Lessons in Ex Phys

Triathlon Forum
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As the biggest forum lurker, Im now posting.

How many people thought they knew something about the human body before reading the record setting powercranks thread? I spent most of friday at work, hitting the refresh button to see what the combatants next response would be. Most of the posts in one way or another were puppet responses from phys texts, and not the results of personal testing. The name David Costill was thrown around with others as authority, and they should be. Costill and the late Edmund Burke put the Ball State Human Perfromance Lab on the map and did monumental research in Ex Phys. Many of their experiments had holes in them as well. I had a roomate who was involved in a sports drink (Powerade I think)experiment at BSU. He was on a controlled diet, guess how controlled that was when they werent with him at night?(spam, cookies) Think that research was valid? We all have our own experiments, and our bodies will get better or worse with trial and error, and no one program works the same for everyone. I use the PC’s, and if Frank is wrong about my muscles ability to deal with cardiac stress blah blah, I really dont care…I know that my bike is usually one the first to arrive at T2, and now my run is getting to the same level. Most important, since PC’s have been in my program, ZERO INJURIES…Thanks Frank.

Rip, Philbert etc…thanks for all of your posts on the subject. Educational. (not sarcastic)

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Rubberman is a good name, you might need to be prepared to bounce off some bombs that may soon be thrown your way, as you have committed an unpardonable sin of saying that PC’s helped your performance.

The recent thread you referred to, is based on trying to find a REASON that PC’s do work, or can’t work, using “known” exercise physiology theories. As I see it, the idea of: if there is unused, or underused cardiac output available during exercise near VO2max, or even trainable increases in cardiac output, then PC theory of using hip flexors just might make sense using other known exercise physiology theory. Because, if there is more blood flow available from the heart near VO2max during cycling, using that extra blood to supply the hip flexors would be a good thing in the context of hip flexors “assisting” the extensors in their job.

Some state that the extensors are much more “efficient” at making the pedal go 'round than the hip flexors, and since cardiac output is THE limiter to VO2max in a pedalling exercise, it makes no sense to use the less efficient hip flexors…because they would require blood flow that would best be used by the more “efficient” extensors.

Others take a slightly different view: that there is a benefit to recruiting the hip flexors (whether or not they are more or less “efficient” than the extensors), and that in doing so, the ability of the extensors to continue to put out their “usual” level of power is not adversely affected. Therefore more power would be available to the chain.

After all the fur has flown, the only thing that matters is if it helps you or not. Whether you are on one side or the other, or even a different tangent on the cardiac output limitation arguement…performance is “THE” measure of effectiveness. Are there other ways than PC training to increase performance? Certainly. Is PC training THE best way to increase performance? No, I’m sure that riding would be THE first way to increase performance. After that, riding harder and longer would be good, I imagine :slight_smile:

At some point, some choose to try PC’s or not. Either group of people can improve, stay the same, or even decrease their performance, depending upon how their body reacts to the choices made. It ain’t so hard to understand, even if the “science” behind why they appear to work for some people isn’t agreed upon, or even known.

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The funny thing about all this debate is the good laugh we’ll have 3-5 years from now, when PC’s are an amusing gizmo from the past, much like biopace chainrings.

4

SAC wrote: "The funny thing about all this debate is the good laugh we’ll have 3-5 years from now, when PC’s are an amusing gizmo from the past, much like biopace chainrings. "

Or, they are used by every athlete who hopes to have any chance at winning. We will see.