Cycling Coaches in Sydney - Page 4

There is no contradiction, I agree with Coyle's findings, which is, the rider who stomps down hardest on the pedal will produce the greatest crank torque. But this is instantaneous power, ideal for sprinting or acceleration purposes but useless for sustainable high gear output in TT's. Coyle's instantaneous power is got by concentrating maximal effort in the "push down"
pedaller's very restricted tangential area around 3 o'c, this gives a lower gear effect. A rider can greatly increase the total crank torque in his downstroke by extending his area of max pedal force application to 180deg. of the downstroke while also extending his tangential effect area to 140 deg. This enables the rider to apply maximal crank torque through 12 o'c and eliminate that waste of applied pedal force caused by the lesser tangentially effective area in the downstroke of the natural or "push down" Coyle style pedaller.

Coyle's 1991 study was explicitly in the context of 40K time trials, not sprints, not kilo starts, not peak power.

He found that national class time trial riders pushed down harder during a smaller percentage of the pedal cycle than state level riders and using that stomp harder method the national class riders rode faster 40K time trials.

I don't see how you can possibly suggest that Coyle's findings are restricted to peak power generation and not applicable to time trials, his findings were directly related to time trials.

Well there is the problem. Taking an anecdote from a Professional Athlete who As far as I know is not a trained biomechanist or looking at video footage of a past legend without any hard data and acknowledging that his success could have been from other factors or pedalling may have even limited his performance over the well controlled research on the subject.

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Hamish Ferguson: Cycling Coach
http://hamishferguson.blogspot.com/

Coyle was comparing the stomping style to the weakest of all styles, the circular style, not the linear style that I use.

Funny, a moment ago you were arguing that Coyle's findings didn't apply to time trials.

Damn busted on that one, better try another tack...

So none of these national class time trialists happened upon your 'linear' method and based on the force curves of the state level (still quite good riders) time trialists none of them happened on your magic method either.

Well that gets us back to my earlier post, if you want to gain any credibility with this approach you'd better recruit some cyclists that can demonstrate success with this 'linear' method and then you can run your own studies and show how much better it is than stompers or spinners. Given the 'obvious' superiority of the linear method, why do you suppose you seem to be the only person on the planet that's figured it out?

But until you demonstrate that 'obvious' superiority you've got nothing but supposition backed with no evidence.

Has it ever occurred to you that Anquetil might have developed a really bad pedaling habit but he was so damn fit he managed to get away with it?

The OP asked;

It might be an idea to start another thread if you want to discuss studies on pedaling technique

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Steve
CyclingForums.com

Well you are wrong there, Anquetil's technique was so superior in TT's that he was able to wine and dine into the early hours and still win his TT's next day. The latest Powermeters currently being built should be able to print out simultaneous applied pedal force/resultant crank torque values every 3 deg. of the pedalling circle, but we are only interested in the downstroke half, for me that's 11 to 5 for you 12 to 6 o'c. Results could be very interesting.

Two important facts were responsible, I did not believe the teaching of the experts (narrow bars restrict breathing) and because of this when I had the idea of biomechanically combining the upper body arm power of a handcrank rider with the lower body leg power of a natural cyclist, I was successful. Anquetil's linear pedalling style was the result.

Frank is creaming himself over that as well. Ignoring the fact that we have been measuring pedal forces for the last 30 years. Not sure why you both are expecting a different result to come from the pedal based power meter when the data is no different to previous measures.

__________________
Hamish Ferguson: Cycling Coach
http://hamishferguson.blogspot.com/

LOL - it has a life of it's own

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Custom Training Plans -- cyclecoach.com -- My Blog -- Power Meter Hire in Australia

You don't know the half of it.

Well, if I could only improve my pedalling technique.

Hang on, I'm missing an ankle. Bugger, there goes that idea down the body parts waste bin.

Must explain how I was able to do my 2 x 20-min TTIs today at 306 & 307 watts, or ~97% of my pre amputation TTI power levels. More to come on that front I'd say.

__________________
Custom Training Plans -- cyclecoach.com -- My Blog -- Power Meter Hire in Australia

Actually, if you will read the paper carefully, about all he showed was:

1. the better riders had 3 more years of aerobic training than the lesser riders and,

2. the better riders also had to have been more aerodynamic since they were, as I remember generated only 11% more power but were 10% faster. A 10% increase in speed, if the aerodynamics are the same, would require an approximate 30% increase in power.

No argument, but it also showed that the national class riders generated higher peak forces distributed over a smaller percentage of the pedal stroke which is actually relevant to the tangent this discussion has taken. It does not as you've previously pointed out demonstrate a causal relationship but it does demonstrate a very strong correlation between less round pedal strokes, higher sustained power and faster time trial times.

The 10% power increase, more years of cycling and perhaps better aerodynamics are all interesting but not the point of this discussion and if anything suggests that successful riders with more years of training spin less and push more.

Maybe better aerodynamics makes them push more and spin less or maybe it's the other way around or maybe it's pure coincidence but the study did show what these riders were doing and the faster guys spun less.

Did the better riders exert less force or proportionally less force outside of the "stomp" ?

The purpose of the study was to try to determine what sets the "elite" rider apart from the good rider. It does not seem like such a surprising finding that more powerful riders push on the pedals harder than less powerful riders. It is also not clear what the paper also said about "spinning" since the elite group completely unweighted on the backstroke, which many define as spinning.

The paper was brought into this discussion by someone other than myself with an attempt to show the paper "proved" something it did not, to make a point. You would think as often as this paper has been discussed that some of them would have learned what this paper actually says by now.