my take on strength endurance training

[Wayne Pein]

Andy Coggan wrote:


>
> Actually, she's not: the idea that tasks are best learned by breaking them
> down into their component parts, practicing those parts slowly in isolation,
> and then attempting to put it all back together again is now apparently
> largely viewed as outdated thinking by motor control specialists.
>

Perhaps those motor control experts would like to try teaching swimming
without breaking it down!

Wayne

 

[mtb Dad]

If I remember correctly, the low cadence climbing training was first
proposed by Prof Conconi, advisor to Moser, and later shown to have
blood doped Moser and prescribed EPO to Pantani.

Perhaps he just needed a cover for his less than legal improvements?

 

[mtb Dad]

Interesting question. My son is in a school swim club run by a former
Olympic coach who believes in 'whole swimming' (my term, not his)
versus the swim lesson approach. He thinks swim lessons are too
mechanical, like Andy suggested.His program seems to be get the kids to
swim, (with corrections or course), and the technique will come.

My son struggled in swim lessons, repeated several levels, and disliked
it. Since moving over at age 7, he has blossomed in this once a week
club.

Even the non-swimmer little kids (5 and 6) have games that involve
getting from place to place (eg sunken platforms in the deeper pool),
versus clinging to the side of the pool like they seem to do in lessons.

 

[Wayne Pein]

mtb Dad wrote:

> Interesting question. My son is in a school swim club run by a former
> Olympic coach who believes in 'whole swimming' (my term, not his)
> versus the swim lesson approach. He thinks swim lessons are too
> mechanical, like Andy suggested.His program seems to be get the kids to
> swim, (with corrections or course), and the technique will come.

"Get the kids to swim?" How does he get the kids to swim?

>
> My son struggled in swim lessons, repeated several levels, and disliked
> it. Since moving over at age 7, he has blossomed in this once a week
> club.
>
> Even the non-swimmer little kids (5 and 6) have games that involve
> getting from place to place (eg sunken platforms in the deeper pool),
> versus clinging to the side of the pool like they seem to do in lessons.
>

Many traditional swim instructors are abysmal. They are often high
school or at best college kids who have little experience teaching, even
if they are certified by the Red Cross.

The coach here has a different agenda than a swim instructor. The coach
wants to keep the kid for 15 years. The swim instructor wants to get the
kid to be able to swim.

Wayne

 

[Michael Press]

In article
<[email protected]>,
"Andy Coggan" <[email protected]> wrote:

> "Michael Press" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > In article
> > <[email protected]>,
> > "Andy Coggan" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> "Wes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> >> news:[email protected]...
> >> > So what about this as an argument (and excuse the butting in from a
> >> > lurker...):
> >> > What if the main function of the SE reps is that it lets the rider
> >> > "feel" the pedal stroke better and therefore learn how to recruit
> >> > muscles that they don't use at higher reps??
> >> > I'm not saying this is an argument for or against...but it might
> >> > explain the anecdotal evidence that supports the idea.
> >>
> >> Except that the specificity principle also applies in the realm of motor
> >> learning, i.e., the best way to get good at a task is to practice at full
> >> speed (and in its entirety).
> >
> > Not entirely. My music teacher said `If you want to play
> > it fast, first you have to play it slow.' She is right.
>
> Actually, she's not: the idea that tasks are best learned by breaking them
> down into their component parts, practicing those parts slowly in isolation,
> and then attempting to put it all back together again is now apparently
> largely viewed as outdated thinking by motor control specialists.

Believe me, you do not learn scales by playing them fast.
You learn them by playing them slowly, and musically.

Every year specialists come up with the new great thing. I
practice bicycle handling at low speeds: 10-15 km / hr on
the street in front of my house. Riding straight, turning,
stopping; this is where I warm up. It transfers
immediately to high speed. Yes, to learn spin the crank,
spinning the crank is the only way; but you will never
spin the crank faster than you can spin the crank.
Concentration is essential to learning, always has been,
always will be. Without concentration one only learns bad
habits. Set aside everything except what you want to work
on now.

--
Michael Press

 

[Michael Press]

In article
<[email protected]>,
"mtb Dad" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Interesting question. My son is in a school swim club run by a former
> Olympic coach who believes in 'whole swimming' (my term, not his)
> versus the swim lesson approach. He thinks swim lessons are too
> mechanical, like Andy suggested.His program seems to be get the kids to
> swim, (with corrections or course), and the technique will come.
>
> My son struggled in swim lessons, repeated several levels, and disliked
> it. Since moving over at age 7, he has blossomed in this once a week
> club.
>
> Even the non-swimmer little kids (5 and 6) have games that involve
> getting from place to place (eg sunken platforms in the deeper pool),
> versus clinging to the side of the pool like they seem to do in lessons.

