What determines efficiency ???

Fday

As regards PowerCranks I am not so sure it is necessary to untangle anything right now. Right now it is of more interest to determine if they do have a increased training benefit over regular training, at least time-wise. It is almost impossible to keep work loads constant as, in the beginning the work load of PC'ers usually dramatically drops and, after adaption it would be increased as they are able to use more muscles. Once the fact there is a training benefit is firmly established, assuming it will be, then it seems the untangling can attempted to be done to see exactly where the improvement is coming from, if that is possible, as many potential areas for improvement exist that the PC's might impact.

I have always thought that one way of studying the cranks would be to tell the placebo group you are examining the effect of crank weight on training effectiveness. The PC's are big and heavy so, if we make the use PC's in the control group but using the lock-out mode so they are like regular cranks, the control group would think they were the experimental group when they really were not. The PC group cannot be fooled into thinking their cranks are not weird.

11ring

How about you just fix the metabolic work rate for both groups at a level that the PC group can handle at any given point of time.

If the PC group gets stronger through increased efficiency (as you claim), then their metabolic capacity will not have to, nor should it improve over the control group.

Fday

Here is the problem with "fixing the metabolic work" as I see it.

First, how people adapt to the PowerCranks is quite variable. Some will be up to speed in just a ride or so and others will take a couple of weeks to get up to bare minimum standard. So, it would be very difficult to predict how much to reduce the control group until you have seen how the PowerCranks group will respond. Then, the range of variability will be all over the place. Do you have to match participants? It would be almost impossible to administer this as it would be impossible to predict how the PC participants are going to adapt.

Second, if the PC group came up as being superior people would complain that it was because we reduced the work load of the regular cranks group from what they would have otherwise done. It would just give people an excuse to criticize the study.

Third, While it might be nice to keep the metabolic work constant from a scientific perspective, the real question most want answered is: "will training with this device make me better than I would otherwise be if I didn't use it." That is why I think keeping the groups equivalent, as regards time, is the way to go. If the PC group cannot do as much work in the same amount of time in the beginning, that is the real world and would answer the question people really want to know. If the PC group does better, despite reduced time training that raises the question as to "how could this occur?" Such a result would suggest efficiency improvement has to be in play, to me.

swampy1970

A couple of weeks to get upto a bare minimum.....

Aint that the truth.

I also have an "hypothesis of one" that believes that Powercranks are a little less forgiving of a bad position on the bike.

As far as the Coyle's study on Lance goes, it always makes me smile a little when he states a large reduction in body fat (down to 72Kg pre-Tour in 1999) yet shows his November 1999 weight as being one kilo more than it was in 1992 78.9 Vs 79.7Kg. Either someone's bathroom scales were messed up or Lance had been sitting around eating cookies to pile on that extra 17lbs in a few months. .... and people used to say that LeMond had a bad diet. I kid, I kid....

Fday

A LOT of customers have told me they have tweaked their bike position because of their PC experience. I doubt that explains all of their improvements but the total is the sum of the parts.

n crowley

What was your pedalling style before you started using PC's, MASHING, CIRCULAR or DON'T KNOW.

swampy1970

I don't know. To be honest I thought it was pretty good, or should I rephrase that - it used to be pretty good and I thought it carried over from years off the bike.

I've never had a test done of my pedaling style - only power output and blood lactate and the last one of those was back in '96.

n crowley

That means you were probably using the mashing style, PC's teach you the circular style. It does not mean your old saddle position was wrong, different pedalling styles require different saddle positions.

swampy1970

Ah so that's what I was doing at 95rpm. Just kidding.

Looking at cycling photos both old and new, it looks like I am at least trying to pull up.... but who knows.

The coach that I had the pleasure of working with for almost 10 years (a senior level BCF/ABCC coach who's coached some of the best that Britain had to offer, inc riders who went on finish top 20 in The Tour, National Champions etc) thought I had a rather good pedalling style..... I'll take his work for it. But that was more than a few years ago and many beers, burgers and bbq's have been had since I moved to sunny California almost a decade a go.

Speaking of efficiency. Everyone speaks of Lance's ability to pedal gracefully uphill with legs spinning like a hummingbirds wings but in all his "epic moments" in the mountains - the attacks to Hautacam, Sestriere, Alpe D'Huez in 2001, Mont Ventoux chasing down Pantani like he standing still, he was out of the saddle at about 75 to 80rpm for vast amounts of time.... I don't think I've seen anyone out of the saddle for so long since Luis Herrera's first couple of Tours.

How come noone ever talks about that aspect of his riding given that's where he did the most "damage" in the tours using that style? Even in his "road to paris" video he's shown out of the saddle alot on the climbs in training.

n crowley

How come noone ever talks about that aspect of his riding given that's where he did the most "damage" in the tours using that style? Even in his "road to paris" video he's shown out of the saddle alot on the climbs in training.[/QUOTE]



Because of the statement A. Coggan is always repeating.