well i am going to guess that you aren't a skiier either, rip. a fellow has to give you credit for boldly pontificating a a wide variety of subjects which you actually know nothing tho - so there is that. anyway, skating was not a rapid revolution at all. it gained serious ground only after that medal, but had been around for years before that. there was nothing "clear" about it during that time - not because it wasn't faster - only because guys who never did it liked to talk a lot.

the analogy for PC's, at this time (and as i said), is really BEFORE the medal. that has not happened yet.



your challenge of the word "we" to mr day is just poor reading on your part and stupid, btw, as is that quack thing. once again, anybody who has so much as entered a high end roadie hangout knows that a certain level if exclusivity and insular thinking is a part of cycling culture.

RIP wrote: "That's a bad analogy, because the skate technique in skiing - like clapskates in skating - caught on very quickly because it was so clearly superior. So far, that hasn't happened with PCs, despite the fact that they have been around for a number of years now. Why is that, if they provide such a large improvement in speed?? "

Here is my take on that. Bias and the entrenched old boys network (how does someone from outside of cycling tell those inside he can improve on what they have done for years?), plus the fact that skate skiing and clap skates were all used in competition so the advantages were obvious to all whereas, up til now, PC's are so much harder and most cycling races are so long, that most users only use them in trainng and many do not know the competition is using them or the advantages.

I know of several elite athletes who have wanted to try them but their coaches told them they didn't need them or they were a gimmick or whatever. Erin Mirabella got a pair very early on but her coach wouldn't let her use them. She has a new coach now and he is making her use them. She is not alone in this regard.

This is one of the reasons I am offering incentives to athletes to race on the cranks, to increase the visibility of them and to point out the wimpiness of many of the current users ("oh, poor me, these are so hard I could NEVER do an IM on them cause I can't do any long rides on them, boo, hoo, hoo") Seems that argument will soon go the way of the "marathons are too hard for girls" approach to physiology as soon as someone does RAAM on them, if not this year, probably next.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

of course the only two options for the comment available are the ones that you see rip. as we have seen that is largely how you interact with the world at large.

i likewise do not have any doubt that you did not know of skating prior to the medal. it was outside the established line of thinking, and thus, i am sure, quite unavailable to you by your own walls. let me guess, once the medal WAS won, you rushed to your electric typewriter to tell us all how only a top level olypiam could POSSIBLY marathon skate a race like that. how a full field skate was only approprite for 50 yards or less, and how a V1 or V2 skate would never work over any distance as it was physiological impossible. we have heard all this before. i will stand by my admiration of you for maintaining bold statements of 'fact" on subjects which you haveno experience, tho. maybe you should run for office.

"We" means Powercranks. I knew nothing of this study until I was informed it was going to be published. I did provide a pair of cranks to the investigator for such a purpose many years before, although I had lost contact with him.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Let's take the three professional racers you reference: I assume that they are using PCs. How many races did Messrs. Museeuw, Hincapie, and Leipheimer win prior to using PCs? How many races have they won after using PCs? Surely you know the answers.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

In regards to how people are using them and their motivations, I only know what I am told. I am also not their coach. The fact that someone has a pair doesn't mean they are being used optimally. I brought her up as an illustration as to explain, perhaps, why they had not "taken off" as we would all expect, "if they are so good".

I am glad to see you limited you criticism of her to failing to win a race to the US since she won a World Cup event earlier this year in Mexico. "slower and slower" indeed. One thing you are extremely good at is being critical of the athletic efforts of others.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Excellent posts Brodsky, welcome to the forum and keep them coming.



And since Dr. Coggan doesn't post here anymore, someone has to be saying at all times "Specificity, specificity, specificity!!!" :-)



Paulo

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

truly your hubris knows few bounds, rip. YOU couldn't do it, or figure it out, so it was the skiis, or the technique, or something other than your own lack of experience or willingness to put in the time.

where do you think ANY of the early skaters laid the groundwork from? we worked at it. we did not listen to wankers who told us crap from indoors when we - outdoors - knew better. we made errors and struggled some, as i said before. what we were doing was not for the masses, but neither was it "impossible" or in our heads. we didn't make excuses about equpment, we made our own or modifiied what we had or made itbetter. we . . . . . . .get this now, rip . . . . . . . .D-I-D stuff. we did NOT whine and naysay and pontificate, until we knew what we were pontificating about.

whatever. you are a self professed knowitall who knows not of what you speak, on evidently any topic. later, fool.

So, when I'm climbing and I feel the pressure of my shoe on the top of my foot when on the upstroke (with normal cranks), am I pulling up? Why was this training not possible before PCs?

