Powercranks: Help quantify the debate (edit)

Triathlon Forum
21

Lots of testimonials on PC website and so called anecdotal evidence but you can’t get at least 10 people with power meter files to back up the claims; now that’s weird…

I can see how the collection of those testimonials might have worked:

PC: “so did the use of PCs improve your power/performance?”
Athlete: “Of course I feel more powerful and efficient!”
PC: “Do you use a power meter so we can quantify your gains?”
Athlete: “mmm NO, but I don’t need to, I feel stronger!”
PC: “would you say you improve your power by like 40%?”
Athlete: “well I don’t know but I am going to say, definitely!!!”
PC: “gotcha!”

The product actually might have some merit to it and it might help the users to improve somehow or force athletes to JFT, but with the creator’s attitude and extraordinary claims I am totally turn off to even consider trying the product. In particular when I saw on the PC website the Joaquin story and it is cited as “The customer who managed to document everything!” when it was discussed here on ST by him that the particular power file proving his claim didn’t exit…

By the way Dr Skiba, as a developing coach with limited experience on sports physiology I enjoyed your book very much, but mostly, I enjoyed all the references included which are helping me further expand my education/understanding on the subject. Thank you!

22

By the way Dr Skiba, as a developing coach with limited experience on sports physiology I enjoyed your book very much, but mostly, I enjoyed all the references included which are helping me further expand my education/understanding on the subject. Thank you!

Glad it helped, Jorge. You are exactly the kind of guy I wrote it for!

Phil

23

Get me a power meter and I’ll toss the cranks back on my bike and get you all the data you want!

Hell…toss me the cranks and I might* consider throwing them on my bike…but, not until my “off-season” starts in 1-2 months…

I’ve got 3.5 years of PM data to compare to and to quantify training load against. I promise to download EVERY PM file (barring electronics failure, that is) and to give it a fair shake…but if I end up with an injured back, or start showing up to races a day early, I’ll be coming after Frank personally :wink:

I can’t believe I just offered to do this…

*The reason I say “might” is that I’ve given myself a time goal to break on a local TT course to “allow” myself to purchase a P2C or P3C frame. If I haven’t met that goal in the next 2 months, I’m still going to be shooting for it up through Sept. I’m not going to take the risk of throwing in a change that could have detrimental effects until I’ve exhausted my chances.

24

In particular when I saw on the PC website the Joaquin story and it is cited as “The customer who managed to document everything!” when it was discussed here on ST by him that the particular power file proving his claim didn’t exit…

By the way Dr Skiba, as a developing coach with limited experience on sports physiology I enjoyed your book very much, but mostly, I enjoyed all the references included which are helping me further expand my education/understanding on the subject. Thank you!

Hey mister “holier than thou”. Exactly what lengths are you willing to go to to document your PowerCranks experience. Joaquin was a guy who actually paid for formal testing just before starting them and then again at about 6 month intervals to document the changes, which even included changes in VO2 max and efficiency, something that isn’t going to come from a bunch of PT files, complete or not.

In my mind, he documented “everything”, The fact he failed to download a ride or two because of travel is of little consequence to that determination.

And, did you actually watch any of the “testimonials”? I would be surprised anyone actually got that impression as to that is how they went after watching them, but what do I know?

25

In my mind, he documented everything, The fact he failed to download a ride or two because of travel is of little consequence to that determination.

oh in that case, you are correct as always…

26

You might be able to recruit some people into your “study” here:

http://www.triorganic.com/ccc.aspx?g=topics&f=7
.

27

"In my mind, he documented “everything”, "

Everything, that is, except for *any *examples of him actually producing the results claimed in the Pez article…

"The fact he failed to download a ride or two because of travel is of little consequence to that determination. "

Another amazing PC coincidence, eh? Why is it that every time one of your pet riders actually gets put on the spot, and asked to ante up the evidence, they “show up a day early,” or “coincidentally” lose that one particular power file, “fail to download because of travel,” or get hurt, or…

I’m calling “Shenanigans.”

PS - please stop the nonsense, Frank! I really, really want to sell the set of PCs I have taking up space in my shop, and too many of my customers have been reading these threads!

.

