Height of an individual is not a mere proxy for femur length, they are directly related and obviously scale linearly, i.e. a person with a longer femur will generally be taller overall.


The effect is real, shorter people are relatively stronger, so in a very short (less than a minute) uphill TT short people would have a clear advantage. Since uphill stages are much longer in duration (and hence, inherently aerobic), the advantage that shorter people have is very small -- which explains why taller people like you cite can do as well.


That is true, most of the surface area of a time trialist is hidden, which makes the advantage of taller people more pronounced. Still, there are outliers -- people like Levi Leipheimer who won TT races in both the Vuelta and ATOC despite being only 5'6" tall.

Not sure Levi is the right guy to go to on this one, what with his penchant for doping and all.

As long as short people don't benefit more from EPO than tall people it should still be pretty legit...hehe

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
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Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I work professionally too, it doesn't make me right all the time. Climate scientists are supposed to be intelligent experts too, but the same general field of research can't even predict the weather accurately within 1 hour after 150 years of trying...but they are confident the climate is changing permanently. I'm sure that's over simplifying it... but I thought that usually means they don't have all the variables identified or their equations are wrong.

Just throwing that out there.

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That would be a great study.

Does EPO increase your FTP by XX watts or XX percent?

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

 
>Height of an individual is not a mere proxy for femur length, they are directly related and obviously scale linearly, i.e. a person with a longer femur will generally be taller overall.

I think you both agree and are just quibbling over the definition of 'proxy'.

>The effect is real, shorter people are relatively stronger, so in a very short (less than a minute) uphill TT short people would have a clear advantage.

Relative to what? Do you mean that shorter people tend to have a greater strength/weight ratio? I just think it's worth mentioning that you're talking about weight, since shorter people are relatively weaker than taller people if you go strictly by your 2/3 factor above. It's only in rate-of-change comparison to the other terms (area,aerobic capacity, weight, etc) that the comparative advantage plays out.

It is largely a linear % increase based on what % increase you can achieve in your hematocrit.

Limited either by how far below 50 you are naturally, if you are tested, or limited by how far below the point where you have a heart attack in your sleep.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

It takes a great deal of genetics to be a professional. That's my only point. Doesn't matter the support, the drive, or the work ethic. Hell, you can absolutely be elite with none of those if you have the talent/genetics. And without said talent/genetics, you can't. Very simple.

It doesn't matter what type of life you had, if you are a pro athlete of any sort it's because you have superior genetics to the vast majority of the population.

30s is very late in the endurance game to try and take up a professional sport. Athletes turn pro in their early 20s because of a myriad of factors including being on the right side of physical maturity (which a 30+ dude is on the other side of), probably a pretty big aerobic foundation (that a 30 plus dude starting out certainly doesn't have), and because they have the genetic capabilities. But even then, there are people that can still turn pro because they have those genetics. Because they can respond to training so quickly and so effectively that they soar through the ranks in no time at all. And they can do that in spite of all of these "life issues" that so many other people think hang them up.

There's obviously a huge variance in peak potential and it's extremely unlikely that a person has such a potential necessary to be a professional. And frankly, if that's the case, then who really cares other than that person? I don't. But if that talent is there and a pro is what they want to be, then they'll go get it done.

Bottom line: you can make excuse or you can get it done. People with super chaotic lives get it done every day. The other people just make silly excuses to try and justify their mediocre performances. Best to ignore the latter.

Yes, exactly that. "Relatively stronger" means that a person who is twice as tall is not twice as strong -- he would be only 1.6x stronger; so when these two people need to lift themselves up an incline, the shorter person has a clear advantage.

BTW, this (2/3) power law is the reason why there are no 10-foot tall people: weight increases faster than muscular strength needed to keep the body upright, so beyond a certain height a human would simply not be able to support his weight.

 
>Yes, exactly that. "Relatively stronger" means that a person who is twice as tall is not twice as strong

I nitpickingly disagree with that terminology, but nevertheless found 99% of your posts very informative. Thanks.

that's a valid point.

