new cycling study

jrstevens said:

I just posted a reply on the 53x12 thread but in order to get more feedback I thought I'd start a new thread. www.sportsci.org has posted a new issue with a study showing positive effect on power from high resistance/low cadence interval training. The full-text is available to read from their website under the original research section. I'd be interested in any critiques of the study/protocol. What are the strengths and limitations of this study? TIA,

JS

I can see a couple of problems with this study. It doesn't appear the groups were matched for age, sex, or anything else, including training style (what if the control group already did high resistance training as part of their normal training and the experimental group did not, so the results just brought them together or the experimental group trained much more). ("Two subjects in the control group withdrew before the completion of the study. Subjects in the experimental group performed eight weeks of supervised high resistance interval training twice per week, in addition to their normal low intensity endurance training. The control group continued with their normal training programs which was a combination of high intensity racing, and low intensity endurance training."😉 And the statistical analysis seems strange to what I am used too, although i am not a statistician so what they did may have been totally appropriate. It also didn't control for cadence as it is possible the experimental group simply gained efficiency by learning how to ride at lower cadences during the TT than what they were doing before. This result could come from the riders simply lowering their cadence from what they were doing before rather than from the "strength" aspects of the training.

Frank

Fday said:

I can see a couple of problems with this study. It doesn't appear the groups were matched for age, sex, or anything else, including training style (what if the control group already did high resistance training as part of their normal training and the experimental group did not, so the results just brought them together or the experimental group trained much more). ("Two subjects in the control group withdrew before the completion of the study. Subjects in the experimental group performed eight weeks of supervised high resistance interval training twice per week, in addition to their normal low intensity endurance training. The control group continued with their normal training programs which was a combination of high intensity racing, and low intensity endurance training."😉 And the statistical analysis seems strange to what I am used too, although i am not a statistician so what they did may have been totally appropriate. It also didn't control for cadence as it is possible the experimental group simply gained efficiency by learning how to ride at lower cadences during the TT than what they were doing before. This result could come from the riders simply lowering their cadence from what they were doing before rather than from the "strength" aspects of the training.

Frank

40-80 cadence is also far too wide a range too allow, and probably goes beyond the point of "low cadence" training. Who knows, maybe they all rode right at 78 rpms, which for all we know could be there normal cadence.

whoawhoa said:

40-80 cadence is also far too wide a range too allow, and probably goes beyond the point of "low cadence" training. Who knows, maybe they all rode right at 78 rpms, which for all we know could be there normal cadence.

Ric wrote an excellent critique of this 'study' here: http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=strengthstern

I believe these comments were pre-publication. Does sportsci.org count as publication?

I think it remains an open question what exactly the difference is in training effect between high and low cadence work at a given power - it seems that the lower cadence would recruit more type II fibers, and possibly therefore lead to the development of more type IIa 'fast oxidative' fibers as opposed to IIb. It is far from clear, though, (i) that this happens and (ii) that it would be more of an advantage than is conferred with other forms of training. That is, it is not clear that this form of training is an efficient and sensible use of training time.

jrstevens said:

I just posted a reply on the 53x12 thread but in order to get more feedback I thought I'd start a new thread. www.sportsci.org has posted a new issue with a study showing positive effect on power from high resistance/low cadence interval training. The full-text is available to read from their website under the original research section. I'd be interested in any critiques of the study/protocol. What are the strengths and limitations of this study? TIA,

JS

Thanks for posting this. When I started the 53x12 thread this was the type of info I hoped for. Unfortunately, the high school sophmore (whoawhoa) and Frenchguy just look to belittle and nitpick everything. Anyway, ignore their comments. Thanks again.

blkhotrod said:

Thanks for posting this. When I started the 53x12 thread this was the type of info I hoped for. Unfortunately, the high school sophmore (whoawhoa) and Frenchguy just look to belittle and nitpick everything. Anyway, ignore their comments. Thanks again.

If you ignore their comments you'll miss a lot of useful and interesting information.

Karl Popper once pointed out that people who believe all swans are white tend to go around looking for more white swans. Instead, you should look for one black swan.

Roadie_scum said:

If you ignore their comments you'll miss a lot of useful and interesting information.

Be careful. Sticking up for Ric is how I got on the 'naughty' list, and if you stick up for me then you'll probably end up there too. 😉

blkhotrod said:

Thanks for posting this. When I started the 53x12 thread this was the type of info I hoped for. Unfortunately, the high school sophmore (whoawhoa) and Frenchguy just look to belittle and nitpick everything. Anyway, ignore their comments. Thanks again.

Here, I'll say something positive about low cadence training. I assume you won't ignore it, because it actually agrees with your views.

Anyway. One reason I thought of recently to do low-cadence work is specificity. If you are doing tempo work at, say, 85% of threshold power, what if you chose to ride these at 85% of the cadence you typically used @ threshold power? Then the pedal forces would be equal to those when @ threshold power at normal cadence.

Of course, this would depend on some adaptations being specific to pedal force. I assume muscle contraction speed would be different as well.

Interesting study. Like Ric and others, I am a little perplexed by the study methodology. I don't design such studies, but I thought the basic idea was to keep as many things constant as possible. I would have thought that the study would have been designed to isolate cadence as the only difference between the two groups' training regimens. Why the study did not do this I don't know, but it casts some doubt on the study results. Nonetheless, it is interesting. Thanks for posting it.

RapDaddyo said:

Interesting study. Like Ric and others, I am a little perplexed by the study methodology. I don't design such studies, but I thought the basic idea was to keep as many things constant as possible. I would have thought that the study would have been designed to isolate cadence as the only difference between the two groups' training regimens. Why the study did not do this I don't know, but it casts some doubt on the study results. Nonetheless, it is interesting. Thanks for posting it.

It's been a while since i read the study, and chatted to the author of it. I can't recall the exact details, and at this point in time (i.e., approaching Xmas, and US Training Camp) don't have much time to reread the article. However, i do, roadie scum mentions above have 'misgivings' about the study, and it's methodology. From memory, i think the control group wasn't well 'controlled', which causes lots of issues.

Ric

I've read the study and agree with some of the comments here that to get a real comparison it would have seemed more logical to have one group working at say 50-60 rpm and another at 80-90 rpm.

Ironically enough, I did my own experiment similar to this and my results have been drastically different.

Last year I was doing big gear workouts and this year I decided to scrap them in place of L3 sessions at my normal cadence which is around 85 rpm.

The results have shown an increase in my 20 min power by 5.7% by doing the L3 intervals vs. the big gear intervals last year.

In 2004 I did 6 weeks of 50-55 rpm workouts twice a week consisting of 5 min intervals with equal rest. I started with 60 min sessions and after a few weeks progressed to 90 mins.

In 2005 I did 6 1/2 weeks of L3 sessions twice a week of 60 min and progressed to 90 mins.

In between sessions were a combination of L1/2 and some group rides. For the most part what I did between them wasn't much different for the two years.

This is by no means a scientific study, but it's proven to me that doing big gear work isn't the best way to increase 20 min power.

Some may argue that the point in doing big gear work is to increase leg strength and not FTP, but to them I would argue that leg strength isn't a limiter in cycling performance so why bother working on it when FTP is the primary component to improving cycling performance.

Overall doing big gear work did increase my 20 min power, but just not as much as L3 at my normal cadence. The change was an increase of 3% doing big gear vs. an increase of 6.5% doing L3 at normal cadence.

frenchyge said:

Be careful. Sticking up for Ric is how I got on the 'naughty' list, and if you stick up for me then you'll probably end up there too. 😉

Naughty list...??

Ric

ric_stern/RST said:

Naughty list...??

Ric

You're on it too, Ric. I hope you can stand the emotional trauma.

whoawhoa said:

You're on it too, Ric. I hope you can stand the emotional trauma.

I may run off and cry 😄

Where is this list located...?

Ric

ric_stern/RST said:

Where is this list [the "naughty" list] located...?

See blkhotrod's post earlier in this thread.

Berend

squidwranglr said:

See blkhotrod's post earlier in this thread.

Berend

Hadn't seen that... perhaps i just skip blkhotrod's posts ;-)

ric_stern/RST said:

Hadn't seen that... perhaps i just skip blkhotrod's posts ;-)

Actually, I think you were listed in the 53x12 thread.

whoawhoa said:

Actually, I think you were listed in the 53x12 thread.

so i'm sort of listed twice!!? I don't think i'll be able to take it! 😄

ric_stern/RST said:

so i'm sort of listed twice!!? I don't think i'll be able to take it! 😄

You'll find a lump of coal in your stocking this Christmas too!

Roadie_scum said:

it seems that the lower cadence would recruit more type II fibers, and possibly therefore lead to the development of more type IIa 'fast oxidative' fibers as opposed to IIb.

You don't have to pedal at unusually low cadences to cause conversion of type IIx (IIb) fibers into IIa. Ordinary training will do it, and in fact most endurance athletes have only 0-5% type IIx (IIb) fibers as a result of this interconversion.