pealling push up push down

SolarEnergy

Frank, these are nice study results. And the % promised on your add (10%), sounds more realistic than the 40% increase in FT power you seem to defend so vigorously.

Anyhow, I find your debates interesting. Thanks

Fday

That 10% improvement occurred in only 6 weeks with only 3 x per week use. I would have never predicted that kind of improvement was possible in that time frame with that little use and I still think it unlikely most will see it, so I don't claim it. My 40% claim requires 6 to 9 months of pretty much exclusive use to see and I think is a much more "reasonable" expectation even though it doesn't seem so to most.

Fday

One more thing I might add. Luttrell looked at efficiency changes, not at power. As you can tell from some of the posts here, efficiency gains being translated into power increases is not a no-brainer for many. So, Luttrell cannot be used as a basis for claiming any power improvements or I would really be ripped a new you-know-what by the nit-pickers and charlatan exposers. So, I use my own data I collected (unpublished) and the anecdotal reports of users as the basis of my claims. I will stick with the claims until I see data that suggests something less because I think that is what my typical customer will see.

If you find the debates interesting I suspect you are actually taking time to carefully read what is actually being posted. Thanks for that.

Frank

SolarEnergy

Myself, I am not convinced that a gain in efficiency monitored at 70% VO2Max automatically translate into a gain in max power on a 1 hour Time Trial, but again, these are nice study results. Please note that these results where consistant with the protocol used. When you train for 6 weeks at 70% VO2Max, you can't really expect increasing max power on time trials events.

If a customer calls you for a refund, telling that he has been training for 6 months at 70% VO2Max, but don't see any improvement at 90% VO2Max for the same duration, you will probably explain him some training/adaptation principles. I think that it's the reason why some poeple don't easily buy the 40% power improvement.

But keep up doing the good work Frank, and Merry Christmas Sales !

Fday

I have never had a customer call at 6 months and ask for a refund, probably because the refund policy is good for only 3 months. Further, most customers don't even have power measurement devices and oxygen consumption devices so they don't know what their power is doing at various percentages of VO2 max. All they know is what their speedometer and effort meter tells them.

I personally think the reason some (most) people don't buy (easily or not) the 40% number is because it is so outrageously outside of anyones normal experience that it seems totally unbelievable. However, if true (which I believe it to be - again, for my typical customer), it points out how inadequate current training techniques are for maximizing the potential of athletes. Even if the number is only 20% (what if it is 60?) this technology would still represent a huge improvement over standard training (which I believe it does). How can I represent to potential customers that I believe this technology represents a huge leap forward without putting out a number that says that (and that I actually believe to be true)? Then, I give them the best return policy in the business, to let them decide for themselves if they are worth the money to them. About 3 in a 1000 send them back so to me which, in and of itself, tells me I am not grossly misrepresenting what these do or can do.

Frank

ric_stern/RST

You're talking trash. Simply, if typical cyclists (which you defined) increased their power output 40% there would be huge changes in cycle racing. You obviously, have no idea whatsoever what an improvement of 40% means. Your typical 3rd category racing cyclist, would in a matter of months find themself on a div1 or div 2 pro cycling team. Teams would be clamouring to sign (typical) PC users. The whole order of pro cycling would change.

Just because only 3 in 1000 people send them back to you, doesn't mean you are not "grossly misrepresenting" what your cranks can do. As you pointed out above that "most" of your customers have neither a power meter or gas analysis equipment then perhaps they actually don't know what is happening and assume that the difficulty of using your cranks is doing them good.

I suggest you stop insulting the readers intelligence and wasting bandwidth with your absurd and frankly ridiculous claims.

Ric

__________________
http://www.cyclecoach.com

n crowley

During the 9 months of exclusive use, biomechanically what exactly is being trained. Don't forget, the advantage of the PC's lies in the unweighting effect only. If there are other advantages, how does dragging the cranks round in circles create them.

Fday

Under the assumption that these gains are real (they seem to be but remember, these have yet to be "proven" in a controlled trial) I believe they come from many sources and I believe I have answered this question for you before. But, here I go again. These are my predictions as to where the benefits will come from. It will be up to the researchers to study this question to find out where they are really coming from (remember, assuming they are real). I would think that 10-25% of the improvement will come from simply unweighting, depending upon the pedaling style of the rider before PC's. then 50-75% will come from changing the coordination to make the delivered forces more tangential to the pedaling circle and improving the forces across the top and bottom, especially the top. And 5-15% perhaps from allowing the muscles to work at a more efficient load, reducing cadence to a more efficient cadence and not making the pushing muscles contract quite as hard as they do now.

That is my prediction. Nobody knows right now. But, if the gains are real they have to come from somewhere and simply unweighting cannot give these kinds of gains, so there have to be other mechanisms. These are some of the other possible mechanisms.

Frank

mitosis

I thought you were asking these questions because you were taking the piss out of this guy but I'm starting to believe that you believe his claims.

Or is there a third possibility that I haven't thought of?

n crowley

I know that with the right technique TT pedal power can be very effectively increased but if all you are depending on is attempted tangential circular pedalling, the already unweighting rider has nothing to gain from trying to perfect this technique.

n crowley

Frank, from the pedalling power output improvement aspect, what was your main objective when you invented these cranks ?

Fday

I didn't have a pedaling power objective per se. I was actually trying to just explore an HPV design I had in my little pea brain - I was mostly interested in reducing the frontal area and improving the aerodynamics of the bike, not improving the rider's power and pedaling dynamic. My idea required independent drive and was playing with the idea as to how to do this on a regular bike before I went and built an expensive HPV from scratch. Somewhere along the line the lightbulb went on that this might be a pretty good training tool to help teach circular pedaling so I decided to commune with it for awhile to see what it might mean. Within about 2 weeks this was getting natural and within 2 months I was definitely riding about 3 mph faster than I was generally used to before at the same effort. I then looked into whether the idea was patentable (I would have never pursued this idea if the big guys could bully me out of the marketplace once the potential became generally understood). It was patentable so I dropped the HPV idea and started working on developing this product.

So, to answer your question again more succinctly. I had no expectations from a pedaling power perspective when I "invented" (stumbled across with the background to recognize the potential is a better term) these other than I expected there might be some benefits, but I had no clue how large they might be or how "easy" they would come. After I saw the size and speed of the benefits in myself I then started to examine the physics and biophysiology of pedaling to try to explain what was being seen in myself and, subsequently, others. I believe I understand it pretty well now although we will know more once we have data correlating power and efficiency increases seen with pedaling differences caused in a large number of riders.

n crowley

[QUOTE=Fday]I didn't have a pedaling power objective per se. I was actually trying to just explore an HPV design I had in my little pea brain - I was mostly interested in reducing the frontal area and improving the aerodynamics of the bike, not improving the rider's power and pedaling dynamic. My idea required independent drive and was playing with the idea as to how to do this on a regular bike before I went and built an expensive HPV from scratch. Somewhere along the line the lightbulb went on that this might be a pretty good training tool to help teach circular pedaling so I decided to commune with it for awhile to see what it might mean. Within about 2 weeks this was getting natural and within 2 months I was definitely riding about 3 mph faster than I was generally used to before at the same effort. I then looked into whether the idea was patentable (I would have never pursued this idea if the big guys could bully me out of the marketplace once the potential became generally understood). It was patentable so I dropped the HPV idea and started working on developing this product.





You say you were riding 3 mph faster, was this due to a higher gear or higher cadence and how do you know it was the same effort ? I believe that if it was possible to improve the circular pedalling power output, with all the analysis that has been concentrated on this style of pedalling, it would have been discovered long before now. You say you understand or can explain the sudden improvement in your own pedalling after using these cranks, what is that explanation ? Happy Christmas to yourself and all who read this.

Fday

It was not possible to discover this until it was possible to train people to pedal this way. Many people had "discovered" this principle in theory before PC's and advocated this manner of pedaling but analysis of pedaling technique by the likes of Coyle showed that almost nobody, even the most elite, actually pedaled this way. Some have understandibly interpreted this failure as pedaling in circles is not optimum. An alternative explanation is it is essentially impossible to learn how to pedal in this fashion training on regular cranks. Now that it is possible to actually train people to pedal in this way this question can actually be answered. The initial study by Luttrell suggests pedaling technique does make a difference.

Regarding your question regarding how did I know I was better? 3 mph is not a simple matter or riding a different cadence, a bigger gear, or anything else. I was riding faster than I ever had before and I knew it. Further, everyone knows how hard they are riding, or what their effort is even without a HR monitor, based upon how hard they are breathing. The Conconi testing protocol looks at both HR and percieved effort compared to power and there is good correlation between these two methods of measuring effort. If you were riding 3 miles an hour faster in 6 month for what you perceived was the same effort as before you would know it, and so does everyone else. Why do you question me or anyone else when they report this? .

All I know is the results I have observed in myself and those that have been reported to me and these results are so exceptional they require an explanation. There are several areas that could be improved and the totality could be a combination of all of them acting together. The theory must explain the data. If the data does not match the theory (such as the theory that it is impossible to improve that much) then the theory is wrong.

My analysis as to why people improve could be wrong but that does not obviate the fact that the data shows that many many people see improvements around what I claim, and these improvements must be coming from somewhere.