Hey Jack...

Is the high FTP of the bigger guys secondary to them being taller? Longer femur lengths? Better mechanical advantage?

I ask only because I'm 5'10 and 205... I'm decently strong among the guys I ride with (just a bunch of old guys), but have 2 friends who are 6'4 and up who seem to have some pretty strong FTP's. They don't ride as consistently as me, but seem to be able to put out good numbers without as much preceived effort.

I see their Trainer Road rides and their NP numbers seem damn good compared to mine...

Just as wingspan is important in things like swimming and basketball, femur length is as well in cycling.

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Is he young?

Perhaps his team just uses him up as a domestique in the mountain stages.

Or perhaps his power is not as off the charts as we think? Maybe his power/CdA ratio is off the charts with that position but not his power/kg?

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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 has nothing to do with mechanical advantage. The genes that make you taller also cause you to have bigger lungs, bigger heart, more blood. It just all scales up. the whole aerobic engine.

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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

Hi, I'm 34 and started playing music 3 years ago. I practice an hour a day, and about 3 hours on Saturday. I split my time between the cello, piano and guitar. What I can't figure out is why can't I play flight of the bumblebee on any of them. Quite a conundrum. Do help.

All three are necessary, but not sufficient requirements.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

 

>All three are necessary, but not sufficient requirements.

Then what's the 4th to reach sufficiency? Latex tubes? Or did you mean that individually they're not sufficient, but together they are?

It means you need all 3.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

It seems like a few guys got buy on just mostly talent every now and then. Probably more feasible in fast twitch sports.

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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

Exactly. It's why the best swimmers are tall. It's not about the strength or leverage of longer arms. Though it's been theorized that Phelps does gain a slight advantage by being supposedly having a proportionally longer torso and arms compared to his legs length.

If Donzo98 was 160lbs, he'd probably still have nearly the same FTP.... but wouldn't be carrying around an additional 45lbs of weight which would defintiely reduce rolling resistance and probably wind drag as well since having either big shoulders does not help aero or getting into a good position.

On the flip side, long legs and arms mean more frontal area on the least aerodynamic shape of the whole rider/bike combo... large round cylinders. SO a tall rider needs to make more power to overcome their higher drag.

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With off the charts power / weight ratio like that that you'd expect him to dominate the mountains and be a GC contender, but apparently that's not the case. I've followed him closely over the past year and it seems like Movistar (as well his previous team) use him purely as a TT specialist. Definitely lends some credence to the theory that not all watts are created equal - just because you can put out lots of power on the flats doesn't necessarily make you a good climber (even if you are a flyweight).

22Jonathan Castroviejo Nicolas (Spain) (1.71,62)1:02:020.2153705.971718
The CdA they use is a gross approximation. They are all around .22 and I can acheive that at 6' 170lb and old equipment. Being smaller with all the latest stuff, surely should have the pros less than that on average.

I'd guess that Castroviejo is around .17 CdA. That would make his W/kg more like 4.7 in the TT position. And I'm pretty sure he can do better than that climbing considering how scrunched up he is in the TT position, but not enough to challenge the real climbers.

I can only wish... I would settle for 185!!

It does seem strange that you'd train with HR when power is available. There is nothing wrong with training by heart rate, but the bottom line is that if you have the coin for power and a coach, you would be better off having a coach that uses power. Similarly, if you are really concerned about FTP, then the thing to do is target it to the exclusion of other things. There's a thread here on how to do it: 2x20 @ 95-100, next day 1x20@105, day off. Repeat till you've had enough. The same is true with running; even the cell phone will give you pace info. Check out the attack point website for calculators and ranges. As to reaching three hundred--check out the "it's killing me" thread on cycling forums. There's a whole tome of power based knowledge that jordan rapp provides in that thread.



If FTP is not rising it could be any number of things, but if you're working hard it sounds like recovery may be insufficient. Eating, sleeping, work stress--all of these things could affect it.

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owner: world's tightest psoas (TM)

Respectfully disagree.
There is a reason eastern block european powerlifters use to have muscle attachments moved and why David Epstein has written about strong evidence of specific morphological changes showing is disproportionate numbers in certain sports.

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I talk a lot - Give it a listen: http://www.fasttalklabs.com/category/fast-talk
I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
http://www.AGNCYINNOVATION.com

I spent some time today looking into this idea of whether femur length was 'important' for cycling.

