What determines efficiency ???

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Here is an interesting study that goes to the controversy.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/7076784371652757/

There is apparently more research on this than is being referenced here. Coyles is not the only study on training and efficiency. From the article quoted previously

"An intriguing question, which has been addressed in many studies, is whether cycling efficiency can be increased by training. The topic has been addressed in a number of cross-sectional studies. However, the results are inconclusive in that studies have shown higher (Kunstlinger et al. 1985 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b31); Gardner et al. 1989 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b19); Gissane et al. 1991 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b20)), lower (Mallory et al. 2002 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b34)) or similar (Boning et al. 1984 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b4); Nickleberry & Brooks, 1996 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b41); Marsh et al. 2000 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b36); Moseley & Jeukendrup, 2001 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b39)) cycling efficiency in endurance trained subjects. Cycling efficiency has in some (Coyle et al. 1992 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b13); Horowitz et al. 1994 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b25)) but not all studies (Medbøx, 1990 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b37); Pedersen et al. 2002 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b44)) been shown to correlate to the relative muscle composition of type I fibres. There are some data, which indicate that endurance trained subjects have a higher proportion of type I fibres than untrained subjects (Fitzsimons et al. 1990 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b16); Putman et al. 2004 (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=16423857#b45)). The higher cycling efficiency in endurance trained subjects, observed in some studies, may therefore be a consequence of fibre type differences between the groups. This possibility has not been adequately addressed in previous studies and further studies are therefore required.

Thanks for the info. To tell you the truth, when Powercranks came out I was very interested since I heard some cyclists were happy with the results. However with so many things going on it has been difficult to keep up.

The trouble with any new you-beaut thing that comes along is … using it will produce new training stimulus and this may very well produce improvement. So it becomes a … whether it was the thing or the variation in the training that caused the improvement ? maybe it doesn't matter as if there was no thing there may have been no variation ??

just a thought …

Good point. Many Pros out there meet so many physiological requirements but only a few meet the psychological requirements as well.

About Lance genetic make up, I would blame it on more on His mother. Just for fun, did you know that Mitochondria genetical make up comes from the mother?.


says who ?

I had a friend back in the 70s who designed a bike that had hydraulic gearing in the hub and double crank wheels that made the pedals go up and down 310 mm but only back and fourth 100mm … because he believed this was more biomechanical efficient, I thought he was a nutter.

The infinitely variable gearing was interesting though .

says who ?Science. (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00481.htm)

Science. (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00481.htm)

no … Paul Mahoney, PhD said it.

Thanks, I'll check him out

I am not sure this is correct.

I don't argee with the idea of varied training leading to greater stimulus. You hear this stuff all the time from people trying to sell gym memberships by pushing crosstraining on the same principle.

If you are getting 'used' to your training then you are not properly increasing your workload. You don't ever 'get used' to interval training etc if it is done at sufficient intensity.

Granted, you may just get bored with a workout routine, but then this is a psychological argument not a physiological on.

Well designed studies should ensure that workloads are similar between control and study groups in a way that makes them resistant to this psychological effect.


The trouble with any new you-beaut thing that comes along is … using it will produce new training stimulus and this may very well produce improvement. So it becomes a … whether it was the thing or the variation in the training that caused the improvement ? maybe it doesn't matter as if there was no thing there may have been no variation ??

just a thought …

I am not sure this is correct.

I don't argee with the idea of varied training leading to greater stimulus. You hear this stuff all the time from people trying to sell gym memberships by pushing crosstraining on the same principle.

If you are getting 'used' to your training then you are not properly increasing your workload. You don't ever 'get used' to interval training etc if it is done at sufficient intensity.

Granted, you may just get bored with a workout routine, but then this is a psychological argument not a physiological on.

Well designed studies should ensure that workloads are similar between control and study groups in a way that makes them resistant to this psychological effect.

There is a very interesting relationship between specificity and variation.

Don't confuse variation with change. It is my experience that crosstraining is a complex and not entirely useful idea.

Constant yet very minor variations to a routine can stimulate ongoing adaptation. If we just back away from the science for second and take a hard look at the obvious. Things often appear a little clearer.

If you do the same thing over and over again you don't get better at it ! you get more biomechanically efficient at it. To get better at it one must have (in theoretical terms) additional stimulus.

In various sports, training is periodised on a four week cycle of increased volume/intensity and a recovery week, saw toothing upwards to peak for a specific event.

If you are getting 'used' to your training then you are not properly increasing your workload.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that variation ?

You need to untangle changes in workload and changes in the type of activity. Otherwise you can't determine which is responsible for the adaptions you are or not seeing.

What I was saying is that i don't think changes in the type of activity lead to any added training effect when the metabolic work rate is held constant. (power output is a different story, as less efficient tasks (as unfamiliar ones would tend to be) require greater metabolic work for the same external work).

If we are talking about increases or variations in workload such as the pattern of block training you discussed, then this will have an effect, but why would anyone design a study where the control and non control groups had differing workloads- as this is so obvious I could only assume that you were making the classic cross training argument.

