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Two comments:
1) I don't think anyone here - not even Frank - can be accussed of playing a "shell game" with definitions.
Actually, I think you could be accused of such. You know very well what people are talking about when the talk about "strength" on the bike and strength training for the bike. You know very well they are not talking about 1 rep max strength, the only definition you seem to accept, yet you will not engage them in this discussion.
There is only one accepted definition of strength. Until people understand it, and how it differs from other physiological determinants of performance in various sports, it is really pointless to try to go any further.
Oh phoeey. There may only one accepted definition of strength if one is trying to earn one's PhD in exercise physiology, but to everyone else there are lots of definitions of strength and some of them out of the dictionaries that ordinary people use have been copied and pasted into this link. You use this argument to avoid discussing what they are trying to say. As I posted earlier, these people are trying to discuss a concept for which there is no accepted definition because if there were I am sure you would have told us what it was. So, discuss the concept. Forget your anal need to hold on to this definition about which no one is talking.
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2) While it certainly
possible that future studies might demonstrate a beneficial effect of weight training on endurance cycling performance in competitive cyclists*, that would not:
A) change the fact that no such studies have been published*
as of today;
according to you this is settled science and there is no possiblity that anyone who think otherwise could possibly be right
No, all I am saying is that, as of today, no published study* has shown that strength training improves endurance cycling performance in trained cyclists (whereas about a half-dozen have reported that it does not). Again, you can only go by the data that are available (wasn't this a point you were harping on previously in this thread?).
This says more to me about your "science" skills than a lot you spout here. Scientists are supposed to be observers. They observe the world around them and they listen to others who are observing the world. That is what Darwin did. He observed the world and determined there should be changes in the accepted version of things. He was able to come to this conclusion without the help of a single published study and he went against what "everyone"accepted as being true and having been "proven" in the bible - it is there, it has to be true - sort of like your view of your journals. Scientists use studies to confirm their observations as being valid or to investigate hypotheses that explain mechanisms to explain the observations. Your anal need for everything to be in the journals and if what people are observing ain't there already means cannot possibly be anything to it is beneath a real scientist.
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B) necessarily mean that these putative newer studies are correct and older studies are wrong, and/or;
Huh? What a stupid argument.
It's not a "stupid argument", but simply a statement of fact: the publication of new data does not necessarily mean that prior data are automatically wrong or obsolete.
It is a stupid argument because you cannot possibly know what the new study shows. A single study can conclusively show that everything before it was wrong. It has happened many times before. It will happen again.
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Until the study is done and the data is analyzed one cannot say anything about any future study.
Precisely my point - thank you for helping me make it.
That was not your point, see above.
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C) prove that strength,
per se, plays a role in determining endurance cycling performance.
No, I'm saying that you need to distinguish between the role of strength, per se, and the putative benefits of strength training - these are two different issues, since strength training can potential impact other aspects of physiological function as well (e.g., improve running economy in runners, presumably by "stiffening their springs").
Again, you are holding to your anal definition of strength which is not what many here are trying to talk about. Again, they are using the term strength as a substitute for a term that doesn't exist. They are using it in the lay sense. A sense that almost everyone but you seems to understand.
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*As the saying goes in science, if it isn't published, it doesn't exist (which is just pithy way of saying that the onus is upon generating the data to share it with the world if they hope to convince people that it/they is/are correct).
If it isn't published it doesn't exist. LOL.
In science, if it isn't published it is as if it doesn't exist. IOW, publication is how data are "vetted" for mass consumption; failure to publish therefore means that no one wants to accept your results (and they can't cite them even if they wished to).
See my earlier reply about the many studies that are not published by made available to the scientific community throug poster board sessions and supplemental publications that only deal with abstracts. Publication is not proof a study is well done and not being published is not proof a study is worthless.
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Lance and Carmichael write an article on how he trains and why and "because it isn't in a peer reviewed journal" it should be ignored. Lance trains with weights and because we know about it only from Youtube, it should be ignored? Is that what you are saying?
Yes (especially considering that Carmichael/Armstrong are well-known for their attempts to play head-games with their competition...consider, for example, the report in VeloNews today that Armstrong is as fit now as he was in April of most of his Tour-winning years. Fact, or fiction?).
Ugh, if you say so. Remember that real scientist = unbiased observer. Now we know you can't fill the unbiased part of that equation.
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Well, if you say "there is no evidence" ever you are most certainly almost always wrong. A more correct response would be "the preponderance of evidence I am aware of shows" but an even better responspe would be "I interpret the evidence to show" But, to say there is "no evidence" is crazy.
By "no evidence" I mean "no published papers". IOW, I'm not relying on "the preponderance of the evidence" or even how I interpret, but merely stating a verifiable fact.
I have earlier criticize your reliance on published papers. My criticism stands.
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One of the reasons that I'm always so vociferous about this topic is in hopes of stimulating someone, somewhere, to try to prove me wrong. After nearly two decades of posting such comments to the web, though, it still hasn't happened.
LOL. Who here do you think is going to have the resources to do a "proper" study and get it published in a peer reviewed journal to "prove you wrong".
I know for a fact some of Armstrong's closest and longest-standing advisors monitor this and/or other groups to which I post (hi Dean!). So, too, does the head physiologist for the AIS (hi Dave!), those who work with the Cervelo TestTeam (hi Damon), one of the leading cycling biomechanists in the world (hi Jim!), etc. As well, a number of my other academic colleagues read lists such as this one, not to mention the myriad number of graduate students out there who are still transitioning in their identify from athlete to scientist. IOW, web forums such as this have far greater reach than you seem to realize.
Now, let's see. Above you state you don't believe a thing Lance or Carmichael write and yet you tell us now that you are in contact with some of Lance's closest and longest standing advisors (Hi Dave!). Have you ever thought of simply asking them what the story is? Apparently not. So much for scientific inquisitiveness.
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(And while I was typing the above, who should call me on my cell phone but Dean...how ironic!)
And, did you ask him what the story was on any of those articles?
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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks