When does an anaerobic effort become neuromuscular?



RapDaddyo

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May 17, 2005
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I have a ride file parsing application that parses a ride file into categories based on a training schema (e.g., Andy Coggan's levels or Ric Stern's ranges). Classification criteria are based on intensity (power) and duration. AP or NP can be used for the intensity criteria for any level from 5mins+, AP for efforts <5mins. The criteria are pretty well defined with the exception of L6 versus L7. My question is, "At what intensity does an effort become primarily a NM effort?" For example, when I am fit my FTP is about 300W. My max 5sec power varies from about 900W if I haven't done any L7s to about 1200W if I have been doing L7s regularly. So, should I count only efforts >900W as NM efforts? Or, is a 750W effort primarily NM? What about 600W efforts? I think I'm leaning toward something like 200%FTP as a general rule. What do you think?
 
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Does it matter? I mean in the sense of assessing a ride.

(You know I've thought about this stuff carefully).

If I were to suggest something, it would be to make reference to a Quadrant Analysis and one's maximal AEPF-CPV curve as the place to assess NMP matters.

lol those old "parsing time" graphs were rather colourful :)
 
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Originally Posted by Alex Simmons .

Does it matter? I mean in the sense of assessing a ride.
Well, I never gave it much thought until I looked at a rider's files recently that had a huge amount of L7 time. Previously, I had just used 150%FTP as the upper end of L6 and everything over that with a minimum duration of 5secs was L7. But, that definition resulted in a bunch of L7 for this particular rider. So, I played around with different cut points and sort of backed into the 200%FTP number by trial and error. I think there are a couple of ways to approach the question. One approach is to look at what the rider typically does when he does L7 efforts. In my case, that would be about 900W. Then, everything below that is L6. The other approach is to define an intensity above which the primary benefit is NM rather than AWC. For me, I think that is less than 900W, but I'm not sure where it is. 800W? 700W? 600W? Granted, it's a question of how to split the upper end of the pie. What's not L7 is L6. But, in the case of this particular rider, the specific assumption affects the results a lot.
 
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Hello (forum), from a very, very long time...

I find it very hard to draw a link between FTP and NMP ie. say that certain % of FTP would qualify for NMP. The variance of FTP vs. max power is anywhere from 2 to 7 fold (no science, just a guestimate, shouldn't change the point). 200% FTP would be quite different for say Dr Coggan vs. Sir Hoy.

As Alex said, rather look at AEPF-CPV to find which efforts exceed a threshold for strength and/or speed development.
 
Originally Posted by frost .

Hello (forum), from a very, very long time...

I find it very hard to draw a link between FTP and NMP ie. say that certain % of FTP would qualify for NMP. The variance of FTP vs. max power is anywhere from 2 to 7 fold (no science, just a guestimate, shouldn't change the point). 200% FTP would be quite different for say Dr Coggan vs. Sir Hoy.

As Alex said, rather look at AEPF-CPV to find which efforts exceed a threshold for strength and/or speed development.
I'm not really trying to draw a linkage between FTP and NMP. It's just a fitness reference number. But, take my power profile as an example. If my FTP is 300W and I normally do my NM training efforts >900W, is everything below 900W an AWC effort (for classification purposes)? Isn't there some number less than 900W at which point the primary benefit is NM? I would typically do my AWC efforts at about 150%FTP. That leaves a big no-man's land, 450-900. How do I classify those efforts? "No Man's Land?"
 
Originally Posted by RapDaddyo .

I'm not really trying to draw a linkage between FTP and NMP. It's just a fitness reference number. But, take my power profile as an example. If my FTP is 300W and I normally do my NM training efforts >900W, is everything below 900W an AWC effort (for classification purposes)? Isn't there some number less than 900W at which point the primary benefit is NM? I would typically do my AWC efforts at about 150%FTP. That leaves a big no-man's land, 450-900. How do I classify those efforts? "No Man's Land?"
Even you do your AWC workouts at 150%FTP, doesn't mean that 450-900 would not task your AWC. Could also task your NMP, but I think here the pure power analyses gets a bit inadequate. Standing start uphill with biggest gear shows "very low" power numbers but the workout definately tasks NMP.
You yourself have been educating people about the importance of continuous aerobic effort of at least adequate duration. Why would it be any different for AWC? If you have high enough power and put enough time, it tasks your AWC. If the power (or more pedalling force and/or velocity) is high enough it also tasks NMP. eg. maximal 30s efforts. If the intensity or duration is not high enough (say 500w for 10 sec with your numbers), then you could probably say that it falls to the "No Man's Land" category like 2 minutes @ 90% FTP so that if taken out of context doesn't itself do much to your fitness.
 
Originally Posted by frost .


I think here the pure power analyses gets a bit inadequate. Standing start uphill with biggest gear shows "very low" power numbers but the workout definately tasks NMP.
Maybe I'm using the wrong variable to categorize NM efforts (from a "primary" adaptation perspective). I have another variable available, torque. Maybe a minimum average torque/duration criterion is a better methodology for L7, and everything else down to L5 is L6. Of course, this poses a problem for those who use the Garmins because when I last looked at a Garmin file they don't record the torque data.
 
Originally Posted by RapDaddyo .

Well, I never gave it much thought until I looked at a rider's files recently that had a huge amount of L7 time. Previously, I had just used 150%FTP as the upper end of L6 and everything over that with a minimum duration of 5secs was L7. But, that definition resulted in a bunch of L7 for this particular rider. So, I played around with different cut points and sort of backed into the 200%FTP number by trial and error. I think there are a couple of ways to approach the question. One approach is to look at what the rider typically does when he does L7 efforts. In my case, that would be about 900W. Then, everything below that is L6. The other approach is to define an intensity above which the primary benefit is NM rather than AWC. For me, I think that is less than 900W, but I'm not sure where it is. 800W? 700W? 600W? Granted, it's a question of how to split the upper end of the pie. What's not L7 is L6. But, in the case of this particular rider, the specific assumption affects the results a lot.
That still doesn't address the issue of whether it matters.

Put another way, aside from making your parsing application normalise L7 time for riders with different power profiles, why are you concerned with it?
 
Originally Posted by RapDaddyo .

Maybe I'm using the wrong variable to categorize NM efforts (from a "primary" adaptation perspective). I have another variable available, torque. Maybe a minimum average torque/duration criterion is a better methodology for L7, and everything else down to L5 is L6. Of course, this poses a problem for those who use the Garmins because when I last looked at a Garmin file they don't record the torque data.
Well not sure I agree with the premise, but anyway, if you have power and cadence data, then you do have torque.
 
Originally Posted by RapDaddyo .

Maybe I'm using the wrong variable to categorize NM efforts (from a "primary" adaptation perspective). I have another variable available, torque. Maybe a minimum average torque/duration criterion is a better methodology for L7, and everything else down to L5 is L6. Of course, this poses a problem for those who use the Garmins because when I last looked at a Garmin file they don't record the torque data.
I think that what you are after is "velocity-specific force". To truly kick your NMP would require exceeding certain percentage (80% I believe, guys who KNOW can correct me) of maximal velocity-specific force and from a program point of view, you should be able to enter your AEPF-CPV curve (or practically some points and then let the program extrapolate the rest) and then find efforts that come close enough to the curve. Interesting yes, not exactly sure if it leads to better training. (To train your NMP the best way is specifically train NMP ie. dedicated sprint workouts).

If you talk about post ride analyses, it is trivial to calculate the torque from known cadence and power (hint P = Fv /img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif )
 
Originally Posted by Alex Simmons .


That still doesn't address the issue of whether it matters.

Put another way, aside from making your parsing application normalise L7 time for riders with different power profiles, why are you concerned with it?
The reason I'm concerned with it is that I am building a new version of my application (Windows-based, charts, etc.) and some time ago I had made a list of enhancements. One of the items on that list is to redefine the default classification criteria for L7. Even though the user can input his own parameter, many users will never change the default values. At this point, the only thing one needs to input is FTP and I want to keep the inputs to a minimum. So, my first choice for simplicity sake is a multiple of FTP, with the option of an absolute watts number. The default setting would be a multiple of FTP (e.g., 200%). So, yes, you and I and a handful of others will input a specific number. But, I think many will just use the default values. So, I'd like to find a metric that will work for most. As I said before, what's not classified as L7 is classified as L6, so it's not as though it falls off the table. But, for the rider whose files caught my attention, the ride file metrics look very different depending on the L7 cutpoint assumption.
 
This is walking on very thin ice, but since it is really not about the world peace or solving famine, with assumptions:
- AEPF-CPV curve is linear
- Peak power is achieved at point where velocity is max/2

--> you could encourage the users to test for their peak power and then let the program search for the highest power, calculate the pedal force and velocity at that point and then simply extrapolate the curve based on only one sample. There are obvious caveats in this approach but since it from the programming point of view is anyway very simple, I could see it interesting gadget.
 
