The guys on this board who are using PCs are trying to figure out how and how much PCs benefit them if at all.
Well, I did my three hour ride today. On PC’s. Flipped through my journal for the past few years, and dang if I didn’t notice something. I covered this course faster than I’ve ever done it before in the winter. When I came home, I ran a 5K, in 22:50. The fastest 5K I’ve ever run is a 20:25 or something like that, and that wasn’t after riding! Something is working well for me, let’s see, what have I changed about my training recently…
Not a PCer wrote: While your argument has superficial appeal, it fails to recognize the complexity of the situation - did you know, for example, that by recruiting additional muscles (in this case, the hip flexors), blood flow to other active muscle groups will be reduced?
Yes, I did know that. Unless your cardiac output is the limiting factor in the continued function of the extensor muscle group at a given workload, there will not be a decrease in extensor muscle group function if blood is sent to the hip flexor group. The body has an amazing ability to mete out the correct blood flow to the body parts that require it, don’t you think?
The real question should be: Will PC’s help Francois stop DNF’ing every fricking race he does? How can I possibly listen to somebody who constantly has a new excuse or reason why something went wrong for him? Ever heard of a spare tire? They are nice to have when you are racing 112 miles. Also, it’s just not humanly possible to get sick before every single big race either…
did Julian get your PowerTap, is he still training? How are his PC’s working for him.
Guess again, “chuckles”: it is well established that there is residual sympathetic vasconstriction even in exercising muscle, that this serves to limit the increase in blood flow during exercise, and that it increases as total active muscle mass increases (thus limiting flow). This is why blood flow per unit muscle mass is so much higher during one-legged knee extensor exercise than during, for example, cycling.
My original edit didn’t show up.
Blood flow increases to tissues that have increased metabolic demands…especially in muscles. I will say it again: Oxygen delivery to muscles and waste product removal from muscles is accomplished by blood flow. The more blood flow to the muscle, the more oxygen is available and more waste product removed.
UNLESS cardiac output is THE LIMITING FACTOR in leg extensors being able to continuously operate at an aerobic power output, increasing blood flow to muscles that raise the foot will not decrease the extensor’s ability to continue with their power output. If you are raising the foot using hip flexors, hamstrings, anterior tibialis, et. at., you are decreasing the power the extensors are generating just to raise the foot. THEREFORE, more power goes to the drivetrain.
I’ll take my real-world 3 hour ride on PC’s yesterday, as speed faster than this time last year, followed by my real-world 5K run at speeds that I have never been able to do following a bike ride in my 45 year history, as anecdotal evidence enough that PC’s are worth the hard work involved…“residual sympathetic vasoconstriction…” theory be damned!
Well, I am back. I was at the Seattle Bike Expo and never got to a computer.
This result is what I would have predicted if he hadn’t had that amazing result with his max power test. When I did my testing on the cranks it would take 6 months for someone to be able to see SUSTAINED higher power on the PC’s.
I asked talon to do this because I was surprised about his max power ability and wanted to see if he had progressed more than that. If it did I would tell people what was possible. His results are what I would have predicted. If someone is going to do an “important” race a month or two after starting on the PC’s they will be faster on ragular cranks. 6 months or so more they will probably be faster on PC’s. It makes no sense to me that someone would be “faster” on regular cranks than PC’s on a trainer since, if one is pedaling “properly” that one can’t tell the difference between the two cranks and there are no hills for the weight. Any difference has to come from fatigue.
It would be interesting to me to see if ttn or goatboy had the same result.
Frank
well i am not about to go taking my cranks on and off and all - the benefits of PC’s as they relate to me are clear enuf and i have discussed before ( long time trials at previous “all out” 1/2 Im pace for half again as long at 15 bpm less HR in 2 mo’s…). this winter on the rollers i am using slower tires, 1.5 in beasts compared to hot rod 1" contis and easily turning bigger grears for longer rides at easier HR’s than i have done in years and years of the same workouts. good enuf for me - i’m not writing a thesis. as an aside, at around 6 mo riding on the PC’s i can just about say that i often am riding and forget i am on them. the wife has said my legs look like they have not since the olden days. buy some , try some, or don’t - i don’t care. goatboy and francois and myself and others are just trying to help. i didn’t obtain tons of data before i started riding them and as i ride them more i guess what i do becomes less relavant. i care not - the trees are going to go by faster on the same roads i have ridden for years and that is all i care about. actually that is not fully true because i think PC riding is also more fun than regular riding. anyway, i was not born yesterday, and these things work - but you need to feel it, not spout off some hooha about capillaries for criminies sake. do it or don’t, but that is my story and i’m sticking to it.
I’m with ya, t-t-n. If they work for me and I like them, that’s good enough for me. I also didn’t read a ton of info on them beforehand. I thought, 60days to try, sure, what do I have to lose in the winter. I’m far from a pro so it can’t hurt to try them. I doubt that many people sitting around debating the science end of it are also those getting outside and putting in the hours and the efforts to see results. The engine is still the most important thing, and Powercranks have potential to build the engine. Now that I’m adjusted to them, and ready to race on them, I also often forget they’re on and I seem to have better recovery from workouts due to the improved efficiency and my legs don’t feel so shot- even going faster than on regular cranks. Frank- you’ve got to make a model that is more disguised like regular cranks, so I can keep my secret weapon to myself… Honestly, Frank, thanks for your invention.
Ride fast,
Daniel.
Frank,
At this point I don’t plan to do this test any time soon. I will likely do something similar as I get closer to my next A race in July. The results of the test right now would not be meaningful to me, nor would they mean anything to those who proclaim to know all about physiology & pedal technique.
I do know that I saw BIG improvements during the first year that I used PCs and I currently have a lot of indicators that my improvements this year will be as significant. Because of this, I will continue riding them regardless of who tells me I should just practice mashing the pedals.
That is fine. It would just be some info that would support or “disprove” my thesis as to what to expect. Talons full power one went against my expectations but his sustained power one was exactly what I expected.
For someone with your experience I would predict the same “full power” result PC’s and regulars but better sustained power on PCs than regulars. I put all this stuff out (and get criticized for it) and was just hoping I could get some real data to support the hypothesis.
However, you do not have to be my white rat and I am perfectly content to simply tout your top 10 (maybe 20 because of what the big purse may do to the pro field) bike split at IM LP next year. I will wait patiently :-).
Frank
talon wrote about Gary in SD “You couldn’t stick with the PC program in exchange for a discount price and dissemination of information you agreed to compile. For whatever reasons, you chose to back out of the deal to which you agreed.”
Gary never promised to use the cranks as I expected and thought we had agreed too. I apparently missed his real plan and did not notice what he was really going to do until he posted his web page. I asked him to stay with the plan and he couldn’t do it for whatever reason.
It was simply a miscommunication. But, I couldn’t let another “reviewer” use them “improperly” (he would have seen improvement with his regimen) because I would have expected a 'failure" based upon my claims, which are based upon exclusive use.
As IM LP gets closer I will do some type of tests to determine if I should race on the PCs. I will certainly make any results of such tests public when I do them. Based upon what I saw last year, I expect that I will race on them, but we will see.
As for a top 20 bike split, I don’t know that I would predict that. I do think I’ll be a fair bit faster than last year, but we’ll just have to wait to see what the day brings.
- How many of the great professional cyclists use PC’s? Did lance or Jan need them to turn into 50 kph TTers? In other words, do pc’s provide anything that you cannot accomplish with dedicated training and some one legged drills? What most of us need is solid, consistent training, not expensive cranks.
Philbert, the other resident Slowtwitch Med Student
M. Aerts, P. Bettini, C. Evans, S. Garzelli, J. Museeuw, D. Nardello, R. Ventura, … Want more names?
Further, your analysis of pedaling efficiency is missing a bit. The important thing is how much of the expended energy gets to the wheel. Pushing the foot up on the back stroke requires energy that could be going to the back wheel if the foot would simply get out of the way. Both your physiological and engineering analysis is incomplete. Look at it again.
F Day, ex-med student, been there, done that.
new muscles. One has to add new muscles into the equation. Can one run faster if one adds using calf muscles to the quads and hamstrings. Same with pedaling, the more muscles one can incorporate into the stroke the less any one muscle has to work for the same output and the greater the potential if all work to their potential.
Frank,
If you look at my reply to Francois’s comments (who brought up the same points you did re: engineering and phys), you would see that I was trying to be very basic in my response, as many readers do not have extensive education in ex. phys., etc. I was much more specific in that reply, including some brief points re: the various length/tension curves of the relevant muscle groups.
I will say to you what I said to him. I will be all ears if you can explain to me what the advantage is of using flexor muscles which are at a mechanical disadvantage in terms of their origin, insertion, and angle, not to mention length/tension/force/ad nauseum curves, when there are very well adapted extensor muscles on the other side of the bike whose motor units are not anywhere close to being fully activated.
Until you can answer that question with something substantive, I think you should refrain from critiquing my engineering or physiological analyses of your product.
Philbert
Fred… UNLESS cardiac output is THE LIMITING FACTOR in your extensors being able to produce the power they are producing, using other muscles to (even barely) decrease the extensors’ power required to lift the foot, will result in an increase of net power to the drivetrain.
BUT, you are 100% correct, there is no free lunch. Don’t let your rising leg have that free-lunch ride from the extensors. It decreases the net force to the drivetrain.
