was important because it pushed directly against the old stereotype. She described signs that had been there but had not been easy to recognise. One detail was especially revealing: she had gained weight, which made RED-S feel less obvious.
That should make the sport uncomfortable. For too long, cycling has imagined energy deficiency through a narrow visual lens: the visibly underweight female endurance athlete, deliberately restricting food, clearly unwell. That version exists, and when it does it is serious. But it is not the whole condition.
RED-S can affect Olympic champions. It can affect sprinters. It can affect male riders. It can affect riders in heavier bodies. It can affect athletes who are eating regularly but not enough for the combined cost of training, racing, travel, illness, injury recovery, psychological pressure and professional life.
Cycling is getting better at naming RED-S. It still needs to get better at admitting how easily the sport can create the conditions for it.
The body weight story is too small
Cycling has never had a neutral relationship with body weight.
On the road, the connection is obvious. Watts per kilo, climbing, selection, contract value and race role have all made leanness part of the professional language. Track cycling is different, but not separate. The body is still measured, shaped and discussed in the name of performance.
A sprinter may not be trying to look like a climber, but body composition still sits inside the job. Muscle mass, peak power, acceleration, gym load, recovery and repeated tournament efforts all pull on the same athlete. A pursuit rider has to hold power and position while managing aerodynamics, strength endurance and often a road-based training load. A bunch rider may need road durability, track sharpness and enough repeatability to survive race after race.
The events look different. The risk is shared.
A rider does not need to be trying to under-fuel to end up under-fuelled. A larger gym block, more travel, a delayed meal after the track, poor appetite after high-intensity work, a return from injury, anxiety around selection, or a calendar that never settles can all move the athlete in the wrong direction.
None of those moments has to look dangerous on its own. Together, they can become the problem.
That is why body weight is such a poor shortcut. A rider can maintain weight and still have low energy availability. A rider can gain weight and still be in physiological difficulty. A rider can eat what looks like a large amount of food and still not be eating enough for the work, stress and recovery demand placed on them.
The body is not responding to cycling's old idea of risk. It is responding to whether there is enough energy to keep its systems working.
Why the velodrome changes the problem
Track cycling is often described through the length of its efforts. A flying 200. A standing lap. A team sprint. A four-minute pursuit. Short, measured, controlled.
The stopwatch does not show the day around it.
A track day can be long and awkward. Arrive early. Build the bike. Check the gear. Warm up. Wait. Cool down. Eat something quickly. Hear the schedule has moved. Get back on the rollers. Wait again. Race. Cool down. Change. Sit in the heat. Watch the clock. Try to eat enough without feeling heavy. Try to stay calm when the next ride is always close, but never quite close enough to plan perfectly.
The race may last seconds or minutes. The body has been working all day.
That matters because track riders do not fuel while actually riding the track bike. There is no bottle in the bunch, no gel taken mid-effort, no steady intake during the work itself. Fuelling has to happen before riding, between efforts and after sessions. It has to fit the velodrome, not an ideal plan written away from the infield.
Training brings the same issue in another form. Sprint sessions can look low volume on paper, but the neuromuscular cost is high. The rider may not have done much distance, while the nervous system, muscle tissue and hormonal system have still been hit hard. Pursuit work can combine road fatigue, position stress, heat, strength endurance and repeated efforts that need to be high quality to be useful. Bunch-race preparation can be deceptive because the cost is uneven: some work is aerobic, some is brutally anaerobic, and the accumulated fatigue often appears only when recovery starts to fail.
Modern track cycling adds another layer through aerodynamics. Frontal area, position sustainability, muscle distribution, cockpit set-up and event role all influence how a rider's body is understood. None of that is wrong. Elite performance has to care about the body as a system.
The mistake is treating body composition as if it can be separated from endocrine function, bone health, immunity, sleep, mood and adaptation.
A rider who is lighter but cannot recover is not optimised. A rider who looks sharper but cannot absorb training is not ready. A rider whose body is giving up normal function to keep producing short-term output is not being prepared well.
The warning signs are easy to excuse
The early signs of RED-S often sound like ordinary training.
The rider is tired. The rider is flat. The rider is ill again. The rider's power is down. The rider cannot quite finish the session. The rider is sore for too long. The rider is still working, but the work is no longer landing.
Coaches are used to managing fatigue. Athletes are used to living with discomfort. That is part of high-performance sport. The difference with RED-S is the direction of travel. Training stops producing the expected response. Recovery becomes less reliable. Small problems begin to cluster. The athlete remains committed, but the body becomes less available.
For female riders, menstrual disruption is one of the clearest warning signs. Irregular periods, missed periods or the loss of a cycle should not be treated as a normal sign of fitness, leanness or professionalism. It is not proof that training is working. It is a health signal.
Heavy, prolonged or otherwise unusual bleeding also deserves medical assessment, but it should not automatically be attributed to RED-S. Thyroid dysfunction and other gynaecological or endocrine conditions can produce similar changes. Menstrual disruption can sit within the RED-S picture, but no single bleeding pattern is diagnostic on its own.
For male riders, the warning signs can be less visible and less easily discussed. Low libido, fewer or absent morning erections, low testosterone, low mood, poor recovery, recurrent illness, bone stress and gradual performance loss can all sit inside the RED-S picture. Cycling has not always made those conversations easy. It is simpler for a male rider to say he is tired than to talk about hormonal symptoms, sexual function or body pressure.
That silence protects the problem.
Male athletes do not have the same obvious marker as a lost menstrual cycle. The signs can be quieter: a hormonal profile that drifts, mood that flattens, bones that become more vulnerable, performance that becomes inconsistent. By the time the pattern is obvious, it may have been developing for months.
Bone health should concern cycling more than it often does. Track riders can produce enormous force, but cycling is not weight-bearing in the way running, jumping or many field sports are. A rider can be powerful on the bike and still have poor bone density. If low energy availability suppresses hormonal function and compromises bone remodelling, the first loud warning may be a stress injury or fracture that should not have happened.
Performance gives clues too. Peak power becomes inconsistent. Repeatability falls away. Recovery between rides gets worse. The final effort in a sprint session disappears. The pursuit rider can ride hard but cannot hold shape. The bunch rider starts making slower decisions under fatigue.
The rider keeps training, but the body stops adapting. That is the difference between being tired and being in trouble.
Not every case starts with an eating disorder
Eating disorders and disordered eating can be part of RED-S. When they are, the athlete needs proper clinical support. Food fear, body image distress, compulsive restriction, anxiety around meals, pressure from coaches or team culture, and fear of weight gain are serious. They should never be dressed up as discipline.
But RED-S cannot be reduced to eating disorders.
Low energy availability can be unintentional. A rider may not understand the true energy cost of their training. They may eat well on easy days but miss the crucial window after hard work. They may have poor access to food while travelling. They may lose appetite after intense efforts. They may be balancing road racing, track blocks, gym, media, sponsor commitments and recovery without a realistic fuelling structure underneath it. They may be returning from injury and adding load everywhere: physio, gym, track, road, rehab, travel, stress.
No single choice has to be reckless. The total demand can still become too much.
A good programme does not leave fuelling as a private test of professionalism. It treats food timing, recovery and medical monitoring as part of performance. It asks whether the training load makes sense. It notices when a rider is always nearly well, always nearly recovered, always one more week away from feeling normal.
A weaker environment praises the work and misses the cost.
Diagnosis needs professionals, not guesswork
RED-S should not be self-diagnosed from a list of symptoms. Its signs overlap with other conditions, including iron deficiency, thyroid dysfunction, infection, overtraining, mental health strain, endocrine disorders, poor sleep, travel fatigue and the normal heaviness of hard training.
Suspicion should lead to assessment.
That assessment belongs with qualified professionals. A proper process may include medical history, training history, injury history, menstrual history where relevant, dietary review, psychological screening, blood tests, hormone markers, iron and ferritin, vitamin D, thyroid markers, bone health assessment, sleep, mood, appetite, weight change and training response. In some cases, DEXA scanning may be used to assess bone mineral density.
Screening tools can open the conversation. They are not a diagnosis on their own.
The best teams make that process routine, so a rider can raise a concern before it becomes a crisis.
A rider should not have to collapse before the system asks whether training load, fuelling, recovery and life stress add up. A female rider should not have to lose a period for months before concern becomes serious. A male rider should not have to translate hormonal symptoms into more acceptable sporting language before someone listens.
Professional sport will always be uncomfortable. It should not require athletes to stay quiet about signs that their body is failing to cope.
Recovery means changing the load, not just the menu
The simple principle is to restore energy availability. The practical work is more delicate.
Some riders need more total food. Some need better timing. Some need more carbohydrate around key work. Some need recovery nutrition treated as non-negotiable. Some need training reduced. Some need racing paused. Some need psychological support, especially where food, body image, fear of weight gain, anxiety or selection pressure are part of the problem.
