Something new for the PC dissenters

[Frank_Day]

OK dissenters, explain this story which I recently received:

19 YO male, distance runner since the 5th grade (so he has a good aerobic base) who takes up full-time cycling in jan 2003 due to injury from running. His father reports "He raced in category 4 and had
good success, won some races and posted a 57:47 40K time trial (using a
stock bike with aero bars attached) on a legitimate course. To help him take his training further, we acquired a powertap pro for his
bike, and on September 21st he did a “Carmichael field test” to
establish a baseline and averaged 338 watts for his two 3 mile efforts. On
December 30th he started riding on his Powercranks. Just yesterday (May 12th) I finally got him to duplicate the Carmichael field test and he averaged 392 watts, a 16% improvement. He is racing category 3 this year and has been fortunate enough to win a weekend stage race, by winning all three of the stages! His time trial results show he is competitive with local Cat 1 and Cat 2 racers. "

So what, i can hear everyone say, a 16% improvement in a novice 5 months after starting PC’s! What is the big deal? This is clearly just training effect and placebo.

Oh, forgot one thing. The rest of the story …

“On November 10th of last year this young man was struck by a car while riding his bike. His head punched a hole in the windshield of the car that
struck him, and he was brought to the emergency room in critical condition. He was alive only because he was wearing his helmet. He was unconscious for 4 days, stayed in the hospital a total of 9 days, spent the next 7 days in a rehab hospital, and continued his therapy on an outpatient basis after that. It is hoped Daniel will have a full recovery, both physically and mentally, but the most severe physical injury was weakness in his left arm and left leg. He literally had to learn to walk again. In the rehab hospital he couldn’t ride a stationary bike more than about 10-15 minutes before becoming totally exhausted. This finally brings me to your
powercranks.”

Anyhow, his father got him the PC’s as a rehabilitation tool.

The boy was “brought home on Thanksgiving morning and he immediately
wanted to ride on a trainer. We let him, as long as he wore a helmet! Needless to say, his efforts were very short and he needed recovery days between rides. I brought up the subject of Powercranks to Daniel, let him read the research and reviews I had found, and told him it would take a big commitment on his part and a lot of time (so I thought) before he would see the benefits. On December 30th he took his first Powercranks ride on the trainer. While he was able to last longer than I thought he would, it still wasn’t a pretty sight. He could tell “his left leg wasn’t doing any of the work”. As you would expect the focus of his training from that point forward has been trying to regain his endurance, stamina, and coordination.”

I’ve read on a number of forums people (i.e., the non-users) think the
benefit of Powercranks comes from the additional motivation to train
harder than you did without them (people have to justify the investment they made, new toy, etc.). In other words the benefit is coming from increased volume and/or intensity of training, not the powercranks. Granted my son’s story is far from a scientific study, but I hope it would be obvious he started from something far below his previous level of fitness, and I assure you he is still not able to put as much time on the bike as he did before, and is not able to train at the intensity he did before the accident. His left side is still weaker than his right side."

OK folks, explain that if they are just placebo effect, or efficiency means nothing, or all the other objections. OK, I accept it is just an anecdotal report and to draw any conclusions we need to do a randomized study of young bike raceers who go through windshields and are unconscious for a week and come out with severe left or right sided weakness.

[GregX]

Frank,

I have never used your powercranks nor known anyone personally who has, but I looked at your website and it looks like you have, at the very least, a clever invention.

It seems like you believe in them a lot. And it appears that there are a lot of dissenters who don’t. So why don’t you settle the question once and for all and find some dedicated Exercise Physiology grad student who needs a good masters or Phd thesis topic. Have him/her design a very well controlled study to weed out all the possible training and placebo and other effects and help him/her out financially so they are able to recruit reliable subjects for the duration of the study.

Then, if you get good, peer-reviewed results, the ‘dissenters’ will have to eat crow and you won’t have to post sad stories about athletes who get into terrible-sounding car accidents but are able to pull through with the aid of powercranks.

What do you say?

[Frank_Day]

Greg,

I am working on it, although the dissenters will claim the financial incentives you suggest would invalidate the study by inserting bias. They have already made that criticism of the Luttrell study and all I did was provide him a pair of cranks to be used in a study.

The studies will eventually come and we will see what we will see.

[Mito_Chondria]

Hi Frank,

I followed the discussion about the PC’s and visited your webpage. The independent mechanism of the two crank arms make a lot of sense to me. I’m not saying that a more efficient pedalling stroke cannot be achieved without the use of PC. One can do one legged drills and other exercises to increase the pedalling efficiency, yet I doubt that weekly 30minute sessions (or longer and of greater frequency) can compare with the PC’s. Basic motor control/development knowledge and one knows that a muscle fibers becomes more accostomed if recruited. With accustomed I mean it “learns” to become activated as well as all the morphological changes it undergoes with the exercise stimuli.