That's a good approach. A slight variation is to search for the max 5sec AP in the last xx days and take a percentage of that maximum (e.g., 90%) as the power/duration floor for L7s. So, in my case if my recent max 5sec AP was 1000W, maybe the cut point would be set at 900W. If I was actually working on L7s, I would certainly be doing 900W+ whereas I might have some random efforts <900W that would be classified as L6s. Of course, this assumes that the user has done some max power efforts recently. I suppose a catch for that would be something like 2xFTP or 90% of recent 5sec MP, whichever is greater.
 
I think I might be with Alex on this one. However, assuming that it does in fact matter, I don't think it's possible to define NM as % of FTP. Some examples: I'll bet that Usain Bolt's FTP on a bike wouldn't be all that special, but that 1000 watts for 10 seconds would barely register as trying for him. On the other end of the spectrum, legend has it that Chris Boardman's FTP was something like 450 watts but he couldn't break 900 watts in a sprint. So there you go. One has to conclude that the two are essentially unrelated.

Why not just have the user enter in his/her 10 sec sprint power and then base it off of that?
 
That makes sense. I can also look at the rider's ride files and suggest a number based on max 5sec AP in the last 30 days for example. I still don't want to set the cut point at the rider's maximum 5sec power. In my case, even when I'm working on L7s there is still a pretty large variance in my individual efforts (e.g., +/-100W would be normal). So, I'm still thinking the criterion should be about 90% of recent max 5sec efforts.
 
Yikes! So if I am following what you are saying and making the assumption that you are referring to my files you would want me to target 90% of my max 5 second effort and hold it as long as I could? I think my max 5 sec is 1430, so I should target at least 1287 for each AWC effort and then rest for 5 min? I apologize if I seem somewhat clueless, but this whole AWC thing is new to me and per your advice I am going to focus on those workouts over the next couple weeks. I just want to be sure I am doing things correctly.
 
Ok sorry, I misread the entire thing. 1287 watts would be the floor of L7 and therefore neuromuscular and would not be AWC. So with that I need to do efforts between 150% FTP and 1287 for as long as I can and then recover for 5min. So on the low end I would be doing 525 watts for say 90 seconds and then recover and the high end I would do maybe 1000 watts for 15 seconds then recover (I think anything closer to 1287 would be difficult to actually target). Granted I have not done these workouts yet, but it seems the two (525 for 90 and 1000 for 15) are two entirely different workouts. For me the 15 second effort would result in much less stress than the 90 second. Regardless of recovery time 525 watts for 90 seconds is going to be painful, heck any max efforts over 30 seconds start to get pretty painful for me.
 
Originally Posted by bgoetz .

Ok sorry, I misread the entire thing. 1287 watts would be the floor of L7 and therefore neuromuscular and would not be AWC. So with that I need to do efforts between 150% FTP and 1287 for as long as I can and then recover for 5min. So on the low end I would be doing 525 watts for say 90 seconds and then recover and the high end I would do maybe 1000 watts for 15 seconds then recover (I think anything closer to 1287 would be difficult to actually target).
Granted I have not done these workouts yet, but it seems the two (525 for 90 and 1000 for 15) are two entirely different workouts. For me the 15 second effort would result in much less stress than the 90 second. Regardless of recovery time 525 watts for 90 seconds is going to be painful, heck any max efforts over 30 seconds start to get pretty painful for me.
You are correct in reading that 90% of recent max 5sec AP is being discussed as the floor for L7 classification for post-ride analysis purposes (ride file parsing). As to planning an AWC workout, the basic objective is to repeatedly stress your anaerobic work capacity (AWC). You can do this in lots of ways, but the basic idea is to ride at an anaerobic intensity for a duration that is near your maximum duration at that intensity, recover, repeat. Preferably, the minimum duration would be >30secs, but you could pick almost any intensity >120%FTP all the way up to your max 30sec power. The intensity you choose will determine duration, with 120%FTP being about 5mins for many riders. The key is that you need to stress your AWC, so it's the combination of intensity and duration that are important. For example, in your case if you go do a bunch of 15sec 600W efforts you won't be stressing your AWC because the duration is too short. You would need to do them for a duration closer to your max duration at that intensity.
 
Ok, well guess we will see how a couple weeks of replacing my typical interval workouts with AWC work pays off! I will be sure to update.
 

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