This should not be handled by guesswork. RED-S treatment belongs with a multidisciplinary team: sports doctor, sports dietitian, coach, and psychologist where needed. Sometimes endocrinology or other specialist input may be appropriate.
For a track cyclist, recovery has to respect the event.
A sprinter needs enough energy availability to support muscle repair, high-force gym work, neuromuscular quality, hormonal function and recovery between maximal efforts. A pursuit rider needs enough energy to absorb aerobic work, strength endurance, heat stress, position work and repeated high-quality track sessions. A bunch rider needs enough energy to manage the irregular violence of racing: road depth, tactical alertness, repeated accelerations, recovery between rounds and decision-making under fatigue.
The aim is not to make the rider eat more and hope. The aim is to make the body safe to train again.
That may mean uncomfortable decisions. The calendar may need to change. Training may need to be reduced. A return may need to slow down. The coach may have to accept that the session cannot be rescued by determination. The rider may have to accept that a few better days are not the same as recovery.
RED-S recovery is not proved by one good ride. It is proved by the return of stable adaptation.
Management has to fit the velodrome
The ongoing management of RED-S cannot sit in a document that nobody uses when the session starts.
At the track, the critical moments are often ordinary ones. The rider who finishes a hard effort and does not feel like eating. The pursuit rider who is due back on the rollers soon and only takes a few mouthfuls. The sprinter who thinks the next effort is too close for proper fuelling, then sits through a delay. The bunch rider who warms up twice before the race is moved. The athlete who gets through the day on caffeine, nerves and small snacks because the schedule never seems settled enough for a real meal.
Those details decide whether the plan works.
Fuelling needs to be built around the shape of the day: before the session, between efforts, after training, between rounds, after qualification, before finals, after travel, before sleep. Recovery intake should be part of the session plan, not something left until the bike is packed away. On competition days, riders and staff need food options that work around call-up times, warm-up protocols, heat and nerves.
The food table is not separate from performance. It is part of the reason performance is possible.
Monitoring has to be broader than body mass and power files. Coaches and support staff should also be alert to mood, sleep, appetite, illness frequency, injury pattern, cycle regularity, hormonal symptoms, recovery between efforts and whether training is producing the expected response.
For female riders, menstrual tracking should be normalised without becoming intrusive or punitive. For male riders, hormonal health needs to be discussed without embarrassment. In both cases, health information must be protected. It should support the athlete, not become another selection weapon.
Junior and under-23 riders need particular care. They often enter elite track systems before they have the knowledge or confidence to question what they see. They may copy senior habits around food, weight, training and recovery without having senior-level support. They may learn that silence looks professional. They may think feeling permanently under-recovered is part of becoming serious.
That is not development. It is risk transfer.
The responsibility sits around the rider too
Athletes have responsibility. They need to fuel properly, speak honestly, track warning signs and seek help when something is wrong.
But RED-S is not only an athlete problem.
Teams write programmes. Coaches set tone. Doctors decide what is monitored. Dietitians need to be available before the crisis point. Directors influence selection. Federations shape pathways. Sponsors and media reward comeback stories, suffering and visible transformation. Social platforms turn training, food and body shape into public performance.
A pro programme cannot measure load, body mass, power, readiness, lactate, gearing, position and heat response, then pretend energy availability is only the rider's private problem. If the system measures the output, it has a responsibility to understand the cost.
The solution is not to make elite sport soft. Track cycling is hard. It should be hard. Olympic medals, world titles and professional careers are not built in comfortable environments. But hard training and poor energy availability are not the same thing. A serious programme should know the difference.
Food timing, recovery, bone health, menstrual function, hormonal health, sleep and mood are not soft extras. They are part of the athlete's ability to keep producing.
The best systems do not wait for RED-S to become obvious. They notice the rider whose training has stopped landing. The injury that should have healed. The illness that keeps returning. The athlete who is always nearly back. The body that can still produce a performance but no longer recovers from it.
Cycling has become exceptional at measuring output. Power, speed, lactate, CdA, torque, gearing, position, left-right balance, heat response, split times. The sport can see almost everything the athlete produces.
RED-S asks whether it is willing to look just as closely at what the athlete is spending.
For too long, cycling has treated that cost as private. It is not. It belongs inside the performance conversation, because by the time RED-S becomes impossible to ignore, the rider has often already paid too much.