Everybody should be honest with themselves. How often do you really do one legged drills? Speaking for myself I know I should do those exercises more often.

I’ve never used PC’s. I have no experience with them and don’t know anybody that uses them. Hopefully, some day, when they get cheaper as a result of increase in the demand I can buy one of them and see the results for myself.

I really like your thinking and the arguments you used on the various discussions about this topic. Yet, to use the data of a 16% increase in Power by a beginner cyclist doesn’t mean that PC’s are more performance enhancing than regular cranks. As you stated, this individual was relatively new to cycling and already had great aerobic capacity. While the given situation might limit the variable of aerobic fitness to some extend, there is still the variable of of motor recruitment. The kid’s muscle were accustomed to the running mechanics. I’m not saying that the PC’s didn’t do anything to help him improve his power output by 16%. Maybe it would have been a lesser change if this athlete would have used regular cranks, maybe not. Who knows…at least who can state it scientifically? I just wanted to mention that “general” motor adaptations to the pedaling motion are well expected with training, especially during the first year.

I don’t have the money to get the PC’s but I look foreward to take you up on that 90day money back offer. Not too many companies are that confident in their products. This clearly speaks for you! But I would like to try your innovation soon. Is there any race expo or health club in the L.A area where I could try the PC’s?

thanks,

daniel

btw. I will not have internet access for the next 24+ hrs.

[Stanford_HPL]

I’m a starving Grad Student working on my Master’s in Kinesiology/Ex. Phys at SF State. I would gladly do a study on the PowerCranks. Send me an email and we can discuss offline.

I have actually spoken with you before about this, but just in passing at the PSM lecture you did in March.

[klehner]

So someone quite young starts cycling training, and makes a large improvement in the first 5 months. Besides being anecdotal (which means it isn’t really worth much), I would think that any training he did would improve his power.

How about this? I’m 46, and I’ve been training for years (like 15 in multisport, and >10 in cycling). Last year, I averaged 266W for the District TT (40K); this year, (today, actually), I averaged exactly 300W over the same course (a 15% improvement!). For someone who has been training pretty consistently over the past 3 years, that’s quite an accomplishment, wouldn’t you say? Would you say that there was something particular in my training that allowed me to do this?

I think this, while a worthy story, is pretty lame.

[Robert]

Ok, Ken, what drugs were you taking?

Fess up, boy.

J/k. And nice improvement.

-Robert

[Frank_Day]

I am confused.

Exactly how fast would you have expected him to be (compared to his pretty good former self) 5 months after a major automobile accident involving 4 days of unconsciousness, and a major left sided weakness upon leaving the hospital (so probably some brain damage) using ordinary rehabilitation and training methods? I am impressed there is any improvement at all, especially considering his dad reports he is still somewhat weaker on the bad side.

Am I too easily impressed or what?

[garytingley]

I am not one to tout off about Rotor Cranks, as I let the results speak for themselves, but Frank, you should really put some solid results of top pro riders who actually compete on your cranks, and them post a photo of them riding on the cranks.

This would really shut all the dissenters up.

Here is an example of how you could do it, using Rotor Cranks as an example:

1. Andrew Watson won the Semi Pro and ROb Anderson won the 45-49 MTB race at Sea Otter this year ACTUALLY RACING on Rotor Cranks

3. 2003 ITU Long Distance Triathlon & Xterra World Champion Eneko Llanos won ACTUALLY RACING on Rotor Cranks

2. 2003 Winter Triathlon World Champion Marianne Vlasveld won ACTUALLY RACING on Rotor Cranks

WARNING: Satire. Any resemblance to an actual meaningful topic is purely coincidental. This post may self destruct within 24 hours. See store for details. Ask your doctor before reading this post. FDIC insured.

[broll]

wow…its a shame they dont have the ablility or strength to win on real cranks. So much for may the best man win.

[klehner]

Robert,

Thanks.

No drugs, barely any caffeine (not much in iced tea, my vice). Frankly (no pun intended), I have no idea why I’m so much stronger this year. I had foot surgery the day before Christmas, which kept me off my feet for almost a month. In fact, I’ve been riding less this year than in the past. Running a bit more, with a longer run every week, but still no more than about 20-25 miles/week. I did do a lot (for me) of swimming Jan/Feb/March for the first time in a decade.

Go figure.

[Frank_Day]

Placebo effect.

[Ray]

Yeah. Real men race single speed.

Ray