Dreadnought wrote:
"Counterweighted single-leg cycling provides an exercise modality that is more tolerable than typical single-leg cycling while inducing greater peripheral stress for the same cardiovascular demand as double-leg cycling."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24492992 This is an established principle in cardiac rehabilitation among physical therapists. Lately, I have been thinking more and more about it. I know there is more research on it being done on this sort of training from a performance standpoint. It makes sense, especially for long distance athletes, to try and maximize local adaptation. I also know that Jenny Rissveds did some (unknown to me how much/often, but I've been told that she was close to FTP when doing 8 min(?) intervals per leg after doing this type of training for a while) of this modality prior to her olympic gold in Rio. She already has a wicked high vo2max, in excess of 75ml/kg so trying to max out local adaptations when the central adaptations has reached a plateu seems right.
It's just a shame that it seems hard to build a proper counterweight. Seems like one has to have contacts who can build it.
Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede