For anyone interested I just concluded my own unofficial PC pedaling style experiment. Was always a masher before using PC’s for two off seasons of training. At the conclusion of off season 1 using PC’s, I had a personal best bike split on a half ironman course done 2 previous times w/o PC’s. At the conclusion of off season 2 on PC’s rode gulf coast for the first time at 24.1 mph. Off season 3 was training w/o PC’s and gulf coast avg was 24.3. Not sure if I pedaled in circles for the races that were trained for using them, but the legs were trained to do so. I do know that I am back to mashing as there are times when I am unclipped and dont realize it until climbing. Effort expended while racing was not measured using watts, heartrate or anything other than perceived exertion which in my opinion I can duplicate at will. Race conditions were all very similar, enough so that I call it negligible in my results. While some benefit from smooth circular pedaling, I probably dont.
<<the first time at 24.1 mph.>>
<<gulf coast avg was 24.3>>
<< I do know that I am back to mashing as >>
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Well, I’m convinced…
I will rephrase: I didnt benefit from circular pedaling training.
If you only used them in the off-season then you very likely didn’t spend enough time to gain much benefit. I’m finishing out my third year of riding them full time and now I can race them on the tri bike with 15 cm of drop at 90 rpm. I find that I run much better off the bike when I race PCs when compared to the same wattage on regular crankarms. I’ll never say they turn you into Superman, but if you do enough work they might give you that slight edge.
Chad
Although there is a benefit in your pedalling style, many people seem to talk about the biggest benefit of PC’s being your run off the bike times… Given Dev’s thread realting to run intervals, it makes sense that anything that makes you run better is probably going to give you a better overall time improvement. Maybe someone can comment further on the overall benefit for tri associated with power cranks, taking into account the benefit on the run…
My off season is October-May. I had built up to between 5 and 6 hours on them. Im not pro or con PC, but I know they will “make” you a circular pedaler or at least train that muscle group. I would like to think that after a lot of miles on them my form was changed for at least the first race in May which is when i took them off. Perhaps May to September was a complete digression.
My supposition, and it is completely that, from training and racing PCs and then running is that the up-pulling muscles spare your quads while cycling at the same power output. Devashish Paul commented on this in a thread once, pointing out that he thought his quads were not getting the same workout on PCs. I believe that is correct and from a strictly cycling viewpoint that may not be a good thing. However, when you must run off the bike then having less-fatigued quads may contribute to a better run.
PCs have not made any noticeable increase in my standalone run speed, likely because I was already reasonably fast before starting and thus there was less room for improvement.
Chad
Like Chad mentioned, I felt that my quads got detrained on exclusive PC use only, and while my first 40-70K would be bullet fast, my last 20K in a half Ironman would be slower in my first few seasons of “exclusive us”. I could also visually see a reduction in the muscles in my quads. Last year, I went to PC’s for bike commuting (around 6 hours per week) and riding bolted to the aero position on conventional cranks for another 6-10 hours per week, and I did lots of high cadence aero work along with at least one workout per week with ~60RPM big gear hills in the aero position.
Usuing this “mixed usage” model, I felt I gained the best of both worlds…but I do concede that you need an initial focus of 2-6 months of exclusive use only.
Dev
“there are times when I am unclipped and dont realize it until climbing.”
What?
I am not sure I get this. So you are riding along, totally clipped out of the pedal and you don’t know it.
Fleck
My cleat is pressed so hard onto the pedal that when I do finally pull up with the hammys, my foot comes flying off the pedal. Im not saying that I ride that way for more than several minutes before I realize Im not clipped in, but if Im doing circles I would feel it right away.
I started expirimenting with racing on PCs after a couple of my races on normal cranks didn’t go as well as I might have liked. While some of the PC motion transfers over to regular crankarms, you still have to think about pedaling that way–on regular cranks you don’t get any feedback for this and so you may over-pull and fry the quads. The more tired you become the less you are likely to pedal in a PC style. So if you are going to race on normal crankarms then I would actually recommend training the way Dev suggested. In my mind this is only the 50 percent solution, but he makes it work and benefits from it.
If you are going to train full-time on PCs then you ought to race on them as well–nothing else makes sense.
Chad
Still not sure I get this, but what it is, is what it is.
Have you tried riding behind REALLY good cyclists. Just sitting on a really good cyclsists wheel for even an hour( or a number of hours) can do wonders. Watch what they do. Notice the fluidity of the pedal stroke. Notice how it never really changes. Round and round they go. Nice, even, smooth circles. Now having said this, most of the power is still applied at 3:00 o’clock, but you can’t really tell when you are watching a great cyclist pedal. The way it’s been described to me is the back stroke is not about pulling up, but unweighting and getting the recovery leg out of the way, so that the front leg can apply max power at 3:00 o’clock and not be encumbered by the recovery leg in the rear. And again, with REALLY good cyclists you will not be able to tell this is going on.
Fleck
"Still not sure I get this, but what it is, is what it is. "
Oh come on? You have never heard a click (maybe its just with speedplay) and thought you were clipped in, only to have your shoe slide off the side of the pedal or lift off of it? If someone is applying pressure to then pedal at 360 of the stroke, and close to being clipped in, that said person could feel as if they are clipped in and they would obviously be mashing. If they are not clipped in and “pulling up” the foot will give immediate feedback and fly upwards. My defintion of mashing isnt an awkard slam with a jerk in the leg and hips, its simply the majority of force being applied to the downstroke. Ride with good cyclists? I live in Mecca.
Maybe someone can comment further on the overall benefit for tri associated with power cranks, taking into account the benefit on the run…
I’d have to agree that in the relatively short time I’ve used PCs (~3 months), I’ve noticed improvement on my run, even though I’m running about 50% less than I had before PCs (& would consider myself a fairly strong runner). My runs off the bike are nearly effortless at the same pace I used to be very labored off the bike at. I do all my run speedwork with a warm-up & cool-down on the PCs. I feel this has been a HUGE benefit, because I was previously prone to running injury when I incorporated heavy speedwork into my training plans.