Interesting study

I'm web interviewing this lady at the moment. An article will be written at the end of the interview. In fact, that'll begin in a couple of days from now.

Hopefully I'll be able to find even more evidence (ground or anecdotal, whatever) than that resulting from this study. Mainly because there has been some controversy around it.

what did the control group do? were the 2 sessions in addition to what training they normally did or did it replace a portion of their training so overall training was constant? if the interval group increased their training and the control group didn't you might expect an increase in performance!!

"replaced a portion of their normal training"

tk_bike said:

what did the control group do? were the 2 sessions in addition to what training they normally did or did it replace a portion of their training so overall training was constant? if the interval group increased their training and the control group didn't you might expect an increase in performance!!

All your questions are welcome, and will probably be answered directly.

If there's anything you find suspect, hard to believe or incomplete, please mention it. Now's the time.

this reminds me of the Muscle Tension (Chris Carmichael) workouts i do in late winter to make the gains from the gym become more functional on the bike. only this experiment is carried out at an overall higher intensity. i remember doing these workouts like this: 4-5X5-8min with 1:1 work to rest ratio. intensity was was mild at around RPE 3-4 (about like the high end of an endurance ride). after reading this experiment, i might consider upping the intensity and doing these intervals into my high intensity training later in the season.

Sounds a lot like the study done (not sure if it was ever published or not) by the same author... except with the phrase "strength training" replaced by "high-resistance intervals".

http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=strengthstern

Check on above link for Ric Sterns comments on this study and search for Andy Coggans views on big gear training before you get too excited about this study.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

fergie said:

Check on above link for Ric Sterns comments on this study and search for Andy Coggans views on big gear training before you get too excited about this study.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

Ah, so that's the same study I saw before (I didn't recognize the author). Nevertheless, regardless of Ric's complaints about possible power recording flaws, etc. the experimental group saw a reduction in
40 k TT time (power errors or no, the time was lower). I'm well aware that strength (the pure scientific definition) isn't a limiter in endurance sports. However, there may be other adaptations strength training causes. Emphasis on MAY.

-bikeguy

bikeguy said:

However, there may be other adaptations strength training causes. Emphasis on MAY.

There's another point made by Ric in the article I linked above:

Quoted post said:

Big-gear (low cadence) training at moderately high power outputs, require far less strength/force than weight training, because even at this moderately low cadence, the rate of muscular contraction will be far higher than that used in the gym.

Therefore, I infer, big-gear training isn't a form of strength training.

Ken

Strength endurance has performance benefits without a doubt, hopefully there are more studies out there on this topic.SE should be worked in somehwhere when you START doing intensity in your program. Eventually you want to turn the focus to spinning normal gears as your prep continues...its great for leg conditioning at the start of a prep and mentally the sessions are quite easily completed.

dm69 said:

Strength endurance has performance benefits without a doubt, hopefully there are more studies out there on this topic.SE should be worked in somehwhere when you START doing intensity in your program. Eventually you want to turn the focus to spinning normal gears as your prep continues...its great for leg conditioning at the start of a prep and mentally the sessions are quite easily completed.

By which unit are the Strength Endurance measured? How can I test my SE?

sidewind said:

By which unit are the Strength Endurance measured? How can I test my SE?

I test myself on a steep hill. The hill is approx 7% gradient and about 1km long I ride it in my 52-17 or my 39-13. Before my SE work I really struggle and at the end of the SE work I get up this hill rediculously quicker. I actually learn to ride up these hills much quicker in my 52-17 compared to my 39-17!!! To this day even when in peak fitness I can never beat my PB's I set at the end of an SE phase even with normal gears!

The obvious benefit of SE work in a race is explosive power and acceleration on the hills, I am MUCH MUCH MUCH!!! more powerful and quicker in my big gears when climbing. I tend to gap ppl very quickly when in my SE gears as long as I get a little lead out to negate that first pedal stroke where you push and the torque is simply too high!

I would only recommend SE efforts in races sparingly because the BIG downfall of this type of riding is the recovery or lack of thereof! Riding in little gears I find that I am nowhere as fast but I like riding little gears because I can constantly surge and know I will recover in a matter of seconds not minutes!

Doing SE work in training adds that diff. dimension and you have another card to play with when racing. IMO its helped me tremendously but I am a climber anyway so it becomes a little more specific to me.

BTW my record up this hill is in my 52-16! I rode it in 2:52 My best effort in "little gears" (39/15-19) is 3:04. Next prep I want to get these times a long way down. Consistently I ride 10-15 secs quicker in SE gears...however my times end up getting worse quite quickly when I do multiple efforts up the hills. In my little gears I usually end up going quicker on my 4-5th effort!!!

sugaken said:

There's another point made by Ric in the article I linked above:

Therefore, I infer, big-gear training isn't a form of strength training.

Ken

Interesting, but I'm more interested in the drop in 40 km tt time of the
SE group. These are after all cyclists, not powerlifters. ;-)

-bikeguy

fergie said:

Check on above link for Ric Sterns comments on this study and search for Andy Coggans views on big gear training before you get too excited about this study.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

By the way, do you happen to know (or to have met with) Amy?

For reader's benefit, here's a link toward Dr.Coggan aforementioned paper... http://home.earthlink.net/~acoggan/setraining/

Im always skeptical of these training studies. If your using trained cyclist then you won't see an 8%increase in power in the short term unless you serious increase overload or they had a terrible plan before. Then your only testing what the difference is between an increased training load and a normal one. OTOH if your numbers are a more realistic 2% increase then that's too low to be considered statistically sig in most cases. So it's a catch 22. Plus 6 weeks is a long time outside of a controlled setting- a lot of things can change.

gvanwagner said:

Im always skeptical of these training studies.

I tend to agree. I prefer coaching (ground) evidence when comes to training means.

That's mainly because coaches have all they need to draw conclusions over a particular means of training. 12 months long protocol with well trained subjects.

The reason why I still wanted to get the Author's comment about her study, is that she's also a coach. Therefore she probably has a lot more to tell than what's in this particular study.

dm69 said:

Strength endurance has performance benefits without a doubt

I am not aware of any scientific research supporting the notion of "strength endurance" training. Moreover, from a first principles perspective there is little reason to expect much benefit:

http://home.earthlink.net/~acoggan/setraining/

SolarEnergy said:

I tend to agree. I prefer coaching (ground) evidence when comes to training means.

That's mainly because coaches have all they need to draw conclusions over a particular means of training. 12 months long protocol with well trained subjects.

Yeah, except that most coaches that I've encountered are insufficiently skeptical, and at best have a limited understanding of scientific methodology (e.g., appropriate experimental design, proper use of statistics). The result is that most are far too prone to jump to conclusions based on incorrect, ambiguous, and/or anecdotal observations.

SolarEnergy said:

By the way, do you happen to know (or to have met with) Amy?

For reader's benefit, here's a link toward Dr.Coggan aforementioned paper... http://home.earthlink.net/~acoggan/setraining/

She is in the North Island. Have argued over physiology a few times. I work with a local physiologist but if I want the real goss it ain't anyone in NZ that I send the questions to 🙂 Hamish