Incorrect (as evidenced by the fact that there is a close correlation between fiber type and cycling efficiency…this would not be true if biomechanical factors played a significant role.)
and you’re using as your evidence for this the Coyle study of Lance Armstong where he showed that Lance increased his pedaling efficiency substantially over this period so it was hypothesized that this could have only come from Lance changing his fibre type in his legs (even though no biopsy was obtained to support the hypothesis)? Or, the Luttrell study which showed a 10% increase in cycling efficiency in 6 weeks, presumably from changing pedaling technique (biomechanical factors?), of training with PowerCranks. Oh, wait, the Luttrell study doesn’t make your point. And, neither does the Coyle study.
You are basing your bias on old data. Unless it were possible to actually change cycling technique then it was not possible to study and analyze the benefits or lack of benefits of different techniques. Until PowerCranks there was no reliable way of actually changing pedaling technique so these old wives tales that technique doesn’t matter came to be.
Me thinks you are reading too much into these old papers. We will see how long you hang on to this old way of thinking. The times they are a changing.
Frank and all you other PC users, there is a big difference between unloading a crank vs using PC’s. When you use PC’s, the upward force has to equal the downward force so both cranks stay in their relative position. In other words, you are spending too much energy on the upward stroke and loosing power on the downward stroke to achieve this. You DON’T NEED TO DO THIS TYPE OF RIDING TO PERFECT THE SPIN IN CYCLING! I’ve never used PC’s and I never will, because I can make greater gains in just cycling while using my spin then I ever will, using PC’s. I’ve perfected my spin by riding track, but you don’t even need to go that far. You can do the same by riding a small gear at a high cadence. Once you become smooth, you know you achieved your goal. If you just want to exercise hip flexors, there are weight machines in any workout facility which target those muscles, or just do a workout at home at no cost to you. But frankly, I thnk you guys are just wasting your time. Frank’s really got you guys snookered and I can’t believe you would pay close to $1000 for that!!
Frank and all you other PC users, there is a big difference between unloading a crank vs using PC’s. When you use PC’s, the upward force has to equal the downward force so both cranks stay in their relative position. In other words, you are spending too much energy on the upward stroke and loosing power on the downward stroke to achieve this. You DON’T NEED TO DO THIS TYPE OF RIDING TO PERFECT THE SPIN IN CYCLING! I’ve never used PC’s and I never will, because I can make greater gains in just cycling while using my spin then I ever will, using PC’s. I’ve perfected my spin by riding track, but you don’t even need to go that far. You can do the same by riding a small gear at a high cadence. Once you become smooth, you know you achieved your goal. If you just want to exercise hip flexors, there are weight machines in any workout facility which target those muscles, or just do a workout at home at no cost to you. But frankly, I thnk you guys are just wasting your time. Frank’s really got you guys snookered and I can’t believe you would pay close to $1000 for that!!
You are either a troll or someone who has never ridden a pair of PowerCranks or both. Clearly you have no idea what they require the rider to do to ride them. I will leave it at that.
Hansen: “In conclusion, the decrease in whole-body gross efficiency with increasing pedal rate was not explained by a decrease in muscular efficiency, and supported increase in internal power to account for the increase in metabolic power with increasing pedal rate. Furthermore, differences between individuals in muscle fiber type composition affected muscular efficiency, which correlated positively with % ST muscle fibers during fast pedalling.” So much for Kautz’s theory you brought up before.
Unberger: “At the muscle level, mechanical efficiency was lower in the model with a greater proportion of FT fibers, but peaked at a higher cadence than in the ST model.” OK
Coyle: “When cycling at 80 RPM, gross mechanical efficiency is positively related to Type I muscle fiber composition, which has great potential to improve endurance performance.” OK
Horowitz: the abstract is truncated before the findings are mentioned. Not much use to us here as few of us have access to the full paper.
Barstow: “We conclude that fiber type distribution significantly affects both the fast and slow components of VO2 during heavy exercise and that fiber type and fitness may have both codependent and independent influences on the metabolic and gas-exchange responses to heavy exercise.” OK
Suzuki: “Three subjects had an average of 78% ST fibers (ST group) and the other subjects had an average of 76% FT fibers (FT group). There was no difference between the two groups in delta efficiency at 60 rpm, but at 100 rpm the efficiency of the ST group was significantly lower than that of the FT group (19.6 vs. 28.8%, P less than 0.01).” Hmmm. He finds improved efficiency in the fast twitch group. This is the exact opposite of what the others have found. And I have never even heard of an efficiency of 28%. Would love to know more about these subjects. Why you included this paper to make your point I don’t know unless you have been influenced by the creationists and think all viewpoints deserve to be heard (unless, of course, it has to do with PowerCranks).
Mogensen: “In conclusion cycling efficiency was not influenced by training status and not correlated to MEff, but was related to type I fibres and inversely related to UCP3.” OK.
I noticed that not a single one of those cites looked at whether changing the cycling biomechanical dynamic might have an effect on efficiency. The fact that one can show that those with more of the metabolically more efficient muscle fibres have higher pedaling efficiency than those with less metabolically efficient muscles (except for Suzuki who supposedly showed the exact opposite) does not prevent other explanations from being possible, probable, or even more important.
I suspect if this question came up in medical school on a test I would find myself answering True, True, unrelated. (for those of you not familiar with this question type there will be two statements of “fact” and you have to determine answer whether each statement is true or false and whether they are related. In this instance I would say that both fibre type and pedaling style can influence pedaling efficiency and that these are unrelated.
When you use PC’s, the upward force has to equal the downward force so both cranks stay in their relative position.
Bzzt, the force does not have to be equal for the two legs to stay in sync. The up force just has to be enough lift the leg to match the cadence. Your statement is really, really, really ignorant.
