What is the evidence that training with power is superior to . . .

fergie

You can re-zero during a ride without stopping the data recording.

Can't see your point about the BCF. Boardman was Olympic Champ, won World Titles, still holds the 4000m record, won stages in the Tour. Perhaps what appeared to be chaos to the untrained eye was a rather complex system working rather well.

We sat and listened to Simon Jones talk about his time as British Track Coach and in two days I don't think we even covered the tip of the iceberg on their highly successful programme.

Alex Simmons

The PT actually auto zeros itself (unless you disable that function) - all you need is a few seconds of coasting and it will do it automatically.

And you can do it manually as well if you like. Again it takes just a few seconds while coasting or when stopped (feet clipped out if stopped).

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Steve_B

Well, how does someone measure anything psycological and motivational, Frank?

Steve_B

Not one post before this, you were congratulating Tyson on his hard-won gains. Then in the next post - minutes later - the above comes from your keyboard.

Fday

sorry, proof and anecdotal evidence are two entirely different things.

Fday

The same way you measure anything else. Through a study. That is how they have determined that in most effects there is a 30% "placebo" effect which many would consider to be either a psychological or motivational (or both) (or something else) effect.

fergie

Does that also apply to the studies on Powercranks?

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swampy1970

From what I hear, ever since they built the new velodrome at Manchester the coaching for the track squad has been immense but back in the early 90's it was as bad as I said...

fergie

Boardman's success in Barcelona opened a lot of doors and from there Peter Keen successfully marketed the track programme to British funding bodies. Simon Jones carried this on and David Brailsford leads the charge today. But the key is how well they spend the money. Other similarly funded programmes fall way short.

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swampy1970

Just curious, but what do you percieve as a placebo effect on a piece of equipment that when you first start using it feels like riding with extremely bad tendonitis after 40 seconds of cycling and after a couple of minutes things just come to a grinding and unceremonious halt.....

I could see it with some fancy groupset, new frame or "insert electronic device here" but PowerCranks... NAAAAAAAH!

Bikeridindude

Well there you have it. You can simplify this whole mess by asking, "Has there been a study to show that.....?" The answer seems to be "NO". So go conduct one, I'd be interested to see how you set it up to find anything meaningful.

Tapeworm

Are you out to specifically be obtuse? Or are you genuinely not clear on methods of training? Given your supposed background I thought this constitutes a deliberately provocative question.

Regardless...

The training systems and methods as far as I can tell have not altered any great deal with the more common usage of power meters, rather they allow a means to qualify and record data that previously was either unknown or guessed at, and consequently allow for a more definitive structure to be brought to training.

A similar question could have been asked with the arising use of HR monitors many years back as opposed to working on perceived rate of exertion. Is there any evidence that training with a timing device is superior to PRE?

Given the rather complex nature of human beings there could be no way of ever proving that one "system" is superior to any other. As one other person had already mentioned psychology plays such a huge part in performance that no study could "prove" the best training system. If they could have proved it, they would have by now.

Though one does have to wonder why all these professional teams are using PMs, no? Must be something worthwhile with all that data they are collecting. Bragging rights? Must be it, no other application could be made. "I know your guy won the race but check this wattage out!"

For me a power meter allows another set of data that can be analyzed and helps in many regards to make things simpler when it comes to training. For example time trialing. If on a 40k course I average X watts, then if I know that if I want to go faster I have definitive value that I need to increase. Speed, HR and PRE would not assist in being able to measure accurately the gains made from training (ok I'll spell it out, speed is affected by too many environmental aspects, HR is at its ceiling and lags after effort has increased/decreased and PRE is always the same - totally shagged).

Also, the PM has also allowed me to identify points on a specific TT course where and when I have taken my foot off the pedal (so to speak). This is not reflected in HR data.

No doubt there will be many a rebuttal. Argument for its own sake? Or is there a point to all this?

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Felt_Rider

Perhaps a very odd way of marketing PC's by curbing or placing doubt in toward the hot trend of training with a PM.

I may be way off base, but that is my guess. The another option could be that someone is bored and just wanted to do a little trolling.

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rmur17

in case anyone hasn't seen it and doesn't understand my reference to fake data files - I'd suggest reading this thread starting about page 8 ..

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum....; so=ASC;mh=25;

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