If you don’t pick that foot up (with muscles which are designed to do so… the HIP FLEXORS), you must push that foot up with the extensors, thereby robbing extensor power that could have been available to the drivetrain
The reason I think that cardiac output isn’t the limiting factor, is simple: it is well known that cardiac output increases to meet metabolic demand of muscle groups. If you are exercising “aerobically”, you aren’t at maxiumum cardiac output. IN FACT, you can exercise muscle groups “anaerobically” at cardiac outputs much lower than maximum (just do a set of curls until failure…your cardiac output isn’t limiting your ability to contract those muscles when you have anaerobically exercised them to failure). TOTAL cardiac output isn’t THE LIMITING FACTOR here. You have available “reserve” cardiac output that can be used to supply blood to other muscles other than the extensors, even when the extensors are working at their maximum aerobic capacity.
Another way to say it…Your extensors don’t get tired because your heart can’t provide enough blood to them. Your extensors may tire, at least in part, because of other reasons that limit blood flow to them, but it isn’t because the heart is pumping all it possibly can and no more…unless you are at maximum cardiac output…which you aren’t if you are operating aerobically.
I wouldn’t dare claim that the hip flexor system is as efficient as the extensor system. But, utilizing the hip flexors doesn’t decrease the ability of the extensors to continue producing their same aerobic power.
The diaphragm muscles are much more efficient at causing your lungs to fill with air than your intercostal muscles…does this mean you shouldn’t use your intercostals to inhale when you exercise? No. Because cardiac output isn’t the limiting factor in aerobic exercise in the trained individual. Your heart can provide enough blood flow to both your diaphragm and your intercostals. By the way, the intercostal muscles are referred to as “accessory muscles” to breathing. Just as hip flexors could be referred to as “accessory muscles” to pedalling.
I’m sorry, you are saying that the extensor muslces of Lance or Johan Museeuw are “not anywhere close to being fully activated”
One word, phooey. I rowed crew in college and have ridden bikes. I can assure you that much more force in generated by the legs in rowing than in riding but the rate of force application is much less, allowing more time for recovery between applications. For most people (and expecially the pros) the extensor muscles are “fully activated” within their capabilities at any particular cadence when racing.
The fact that one particular muscle may have lesser mechanical advantage than another is not a praticularly good reason to not even try to use it at all.
Further, extensor force is enhanced by flexor relaxation (and vice versa). It takes energy to relax (read about rigor mortis) and training to enhance muscle relaxation. It is one of the reasons stroke volume increases with training as the heart develops the ability to relax quicker and better -it is more than a filling pressure phenomenon). The same with the agonist muscles in the legs use them and relaxation will be enhanced in the antagonist muscle (which includes the quads on the upstroke).
Show me that data that Museeuw is not using his extensors fully and I will tell him to stop training with PC’s because there is clearly another (better?) way to improve.
Frank
Because it is easier to recruit new muscles that are not being used at all than to increase the utilization of muscles that, for most people, are close to maxed out.
For those who are not close to maxed out on those muscles, they will see bigger gains if they improve the utilization of those muscles AND recruit new muscles they don’t use now.
AND, you forgot, another thing to do is to apply the force of the muscles more effectively (along the tangent of the circle), another source of improvement even if the muscles are fully utilized.
Everything one can do to improve counts.
Frank
Recruiting more units does not good if the blood flow isn’t there for recovery between efforts since we are talking about aerobic performance.
Except for the power lifters, no athlete ever comes close to using all the available units. The limiter for most is the capplillary density in the muscle, not that they are not fully utilizing the available muscle units.
Your other arguments are pure supposition. You ignore the fact that the same muscles that apply force to the pedal are responsible for accelerating the leg and foot mass up to the speed of the pedals before one ounce of force can be applied to the pedals. Just because the force on the pedals is not very high doesn’t mean the muscles are not contracting forcefully, especially at high RPM’s.
Sorry, but you are taking a narrow incomplete view of the system which is leading you to an incorrect analysis. SpinScan is pretty much useless as an investigative tool to analyze what is going on in the system. One needs pressure plate pedals to figure out anything. Why don’t you look at some of that data.
Using your analysis can you explain why the pedaling efficiency of the typical cyclist (energy to wheel divided by energy expended times 100) is about 20% (up to 23% in pros)? Muscle contaction efficiency surely is better than that isn’t it?
Frank
“and this is confirmed by the fact that at best even elite cyclists only generate a small fraction of their total power by pulling up on the pedals.”
I think this is an area of confusion. I don’t even have PCs, but through all of the hoopla on all of the sites I’ve learned about them. PCs DON’T give you power from the upstroke they take away the force required to LIFT the recovering leg by forcing your hip flexors to do it. The hip flexors aren’t adding power to the pedal they are taking away force that your downstroke leg would normally be compensating for when lifting your recovering leg up.
Now seriously, can’t we all just get along and maybe even agree to disgree. This argument is turning into a rehash of everything said over and over and over again.