In all honesty, I thought this was the most interesting:
"many in the audience were taken aback by a water-bottle design from MIT undergraduate student Mark Cote, purportedly able to save 110 seconds over the course of a 40 kilometer time trial. "
Bzzt, the force does not have to be equal for the two legs to stay in sync. The up force just has to be enough lift the leg to match the cadence. Your statement is really, really, really ignorant.
The up force just has to be enough to lift the leg plus idling crank and pedal to match the cadence.
This means the PC user adds the gravity effect of a high percentage of crank/pedal weight to the unweighting benefit of a normal crank user.
As a result, the net action ofmuscles will almost assuredly produce a radial component ofthe crank force and eliminating it would require the recruitmentof additional muscles to offset the radial component,causing the metabolic cost to go up." ****
The same point was made in High Performance Cycling (2002); maximizing tangential force is incompatible with any attempt to minimize radial forces.
Scraping the poo probably is inefficient because there are no muscles that can pull directly backwards so any scraping motion necessarily produces an upward radial component.
cerveloguy or coggin-which one of you two are the angry redhead candian that wouldnt shut up the whole week and told the experts things rather than asked questions?
Scraping the poo probably is inefficient because there are no muscles that can pull directly backwards so any scraping motion necessarily produces an upward radial component.
Just as pushing down harder is unlikely to be perfectly tangential so will produce an unnecessary radial component. Just because an applied muscle force is not performed “perfectly” doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. Rather, the question should be: does (or can) doing so improve the overall performance?
cerveloguy or coggin-which one of you two are the angry redhead candian that wouldnt shut up the whole week and told the experts things rather than asked questions?
Obviously I wasn’t there, or Testa wouldn’t have been speaking on power-based training.
I would say that both fibre type and pedaling style can influence pedaling efficiency and that these are unrelated.
If pedaling style is so important, why has no one ever been able to show it? That is, no study has ever shown a correlation between the pattern of force application and efficiency, nor has any study ever demonstrated that, as group, more efficient cyclists pedal differently than less efficient cyclists. OTOH, numerous studies have demonstrated a correlation between fiber type and efficiency, despite the significant variability involved in quantifying the former.
I would say that both fibre type and pedaling style can influence pedaling efficiency and that these are unrelated.
If pedaling style is so important, why has no one ever been able to show it? That is, no study has ever shown a correlation between the pattern of force application and efficiency, nor has any study ever demonstrated that, as group, more efficient cyclists pedal differently than less efficient cyclists. OTOH, numerous studies have demonstrated a correlation between fiber type and efficiency, despite the significant variability involved in quantifying the former.
As I said earlier I believe the reason this has not been studied before is it has been (before PowerCranks) almost impossible to reliably change or control for pedaling style in a time-frame available to a study.
PowerCranks change this. Now it is possible to reliably change the way someone pedals in a reasonable period of time while controlling for other variables. Luttrell did it and showed a 10% increase in efficiency in 6 weeks so your statement that “no study has ever shown a correlation between the pattern of force application and efficiency, nor has any study ever demonstrated that, as group, more efficient cyclists pedal differently than less efficient cyclists.” is simply wrong.
The fact that people have also correlated pedaling efficiency to fibre type is interesting but hardly useful to the average cyclist trying to improve since most would find it difficult if not impossible to actualy change their fibre type (do you have a recommendation as to how to do it?). Even if it were possible to change fibre type would they want to restrict themselves to this change if there were another change that could further improve efficiency that they could also do at the same time?
The fact that someone has not studied a phenomenon does not mean it does not exist. Now, with PowerCranks, there is a tool that exists to allow this theory to be tested. I am amazed that you, who claims to be a scientist, seems to think this question has been answered and laugh at anyone who might think it possible or tries to examine the question.
As I said earlier I believe the reason this has not been studied before is it has been (before PowerCranks) almost impossible to reliably change or control for pedaling style in a time-frame available to a study.
PowerCranks change this. Now it is possible to reliably change the way someone pedals in a reasonable period of time while controlling for other variables. Luttrell did it and showed a 10% increase in efficiency in 6 weeks so your statement that “no study has ever shown a correlation between the pattern of force application and efficiency, nor has any study ever demonstrated that, as group, more efficient cyclists pedal differently than less efficient cyclists.” is simply wrong.
The fact that people have also correlated pedaling efficiency to fibre type is interesting but hardly useful to the average cyclist trying to improve since most would find it difficult if not impossible to actualy change their fibre type (do you have a recommendation as to how to do it?). Even if it were possible to change fibre type would they want to restrict themselves to this change if there were another change that could further improve efficiency that they could also do at the same time?
The fact that someone has not studied a phenomenon does not mean it does not exist. Now, with PowerCranks, there is a tool that exists to allow this theory to be tested. I am amazed that you, who claims to be a scientist, seems to think this question has been answered and laugh at anyone who might think it possible or tries to examine the question.
Frank
Frank, do you believe there is one and only one correct way to power the pedals ?
I believe the reason this has not been studied before
I can think of several studies that addressed this very question.
Luttrell did it and showed a 10% increase in efficiency in 6 weeks so your statement that “no study has ever shown a correlation between the pattern of force application and efficiency, nor has any study ever demonstrated that, as group, more efficient cyclists pedal differently than less efficient cyclists.” is simply wrong.
Luttrell did NOT measure the pattern of force application when pedaling, so you are the one who is wrong here.
The fact that someone has not studied a phenomenon does not mean it does not exist.
As I indicated, several studies have quantified both efficiency and the pattern of force application with pedaling, and no correlation has been found. Indeed, it hasn’t even been possible to demonstrate a relationship on a group mean basis.