My vaguely articulated point was more along the lines of the people arguing with Chris Boardman on aerodynamics or the general ST population informing pro-cyclists what pro-cycling must be like.

We also cannot conveniently ignore the fixed weight (and drag) cost of a bicycle. Being bigger makes that a smaller %age of the overall equation. I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't swamp out any theoretical variations power/endurance/heat management variables that vary among different sized riders.

Entirely unlike long distance running, which is dominated by smaller folks.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

Weather and climate are 2 different things, my friend. So yeah. That's over simplifying it to the point of being entirely incorrect. Oceanographers can't tell you the exact wave heights of the next 3 waves that will hit the coast, but they know when high tide will be, what it's extent will be, and what average wave height will be. Kind of the same thing.

The original point of appealing to authority is a good one though.

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Paul
Current Top 2:
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Although the observations about potential performance of different sized riders are scientifically sound, there is considerable variation among individuals. For instance, Contador may beat Cancellara in a TT given the right conditions and relative motivation of the riders (TdF 2009), but if everything else is equal, Contador does not stand a chance against Cancellara (Beijing olympics).


Long distance running resembles uphill racing, rather than a flat TT, since runners have to lift their weight at every push-off. Hence it is not surprising that long distance running favours smaller people.

Agreed entirely. And I meant to insinuate that all these confounding variables are why we see such a variety in sizes in the pro peloton that isn't seen in other sports.

My original points were more as an addendum than as a contradiction to what you said. Cheers!

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

can you fathom how top marathon dudes run 2:55/km for 42 of em?

Why do you suppose short people don't dominate sports then? If this is the case, we should see 100 to 400M sprinters in Athletics having similar heights of gymnasts. Sprinting is power:weight and yet the 100/200 WR is owned by a guy who is 6'5", the 400M is held by someone 6'1" and the 800 WR holder is 6'3". We tend to see the little people do best when cooling is a major factor (long races, not sprinting) as they have greater surface area:volume ratios.

Maybe the 2/3 law is...inverted?...when you are dealing with an inverted pendulum such as a human propelling them self.

Not trying to be a smarty pants argueaholic here, I just don't think what you are saying is actually true, although I can dig the numbers talking about weight being ^3 of height and stuff like that. For instance, I find it interesting that a blue whale scaled to the size of a 5'10" human weighs about 138 lbs, which would be an incredible racing weight for me if I were a robot whose resistance to eating was not so futile.

geeze - I thought I was the only one stupid enough to do that :-|

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

Shorter people do dominate the sports that favour them. The power-to-weight ratio is not the only determinant for athletic performance; absolute power maybe more important in some sports, and the sprint distances are obviously some of those sports (track cycling is another one): although their superior power-to-weight ratios means that shorter people would accelerate faster during the acceleration phase of the sprint, terminal speed and the maintainance of that speed depends more on absolute power numbers, and apparently this turns out to be the deciding factor.

The penalty that bigger people have to pay for lifting their weight at every push-off is not an issue for distances that are mainly anaerobic in nature, but as the race distance increases, this inefficiency becomes more pronounced and, as a result, the body types of world record holders become leaner and smaller: Usain Bolt weighs more than 200 lbs, Michael Johnson 175 lbs, El Guerrouj 140 lbs, and by the time you get to 5k and beyond you encounter the usual marathon-style body types (Bekele is about 120 lbs).

Triathlon consists of a sport (swimming) where weight is not an issue since it is supported by water, a sport (biking) where weight plays only a minor role (for mostly flat TTs), and a sport (marathon) where weight is absolutely crucial. The end result is not clear; Craig Alexander is medium sized (150lbs).


No, it's actually the opposite: what matters for cooling is how fast you can pump hot blood from your core to the surface in order to cool it by sweat evaporation, and what determines this is heart volume. Since heart volume increases with the 3rd power of your height, bigger people have lower heart rates. That's also the reason why babies (and smaller mammals in general) have very high heart rates.


If the 2/3 law was inverted (becoming 3/2 law), that would mean that the bigger the person, the stronger he would be, in which case there would be no upper limit to the size a mammal could achieve; when was the last time you saw a 50ft-tall woman?

Maybe I should've asked what you consider "short people".

And what body type doesn't dominate the sport that "favours them"?

So you're saying large body types dominate the sports where cooling is an issue?

I will reply to the original post.

I agree that it takes genetics to do 300w for hours. But if you are trying to hit this as an FTP number, I think with hard work, time, and measurement you can get close. 300w for an hour is my goal. Not sure I will get there.

I am an average joe, weekend warrior, time crunched cyclist (6-9 hrs a week) I am not at the 300w level for hours, but can hold it for 30 min and 285 for an hour. I am 5'11, 165lbs.

Years of unstructured training, even with power, didn't really result in any material improvements in fitness.

Things that changed:

I really wanted to get faster.
Joined a road team.
Lose 15lbs that you didn't previously think you needed to lose.
Only ride with the team 1-2 times a week and use these as the short, punchy intervals. Attack the climbers on the hills, the big guys on the flats. Make the ride hard. Burst/recover/repeat. Most group rides don't generate much TSS.
The rest of the weekly workouts:
3x5@V02 Max, 5 min rest. Last 2 min should be hell.
3x10@110% FTP, 5 min rest. Focus on even efforts.
1x60m@Hard Tempo~93-95%FTP. Road bike, cross bike, TT bike. Doesn't matter. I think this is the single most important weekly workout. Hard to do. Teaches you how to hurt. It helps when you have buddies sitting on your wheel motivating you, but solo is where its at.
Weekends - Monitor your CP curve and see what's getting stale. Find a good course to focus on that duration and go out and freshen up the CP curve with a new power record. Throw in some 3-30sec max power punches on the way home.
Once every few weeks do a long ride at a hard power level, trying to get an IF as close to 1.0. for 300w FTP, 240 for 2 hrs, 225 for 3 hrs, and 210 for 4hrs seem to be productive for me.

What is working for me is structured workouts, measurement of progress, work your weakness, and learn to suffer more than you thought you could.

When you feel burnt out take a few days off, take the wife on a date, outing with the kids, drink a beer. You will know when its time to get back into the game.

Sounds like we are in the same boat. I hope you get to your goal and would love to hear tips from other middle aged mortals trying to get respectable performance on limited time.

The average height of men in the US is 5'10", and the standard deviation about 3", so anyone under 5'7" is considered "short" (and everyone over 6'1" would be considered "tall").


No, cooling is not an issue -- in the sense that it affects everyone equally, and that it is more of an individual adaptation when the conditions are extreme.

Genetics but the good news is... there is 60% chance possibility you can. Takes hard work.

You have to get used to it. How?
Train 300 watts. How?
Intervals... shoot for 1 min 300 watts or close to it,
Keep doing it 12x in per training... you can relax 1 min or if it is too hard try relaxing when HR hit 154, and then go again.

After you do this, you can up the power for 310 or so or.... hold it for 300 wartts longer, maybe1.5 min, then maybe after a week hold it for 2 min... then keep going...

You can do it. The key is adapting your body to the situation you need to gain.

Also don't forget to rest your Heart... your heart gets tired as well from pumping high HR and so as your legs.. train smart.

You are not gaining as much or close to nothing when you can't lift up your HR to 160+.. It differs to people. Mine is 164 to gain progress.

Also some people do it easily because they have low resting HR..and their muscle growth is better. means their heart is stronger than ours. This means we have to work harder
Good luck.

This training protocol has been proven ineffective.

Why arbitrarily choose 300 watts? Why not shoot for 500?

Live the sudden appearance of multiple zombie threads!!