You do yourself a disservice by (I can only assume, since you are intelligent, literate, and have seen his name several thousand times) deliberately misspelling Dr. Coggan's name. Knock it off.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

"Some people believe Cardiac Output, or Lung function are the limiting factors to exercise. Others believe it is local muscle cell function and or specifics of the Mitochondrial environment that is the limiter to exercise"

Belief has nothing to do with science. It is what the data shows that matters. These disputes are clearly answered by experiment. Lung function is not a limiter unless there is lung disease. Muscles will use as much oxygen as the heart can provide. These points can be clearly found in a basic undergrad physiology text. This is exactly the problem: People "believe" things without supporting evidence. The link someone posted to the quackwatch site is particularly germane.

Brodsky

Actually, I don't know the answer. I don't have a clue how many professional races those individuals won before using PC's, plenty I suspect. I am not sure it is reasonable to ask how many after as evidence of anything in view of the three names. Museeuw has been on them a couple of years so how many races did he win in the last couple of years? He should have won PR this year but an untimely flat nixed that. To claim his loss there was due to PC's making him slower would be pure idiocy. Hincapie started on them this spring and won his first race in several years. Leipheimer started on them last spring and lost his season due to an unfortunate injury in the TDF.

What is more impressive to me is not necessarily what they have done or not done race-wise since starting them, as the kind of racing they do it would be difficult to see an obvious PC advantage in a short time but, rather, that these individuals determined on their own, after trying them, that they thought PC's would help them to get even better. Of all the very elite pro's who are using them I would say I have had more sales from direct referrals from Museeuw and Hincapie than any others. "Hello, PC's, Johan (George) says I need to get these". Guess, they haven't told you that yet, or they have but you don't respect their cycling ability because they haven't won much lately, and, besides, they are not familiar with the cycling literature that proves PC's are a bunch of hooey, and their ability is probably all due to drugs anyhow so, of course, their opinion can't be trusted.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Brodsky wrote: " Muscles will use as much oxygen as the heart can provide."

thereby demonstrating your lack of understanding of how oxygen is delivered to the tissues and the limiters thereof.

Yes, these questions caan be answered by experiment. The problem is in properly interpreting the data. You blew it here.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

http://www.google.com/...%20stress%20fracture

Yes, terms have meaning if you make them up and redefine them anyway you please.

The Earth is flat, if, by flat you mean round.

I'm going to call this phenomenon PowerCrankSpeak.

So let's interpret it the other way: "Muscles will use more oxygen than the heart can provide." So O2 diffuses through the skin? Photosynthesis?

Sounds like more PowerCrankSpeak to me!

if you are feeling your toes on the tops of your shoes you are probably pulling up. And training like this was possible before PC's. what was not possible was to actually concentrate on this every stroke of every ride and to get the feedback if you ever got the least bit lazy.

Sorry about the misspelling. Am spelling phonetically I guess. I will practice, Coggan. There I did it. Probably be easier if he were still posting, at least under his own name.

Frank

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Uhhh, no. This is what I meant earlier by your misunderstandings of physiology. Again, I refer you to Costill or Astrand or any other physiology text.

Motor units are perfused with blood when they are activated by the nervous system. The limiter is cardiac output; perfusion of muscle must be balanced against systemic blood pressure. If you suddenly and maximally perfused all possible motor units, you'd be on the floor because of low blood pressure. So, in fact, the ultimate exercise limiter is cardiac output. If you could endlessly increase your cardiac output, your criticism might be understandable at least.

This point is demonstrable by testing oxygen uptake while exercising a small muscle mass. I'll try to find one of the papers if you need a citation...a physician friend of mine is writing a book and turned me onto it. Basically, O2 uptake (and local blood flow) is higher when you exercise a small muscle mass because the heart is able to perfuse that muscle more, because maintaining systemic bp is easier.

Finally, if 02 delivery was not the issue, why does EPO work? It doesn't increase heart function, but does in fact increase the amount of available 02 per unit of blood. And it certainly does not change cellular factors.

Brodsky

No Mr. Bitey. Oxygen diffuses from the capillaries to the mitochondria. One can exercise a single muscle to past anaerobic threshold (the point where oxygen delivery lags need) without exceeding the hearts ability to deliver more blood. The most important limiter to oxygen delivery to the muscle is capillary density in that muscle, not the heart.

It is "SIMPLE" physiology, if one has an adequate understanding of physiology. If one doesn't, well, then, stuff like this pops up.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Here's the answer, as far as Museeuw goes: a whole f'ing lot of races. My point is that these people were highly accomplished winners before using PCs; I can't imagine a scenario where their performance after using PCs could be used to show the benefit of PCs. Throwing these names around shows nothing of significance.

As for the idiocy of claiming PCs made him slower, that's a poor strawman argument that nobody has raised, but you.

To use the argument "hey, they think PCs work" is also pretty useless. A lot of people think tied and soldered spokes make better wheels, too. There is a lot of "myth and lore" in cycling that resists science and common sense.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Sorry, but you claimed that muscles can use oxygen not delivered by the heart. What you wrote doesn't support that claim. We all know about anaerobic glycolysis but you're still talking about oxygen delivery and use which doesn't sound anaerobic to me.

The tower of PowerCrankSpeak collapses!