In Reply To:
Has the result of the Luttrell study ever been replicated? Not only were the results surprising, the a priori hypothesis that was tested that lead to those results was surprising. And, has the Dixon study yet been published? I wondered because there was no control group.
Well, the Luttrell study can't be replicated until someone does the work. I have been told that there are a couple of studies that are in the final throws of being published, of which all I know is the results are supposedly positive, but I do not know the protocols as to whether they replicate the Luttrell or Dixon studies or do something else. We will all have to wait.
The only thing I found surprising about these results were the degree of improvement seen in this relatively short period of time. An engineering analysis would predict such results but prior experiments trying to document pedaling pattern makes a difference have failed to show such a change. Presuming the follow-up studies confirm the Luttrell and Dixon results in general I think what can be taken from this are two things. 1. Asking someone to change pedaling style during a study and measuring the effect is not the same as actually training someone to pedal in a new style and then measuring the effect. And, 2. It is not easy to train someone to pedal in a new style from what they are used to.
If the Luttrell study is confirmed, any study in the future or any study in the past that tries to look at what the best pedaling style is and which does not take into consideration the above two elements should be ignored as pretty much useless.
As far as I know the full Dixon study has never been "published" beyond the abstract and presentation at the CSEP meeting. And, we don't know if there was a control group or not. A control was not mentioned in the abstract but they did mention the results reached statistical significance. Without the protocol or the raw data it is not possible to know exactly what was done.
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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks