pealling push up push down

Peter Hummers

Have you tried rollers? Unsupported, just setting the bike down and pedalling? It's not easy at first to avoid falling off. Your smoothness and handling will increase immensely -- the horror of riding in a tight pack with newcomers, who might swerve or slow suddenly, is all too real.

Your pedaling efficiency can also compensate for a bit of tiredness/age (alas!), and you can learn it by pedaling smoothly through the circle on rollers. Also, rollers without resistance aren't much good for snap or speed, but they're good for endurance training, if you don't want to go out in weather. Like instead of a hundred easy miles outside, four hours on rollers will come close.

__________________
-Peter Hummers
==
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." -Mark Twain, Taming the Bicycle

Phill P

My god what a large thread!! Clearly we're never going to get complete agreement on this topic. Everbody is different and what works for one set of legs may not suit another.

For (average old) me, I feel I can generate more power for a short period of time by lifting. By lifting I can feel my feet pulling the upper off the sole of the shoe. However I can't keep this up for long and my quads burn out (could be a lack of conditioning though). My take on this is our muscles need the recovery time between power down strokes, and lifting means too much continous effort so you hit the lactic acid level more quickly.

I lift to get up a rise with out dropping cadence, or to accelerate in a big gear, other wise a "coast up" lift works best for me for general riding.

helmutRoole2

Ric, why you gotta do Frank like that?

And Frank, you should back off that 40 percent figure. No one's buying it.

I've used PCs and I think they do work for most people, particularly people who have experienced severe muscles tears or have significant muscle imbalances or core stability issues.

I know several pro riders who use them (Todd Harriot for one) and they believe the PCs work. I don't think these people are crazy. I think what they experience is real and for a multitude of reasons.

My suggestion ref. PowerCranks is, if you feel that your pedal mechanics are off, then they might work for you. But, be prepared to sell them on e-bay because they don't work for everyone. You can re-sell them easily. Plenty of people want to try them.

What they did for me was create a greater awareness of my pedal stroke with instantaneous feedback. I still rotate them into my training. I can't give a precise kinesiological (that my not be a word) reason for why they work for me, but I think they do.

Ken Mierke has apparently done some research on them: http://www.trainingpeaks.com/

Here's what he said in a forum thread:

"I have used PowerCranks with many clients and found that they are a VERY effective supplemental tool. My research found that using PowerCranks several times per week for easy workouts, but using regular cranks for high intensity workouts improved LT wattage significantly vs the same routine using oinly regular cranks. When we did the same tests after training only on PowerCranks, LT wattage consistently decreased. Our research used riders from beginner to professional. I think it is an extremely effective tool, but I do not recommend following the instructions from the company for their use."

I did a google search and didn't come up with any research ref. Power Cranks from any accredited university or anything published in a peer-reviewed journal.

But, I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand.

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"Bait in 08" --nns1400

Rich8P

I saw a reference to rowing in the first few posts of the thread. I'm just learning about cycling but I do know about rowing.

The mention that rowers also use arms for power in the rowing stroke is not correct. In fact, better rowers use the arms only to allow the legs and arse to pull at full power to the end of the stroke. The arm movement stops the body inertia from upsetting the boat balance and allows the blade to exit the water.

The arms would have so little effect on the rowing stroke, that it wouldn't be worth tiring them out or lactic acid to use them in the stroke.

Perhaps the metaphor is still useful to the argument here?

As I wrote, I don't know about the cycling.

noonievut

LOL...At the time of that post I don't think I had tried them. I since have and agree with your comment on smoothness and handling. Although I ride them with only one type of pedal stroke without thinking about, I've played with other (out of the ordinary) strokes and sometimes I kept balance, but it was akward.

rayhuang

Boy-I sure hope I dont crash tonight thinking about this. This thread has really called into question everything I thought was right about how I peddle, while I have also read a few posts that seemed to support how I peddle.


I often mash at the onset of an increase of speed of a pack or at the start of a climb, ususally its just the easiest way to quicky increase or maintain speed while in the saddle.

As soon as I can or as soon as I remember-I always revert to my overly complex peddling technique of pushing down, pulling back, dropping my heel, picking my heel up, pulling up, pushing forward over the top, pushing down and staring all over again.

My thoughts and I really hope someone more knowledegable can disect what I am saying with some insight are these.

My peddling stroke although it seems to tire my entire legs more has always increased cadence, smoothed out my stroke and increased my speed, especially when TT and climbing.

It also feels like it gives my aching thighs and knees a break, especially when I over empahasize the pull up and push forward parts of the stroke.