28

Another amazing PC coincidence, eh? Why is it that every time one of your pet riders actually gets put on the spot, and asked to ante up the evidence, they “show up a day early,” or “coincidentally” lose that one particular power file, “fail to download because of travel,” or get hurt, or…

So can we conclude that PC’s provide amazing performance gains, but these gains are offset by the incredibly bad luck they cause?

29

PS - please stop the nonsense, Frank! I really, really want to sell the set of PCs I have taking up space in my shop, and too many of my customers have been reading these threads!
.

What kind of ethics is that? Wanting to sell a product that you apparently believe lies about what it does. I am sure not all of your customers read these threads. It shouldn’t be too hard to “get rid of them”.

I will say you are unusual in one sense. I was not aware of any shop that actually had a pair sitting around waiting to sell. Some shops have a demo pair, but most shops don’t and most shops just order from us when a customer comes in and asks for them. Much better use of their money I would think unless they are selling a lot of them (a couple do).

30

“What kind of ethics is that? Wanting to sell a product that you apparently believe lies about what it does.”

Impeded in comprehension by the grammatical disaster of this post, am I to believe that you are actually attempting to question my integrity?

Puh-leeze.

“Lies”? The only one I see constantly resorting to a tactic that could even come close to deserving this appelation is, well… you, Frank.

I have long maintained an agnostic stance as to the potential benefits to be derived from your product - heck, I had that in my ST sig line for about a year. I have owned PCs, ridden PCs, and I sell PCs in a retail environment.

This openness does not, however, extend far enough that I am willing to ignore your consistant pattern of fabrication, BS, and nonsense. I am quite capable of making judgements as to your character (insofar as it relates to your business ethics, and “salesmanship,”) independant of any feelings I may have as to the PCs themselves.

When one reads through the many PC threads on this site, it is manifestly obvious that you display an appalling willingness to lapse into hyperbole, hypocrisy, and hysterical exaggeration; or, as one potential PC customer phrased it after he had read through the “Liar, Liar” thread - “Man, that dude is just totally full of shit.”

As a retailer of your product, and an active coach who often receives enquiries as to the veracity of your claims, when I am asked questions regarding your product, I refer the curious party to the many, many threads on this site. Hoist by your own petard, after reading, they - so far without exception - no longer have any interest in purchasing the product you represent.

As to “what kinds of ethics is that? (sic),” I could sell many sets of your cranks if I chose to, if I were willing to parrot your party line to my customer base, and if I could, in good conscience, cite your performance improvement claims as credible.

I can’t do this, and instead refer interested parties to your own words, in print here. This isn’t a particularly effective selling tool, unfortunately(?)

.

31

I’m guessing a very small percentage of the PC user universe reads this board.

Frank undoubtedly has email addresses for much of his customer base. Perhaps he can send out an email to all of them with an invitation to submit the power data.

I’ve thought about the physics of training with these and think it compares to doing pullups under-handed versus over-handed. You can usually do more with an underhand grip because you can bring more muscles to bear in the effort (one extra muscle is involved).

PCs teach you to utilize more muscles in turning the crank.

The counter argument may be results gained from devotion to these new muscles subtract from the results that would be gained from the old muscles had you not been using PCs.

And that is true - however, as the gains in all muscles suffer from diminishing returns, in the long run, you are better off developing all of the potential mucles that can be brought to bear on the crank arm than just the few which will hit a virtual ‘flat-line’ in their development.

I really hope that if the reasoning here is incorrect that someone could point out how it is.

I understand in a world where all the best and most talented pullup experts have always done them overhand, the winner of the greatest pullup competitions have done them overhand, and anyone who has ever showed any ability in doing pullups is brought into the mainstream of elite training that mandates only overhand pullups, that doing some underhanded pullups would be a huge controversy. I also imagine that if anyone had any success in pullup competitions by doing them underhanded would try to conceal that they were doing them underhanded (if possible) so as not to give advantage to his competitors.

I wonder if LeMond could have as easily concealed the aerobars while doing his TDF time trial that most would still be doing TTs in drops.

Fortunately for (x), it is pretty easy to conceal training on PCs, just as you can conceal what is in your sports drink mix.

33

““Over-handed” and “under-handed” pullups are completely different.”

Actually, for the purpose of this comparison, they are not. While they have some mechanical differences, they both achieve the same thing- moving your body from a dead hang to having your chin above a bar, just as cycling is about turning a circular crank arm.