To reply to your original hypothesis why would the group using powercranks in the study have a greater workload- and if not then what would be the nature of the additional stimulus.

If the study used comparable external work (as in watts at crank) then there may well be an increased metabolic workload experienced by the PC users, but then Luttrel is a moron.





There is a very interesting relationship between specificity and variation.

Don't confuse variation with change. It is my experience that crosstraining is a complex and not entirely useful idea.

Constant yet very minor variations to a routine can stimulate ongoing adaptation. If we just back away from the science for second and take a hard look at the obvious. Things often appear a little clearer.

If you do the same thing over and over again you don't get better at it ! you get more biomechanically efficient at it. To get better at it one must have (in theoretical terms) additional stimulus.

In various sports, training is periodised on a four week cycle of increased volume/intensity and a recovery week, saw toothing upwards to peak for a specific event.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that variation ?

but why would anyone design a study where the control and non control groups had differing workloads- Are you speaking in the context of powercranks only or in general?

You need to untangle changes in workload and changes in the type of activity. Otherwise you can't determine which is responsible for the adaptions you are or not seeing.

What I was saying is that i don't think changes in the type of activity lead to any added training effect when the metabolic work rate is held constant. (power output is a different story, as less efficient tasks (as unfamiliar ones would tend to be) require greater metabolic work for the same external work).

If we are talking about increases or variations in workload such as the pattern of block training you discussed, then this will have an effect, but why would anyone design a study where the control and non control groups had differing workloads- as this is so obvious I could only assume that you were making the classic cross training argument.

To reply to your original hypothesis why would the group using powercranks in the study have a greater workload- and if not then what would be the nature of the additional stimulus.

If the study used comparable external work (as in watts at crank) then there may well be an increased metabolic workload experienced by the PC users, but then Luttrel is a moron.

Okay …

1) Changes in activity can result in non specific adaptation that adds no real advantage to the prime activity, ie: bicycle racing. However if excessive stimulus at a specific discipline results in injury, irritation, boredom, Change to some small percentage of a training stimulus may prove advantages.

2) Increases, decreases, in work volume and intensity and difference in training terrain will continually add subtle variations and stimulus to training.

Power cranks, which I know little about, would fall into both categories I guess ? So tangled they remain.

How refreshing, especially for this site, that you might actually have an intellectual curiosity as to whether they might be useful as opposed to thinking this is a closed issue and such a device can be of zero usefulness (or actually interfere with "real" training).

It is also refreshing to hear from someone who should know how difficult it is to study elite athletes. Some here seem to think that within a year or so of coming up with PowerCranks it should have been a "simple" task for me to take the top 10 finishers of the TDF, randomly put them in two groups, one on PC's and the other not, and test them weekly for 6 months so I could "prove" my outlandish claims. My having failed to do so (or something similar) is proof that my product is nothing but hype.

Thanks for a breath of fresh aire.
I think that we all shoud be open to new ideas and give them sometime to see if they work. That is a key factor for the evolution of any field of knowledge.
I remember when LeMond came out with the TT bars and helmet in TdF 89 and everyone thought he was crazy....then he won the Tour and ever since then everyone started using the TT bars and the Helmet..

You are right...I am sure you have had to deal with so much crap and stupid things from some pros. It is very hard to work with most pros...I don´t say all, but MOST pros. We have to think that most pros behave and have many similar characteristics of children. They are highly usecure and very fragil and on top of lucking the knowledge of how their body works, most luck the priciple of objectivity and when things are not going as they wish or thought they start looking for ghost where they do not exist instead of analyzing situations objectively. Of course that is a major part that makes big champions outstand from the rest..not only their physiolgy but also their psychology.

Cheers

Are you speaking in the context of powercranks only or in general?
Good point. If you were trying to study the effect of say, increasing workload, then you would obviously need differing workloads on the control and non-control.

But in the context of trying to demonstrate a beneficial effect from a particular product or training program, you should try and keep total workloads as similar as possible, so as you don't get what appears to be a positive efffect from your changes when all you are really doing is getting the athlete to train harder.

Say you want to test the hypothesis that intervals are a "better' form of training than steady state. You can't just take a control doing say 3,2hr L3 rides a week, and then get the intervals group to do this then an extra 2, 1 hour intervals sessions. When the intervals group outperforms your control group you won't know if it is from the extra hours of training or the inclusion of intervals per se.

In any case this is all a rather non interesting diversion from the main topic.

You need to untangle the two to conduct a scientific test.

Why would you let your non control increase or decrease their work volume or intensity or let them ride on different terrain to the control.

As stated earlier, you can keep workloads identical through measuring metabolic work rates, such as through measuring 02 consumption in an aerobic state.


Okay …

1) Changes in activity can result in non specific adaptation that adds no real advantage to the prime activity, ie: bicycle racing. However if excessive stimulus at a specific discipline results in injury, irritation, boredom, Change to some small percentage of a training stimulus may prove advantages.