I often emphasize certain parts of the stroke depending on if I am trying to give my calfs, hamstrings or thigh muscles a better rest.

I have always worried that mashing for an entire ride will make my thighs just blow up early on a ride, but many times I have felt that by mashing down and then just basically doing nothing but unweighting on the upstroke is a very nice way to lower the percieved level of lactic acid burn. So-I sometimes mash big gears on flatd and rollers to give my other muscles ab reak. This is at times when the effort to push big gears is not that high (tailwind, flats or slightly donwhill).

Man-where do I go with this....Is my peddling stroke that seems to work many more muscles just burning away energy that could be used to "mash" away on the donwstroke alone?

Or is the use of all techniques of peddlong where the magic lies?

Ray

n crowley

Scientific research on the advantages of Powercranks is due for publication on the 4 th, according to F Day, it will surprise a lot of people.

markhr

woohoo! bring on the 4th

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/defau...llstory&id=4331

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum....cranks;#1041394

Here is a link to the scientific presentation regarding the PC Study if anyone is going to be at this meeting and wants to attend. As I said, I will post the abstract here on the 4rd, after the presentation, when it is "legal" to do so.

http://www.confmanager.com/main.cfm?cid=100&nid=5495

See at the very bottom of the page: Stephen Dixon Physiological responses to six weeks of training using PowerCranks on trained cyclists

http://www.powercranks.com/estore/i...e172b4697ba8a88

New Model 5When our clutch supplier informed us they had developed a stronger clutch, we decided to test it. After a trial period, we determined that it adds value by lowering our warranty repair rate that, while low, needed to be improved especially for our overseas customers. We have now made the Model 5 our standard product with our strongest clutch to date. We always want to keep improving our product.

We still stand behind all Model 4's sold in our "closeout" sale with our 90 day money back guarantee and 2 year warranty on parts and labor. Model 4 cranksets are subject to prior sale.

__________________
shameless POWERCRANK plug
Don't run red lights, wear a helmet, use hand signals, get some cycle lights(front and rear) and, FFS, don't run red lights!

Orange Fish

Wow, this should be good.

Fday

Here it is. This should add a little fuel to this threads fire.

Stephen J. Dixon, Michael F. Harrison, Kenneth A. Seaman, Stephen S.Cheung and J.Patrick Neary. University of New Bruswick, Fredericton, NB; Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS; University of Regina, SK , presented at the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) Nov 3, 2006

Physiological responses to training using PowerCranks on trained cyclists

ABSTRACT

PowerCranks? are cycling cranks that are independent of each other, requiring force application throughout the pedal stroke, theoretically increasing muscle recruitment and stimulus in the legs. This study examined the physiological adaptions to PowerCranks, and the time course of responses in maximal and submaximal cycling performance. Eight Trained cyclists (35.1 ± 6.8 yr) participated in 6 weeks of 100% immersion training using solely PowerCranks, consisting of ~8 h/wk of aerobic and anaerobic (~80:20) cycling training. A continuous incremental cycling test to exhaustion (50 W increase every 2 min) was performed prior to and following the training program using normal cranks. In addition, 10 min of submaximal cycling (70% of VO2max wattage) were performed with both normal cranks and PowerCranks at an approximate cadence of 85 rpm, pre and post training. VO2max increased 15.6% (58.1 ±5.8 to 67.3 ± 6.6, P=0.013), Maximum power increased 11.6% (316.7 ± 25.8 to 358.3 + 20.4, P=0.011) following PowerCranks training. In summary, our data suggest that PowerCranks increased maximal aerobic capacity and power in trained cyclists.

matagi

Is there a link to the complete text anywhere? I'm curious to know if they used a control group for comparison. If they took one group and just measured pre and post intervention parameters, then you cannot categorically say that Powercranks produced the result. It could have been due to improvements simply as a result of the extra attention the participants got during the study and possibly improved training techniques, rather than the cranks themselves. (think Schroedinger's cat - the act of observation influences the outcome)

markhr

so basically just confirms what we, those of us hat have actually used powercranks, knew all along - powercranks work extremely well and give massive gains even in fit and experienced cyclists - WOOHOO!

__________________
shameless POWERCRANK plug
Don't run red lights, wear a helmet, use hand signals, get some cycle lights(front and rear) and, FFS, don't run red lights!

Fday

All I have is the abstract. It was presented as a podium presentation at the annual meeting so I am not sure there will be a paper immediately.

Fday

The power improvements fits in with what most customers report. What surprised me about the result was the size and quickness of the VO2max improvement. I had always attributed these early improvements to efficiency gains, now it would appear there is more than one thing going on.