Also, you are making assumptions that I am not - that the hands are not in the same position.

Besides, you are incorrect about what is possible. Just to verify this, I just now walked over to my bar and banged out a set with my hands so close they were touching - both under and overhanded.

Normally I do them at about shoulder-length apart.

But I’ll correct my statement - when I say ‘over handed versus underhanded, I mean over handed versus underhanded with hands in the same position.’

34

“I’ve thought about the physics of training with these and think it compares to doing pullups under-handed versus over-handed. You can usually do more with an underhand grip because you can bring more muscles to bear in the effort (one extra muscle is involved)”

Which extra muscle is involved in underhand when your hands are equal distance?

35

Deleted to keep this thread on track…still looking for the elusive PC power files to back up their claims.

36

Oops, there I go again. To remind you Learn, this thread is not about the science behind PC, it’s about anyone stepping forward to “quantify the debate”. Which as of this post, neither of us has done.

I’ll give you a minute to read my other posts, then I am deleting them to keep this thread on track…

37

His comment was that in the case of PCs versus regular cranks the physical range of motion and path of the knee/ankle etc is IDENTICAL. In your example they are totally different. The motion of the forearm is different, the angles of the tendons, etc is different, very little is the same. I’ll grant that the shoulder joint is the same so long as the hand width is ~shoulder width.

Anyway, you seem to have missed the fundamental point of Andy’s posts in the earlier “Liar Liar” thread. The fundamental thrust was that at maximum sustainable power the power output was more controlled by cardiac output and NOT by muscle recruitment. I.e. recruiting the hip flexors to lift up on the pedal on the upstroke would reduce the power output of the quads pushing down on the downstroke. So if you are doing 40W of work lifting the legs on the back side then that is 40W less cardio capacity available to drive down on the front side. From a muscular fatigue perspective it makes sense to spread load over more muscles, but ONLY if those muscles are an efficient method of producing power at the crank. Some of the pedaling efficiency studies showed that it is less efficient pedaling circles vs “squares” therefore it was a waste of cardiac output to try to pedal that way. It’s hard to summarize a 200 post thread in 50 words without screwing up, so sorry if I missed something there.

38

You’re pretty close to summing it up!

39

Don’t waste your time, Learn doesn’t “learn” from others. He’s a bit like me in that he just likes to argue. :smiley:

Problem is that I think he likes the sound of his own voice (or rather the appearance of his own posts) too much to listen to others.

Anyway, back to waiting for a PCer to come forward.

40

Don’t waste your time, Learn doesn’t “learn” from others. He’s a bit like me in that he just likes to argue. :smiley:

Problem is that I think he likes the sound of his own voice (or rather the appearance of his own posts) too much to listen to others.

When I was about 6 my grandmother told me that “it takes two to argue.” I proudly told her that I could argue with myself just fine!

I’m also back to waiting for a PCer to come forward with data. I truly am interested in the subject, despite Frank’s contradictions and wildly unsubstantiated claims. For now I am just training on regular cranks to see if I can produce a 40% increase over the next 9 months.

41

Hi,

I actually did read your summary and I think it does a nice job. And yes, I realize my post went off into a hijacking direction. And no, 10-4 is an idiot and we are not alike.

On the pullups, you’re getting too literal and I also think you are incorrect. At least as I do them, the forarm motion is the same. There is very little mechanical difference. But in general, the joints aren’t doing any work - muscles are - and there is no appreciable mehachanical difference.

On your comment about the liar liar thread (again, very nice job summarizing 10000 posts into 50 jobs, rats off to you).

But you are also incorrect about ‘cardio capacity.’

There isn’t so much of a pool of cardio capacity that the body draws from. The ‘cardio capacity’ exists at the individual muscle level. That is why you will find a wildly different VO2Max number when testing on a bike for a pro cyclists than you do with the same person on a treadmill. I recall this is similar to an example given in Philbert’s book (a pretty good book, btw).

You are also incorrect in your general assessment of the ‘40w less cardio capacity.’ If your leg was capable of of pushing down with that extra 40w, then you can still do that - just that over time your other muscles will catch up to it. The PCs don’t limit you emphasizing a certain part of the pedal stroke. Have you ridden on them?

Some of the mega-brains around here have said (and maybe it was Coggan?) that cross training is largely ineffective.