2) Increases, decreases, in work volume and intensity and difference in training terrain will continually add subtle variations and stimulus to training.

Power cranks, which I know little about, would fall into both categories I guess ? So tangled they remain.

You need to untangle the two to conduct a scientific test.

Why would you let your non control increase or decrease their work volume or intensity or let them ride on different terrain to the control.

As stated earlier, you can keep workloads identical through measuring metabolic work rates, such as through measuring 02 consumption in an aerobic state.As regards PowerCranks I am not so sure it is necessary to untangle anything right now. Right now it is of more interest to determine if they do have a increased training benefit over regular training, at least time-wise. It is almost impossible to keep work loads constant as, in the beginning the work load of PC'ers usually dramatically drops and, after adaption it would be increased as they are able to use more muscles. Once the fact there is a training benefit is firmly established, assuming it will be, then it seems the untangling can attempted to be done to see exactly where the improvement is coming from, if that is possible, as many potential areas for improvement exist that the PC's might impact.

I have always thought that one way of studying the cranks would be to tell the placebo group you are examining the effect of crank weight on training effectiveness. The PC's are big and heavy so, if we make the use PC's in the control group but using the lock-out mode so they are like regular cranks, the control group would think they were the experimental group when they really were not. The PC group cannot be fooled into thinking their cranks are not weird.

How about you just fix the metabolic work rate for both groups at a level that the PC group can handle at any given point of time.

If the PC group gets stronger through increased efficiency (as you claim), then their metabolic capacity will not have to, nor should it improve over the control group.


As regards PowerCranks I am not so sure it is necessary to untangle anything right now. Right now it is of more interest to determine if they do have a increased training benefit over regular training, at least time-wise. It is almost impossible to keep work loads constant as, in the beginning the work load of PC'ers usually dramatically drops and, after adaption it would be increased as they are able to use more muscles. Once the fact there is a training benefit is firmly established, assuming it will be, then it seems the untangling can attempted to be done to see exactly where the improvement is coming from, if that is possible, as many potential areas for improvement exist that the PC's might impact.

I have always thought that one way of studying the cranks would be to tell the placebo group you are examining the effect of crank weight on training effectiveness. The PC's are big and heavy so, if we make the use PC's in the control group but using the lock-out mode so they are like regular cranks, the control group would think they were the experimental group when they really were not. The PC group cannot be fooled into thinking their cranks are not weird.

How about you just fix the metabolic work rate for both groups at a level that the PC group can handle at any given point of time.

If the PC group gets stronger through increased efficiency (as you claim), then their metabolic capacity will not have to, nor should it improve over the control group.Here is the problem with "fixing the metabolic work" as I see it.

First, how people adapt to the PowerCranks is quite variable. Some will be up to speed in just a ride or so and others will take a couple of weeks to get up to bare minimum standard. So, it would be very difficult to predict how much to reduce the control group until you have seen how the PowerCranks group will respond. Then, the range of variability will be all over the place. Do you have to match participants? It would be almost impossible to administer this as it would be impossible to predict how the PC participants are going to adapt.

Second, if the PC group came up as being superior people would complain that it was because we reduced the work load of the regular cranks group from what they would have otherwise done. It would just give people an excuse to criticize the study.

Third, While it might be nice to keep the metabolic work constant from a scientific perspective, the real question most want answered is: "will training with this device make me better than I would otherwise be if I didn't use it." That is why I think keeping the groups equivalent, as regards time, is the way to go. If the PC group cannot do as much work in the same amount of time in the beginning, that is the real world and would answer the question people really want to know. If the PC group does better, despite reduced time training that raises the question as to "how could this occur?" Such a result would suggest efficiency improvement has to be in play, to me.

A couple of weeks to get upto a bare minimum.....

Aint that the truth. :D

I also have an "hypothesis of one" that believes that Powercranks are a little less forgiving of a bad position on the bike.

As far as the Coyle's study on Lance goes, it always makes me smile a little when he states a large reduction in body fat (down to 72Kg pre-Tour in 1999) yet shows his November 1999 weight as being one kilo more than it was in 1992 78.9 Vs 79.7Kg. Either someone's bathroom scales were messed up or Lance had been sitting around eating cookies to pile on that extra 17lbs in a few months. :p .... and people used to say that LeMond had a bad diet. I kid, I kid....

A couple of weeks to get upto a bare minimum.....

Aint that the truth. :D

I also have an "hypothesis of one" that believes that Powercranks are a little less forgiving of a bad position on the bike.

As far as the Coyle's study on Lance goes, it always makes me smile a little when he states a large reduction in body fat (down to 72Kg pre-Tour in 1999) yet shows his November 1999 weight as being one kilo more than it was in 1992 78.9 Vs 79.7Kg. Either someone's bathroom scales were messed up or Lance had been sitting around eating cookies to pile on that extra 17lbs in a few months. :p .... and people used to say that LeMond had a bad diet. I kid, I kid....A LOT of customers have told me they have tweaked their bike position because of their PC experience. I doubt that explains all of their improvements but the total is the sum of the parts.