I could find no such evidence. There are some trends, such as the best TTers have longer femurs than the best sprinters, but that appears to be entirely due to TTers being taller on average.

powerlifting is a pretty different situation, in cycling you can use your gears to affect whatever leverage you want. There are some small pros and cons to femur/torso ratios I suppose for aerodynamics but this isn't a big deal.

if you have data showing that femur length is 'important' for cycling I would be curious to see it.

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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

Jack, if you've the data, I'd love to see what you've compiled on femur length of different cyclists (unless you're going off eyeball rather than some measure).

I've never seen such a data set (although I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a moderate interest in this).

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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

I found this:

http://bjsportmed.com/...ent/23/1/30.full.pdf

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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

Thanks!

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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

Except, once again, they didn't have said luxury before becoming professional. And I know a good lot of domestic pros that don't have that luxury either.

Some people seem to think they could be so much better without all of the other "life" things that get in the way. But those people are wrong 99% of the time. You either have the talent or you don't. Working a job or having a family would not hide that talent.

That's not to say that you couldn't be better than you are, but it is to say that it is very, very, very unlikely that you would be anywhere near the level needed to be a professional cyclist, even if you did nothing but ride 5 hours a day and chill out, eat, and sleep for the other 19. Because you don't have the genetics.

Muscular strength scales as the 2/3rd power with overall height of individual, i.e. (muscular streangth) = (height)^{2/3}.
This means that shorter people are, comparatively speaking, stronger than taller people.

Aerobic capacity scales as the 3rd power with height (for people with same body types): (aerobic capcity) = (height)^3.

Weight also scales as the 3rd power with height: weight = (height)^3.

Surface area only scales as the 2nd power with height: (surface area) = (height)^2.

From the above we can conclude the following:

1. As far as aerobic capacity is concerned, height does not determine how good a climber one is because both aerobic capacity and weight scale the same way. However, since shorter people are relatively stronger (muscular strength) than taller people, climbers will tend to be shorter -- which is exactly what we see in cycling.

2. For flat time trials (where aerodynamic resistance is the main drag force and weight plays only a very minor role), taller people have an advantage over shorter ones because aerobic capacity increases faster with height than surface area does -- and that is also what we see in cycling.

Good stuff but none of it applies to femur length independently, except as a proxy for height.

I would question #1 a bit. It is certainly the impression many people have that shorter people are better climbers, but I'm not sure how true it is. The schlecks are tall, Wiggo is tall, Froome is tall. But perhaps as you say it is only the short term climbing power where shorter riders will be better, and maybe we see evidence of that

2. more than that, in a TT position the height of the torso is hidden, only the legs remain. But despite that some short guys end up great time trialists too.

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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

Let me remind you that this started with you saying "Genetics. All genetics." which you have qualified to some extent because it takes a great deal of outside support and inner drive to realize this potential. I have no disagreement about genetic predisposition being the largest factor. The people I know who went the neo pro route had supportive families to invest in their dream. I know of domestic pros who couch surf, hitch hike and work real jobs to keep pursuing the dream too, so no argument there, but I don't know any professionals who made their start while balancing as much "life" stuff as a person typically has in their 30s with a home, career and family. The life workload of an aspiring pro in the late teens or early 20s isn't at all similar to what most age group weekend warriors are juggling.

I agree with you that eliminating that life stuff won't make professionals out of serious amateurs. It would however make the difference between achieving peak potential. All I claimed was that professionals are more likely than amateurs for this reason.

I just want to 2nd the rational argument that Jackmott had about leverage (femur length) being irrelevant because we have adjustable gear ratios. Even then, it woudl only present an advnatage if the victor was determined by whoever could accelerate a fixed gear bike of predetermined gear ratio, from a dead stop to 40mph the quickest. In that race, you'd want a long femur.

So with power lifting, those with a longer femur would be like those in my example above getting a lower gear ratio.

The next limiting factor would be come the wheelbase of the bike and rider height determining how much weight you can get over the front of the wheel to keep it planted. For example with typical gear ratios and wheelbase, a motorcycle can only utilize about 30hp below 50mph and maybe 40hp up to that point due to tire grip. The larger displacement "superbikes" can;t even use all of their HP until past about 150mph.

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TrainingBible Coaching
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you guys (figuratively) do realize that you're arguing with someone who in all likelihood writes/researches/works professionally on issues like this right?