My swimming lessons started with the paddle board. Hold
the paddle board in extended arms and kick. Do laps. Deep
end? I have a floatation device. Built proper kicking
technique; kicking muscles; and the arm and shoulder
muscles in preparation for arm strokes. I wanted to learn
and was prepared to do whatever it took. The method works
very well.

--
Michael Press

 

[Dan Connelly]

Robert Chung wrote:
> Dan Connelly wrote:
>
>
>>peak force per pedal (F) = M * gear * effective rolling circumference *
>>grade / (crank length * 2 alpha) where alpha ~ the efficiency of the
>>application of the pedal force. 0.5 seems a reasonable
>>estimate.
>
>
> http://www.isbweb.org/data/kautz/index.html
>
>

I get 0.40 for these data, considering only the component of force in the pedal
direction (ie the component doing work). Thanks...

Dan

 

[Tom Kunich]

"Mark Fennell" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:l0tzf.10751$eR.9909@fed1read03...
> Tom Kunich wrote:
>>A 700c wheel is approximately 28" in diameter. One revolution of that
>> wheel is 28 x pi = 88" = 2 1/4 meters. 53/12 = 4.4 x 2 1/4 = 9.8 meters
>> OR almost 5 meters per stroke.
>>
>> Homework assignment for tomorrow - learn basic logic.
>>
> Your homework assignment is to reread my post and then go look up the word
> "ascends". Hint: it doesn't simply mean how far you travel.

Ahh, I see what you mean. I even checked your math and by Gods you're right.

You'll probably discover that if you write more plainly that sort of thing
doesn't occur nearly as often as it probably does in your real life.

> Next, measure the circumference of your wheel and you will most likely
> find that it doesn't travel 2.25 m per revolution.

2.133 meters for your average 23 mm tire but then 2 1/4 is close enough for
the guesstimations I plainly made.

> And finally, STFU.

No wonder you have that smeared look on your face. I'll bet you actually
said that to someone's face once in your life. Doubt you'll do that again
though.

 

[Wes]

Okay...point well taken, *but*, if we take that to the illogical
conclusion, then if I want to go out and TT at 420 watts, then I should
just ride at 420 watts and go longer everyday?? Do all track racers go
out the first day and hold 160rpms or more??
I agree wholeheartedly with the specificity principle, but I'm also
convinced that learning components first has it's place, and this may
be one of those times.
Wes

 

[[email protected]]

Wes wrote:
> Okay...point well taken, *but*, if we take that to the illogical
> conclusion, then if I want to go out and TT at 420 watts, then I should
> just ride at 420 watts and go longer everyday?? Do all track racers go
> out the first day and hold 160rpms or more??
> I agree wholeheartedly with the specificity principle, but I'm also
> convinced that learning components first has it's place, and this may
> be one of those times.

Wes, please include a little of the post you are replying to,
so we can retain the context of the conversation. Thanks.

Your training conclusion is less illogical than you think.
Well, okay, probably neither of us can TT at 420 watts.
But there is a good argument that, if you want to improve
your TT speed, you should go out and ride at your TT power.
That is, if my TT power were 300 watts for an hour (which I
don't believe it isin the summer, let alone January, alas)
I could train by going out and doing intervals at 300 W.

Because one can't ride a full race effort in training every day,
I could reduce the load by doing shorter intervals at that
power - such as the 2x20 minute intervals Coggan likes to
talk about. Obviously, if this works, over time the TT power
would increase and I would have to ratchet up the training
power level, so maybe it would be better to speak of training
at TT pace or TT effort (in technical terms: somewhere
between eyes bugging out, and throwing up).

I guess the issue with training mechanics or strength
endurance or whatever is that, sure it helps, compared to
not doing it, since riding your bike is better training than
watching football or posting to Usenet. Does it help more
than some other training with the same training load?
Lots of people have opinions, I personally do not have the
experience to say.

Ben
not training for anything in particular

 

[Robert Chung]

Dan Connelly wrote:

> I get 0.40 for these data, considering only the component of force in
> the pedal direction (ie the component doing work). Thanks...

Kautz's Ft and Fn in those files appear to be the same as he used in the
1991 MSSE paper with Coyle. You can see it on page 96:
http://www.midweekclub.com/articles/coyle91.pdf

 

[Dan Connelly]

Robert Chung wrote:
> Dan Connelly wrote:
>
>
>>I get 0.40 for these data, considering only the component of force in
>>the pedal direction (ie the component doing work). Thanks...
>
>
> Kautz's Ft and Fn in those files appear to be the same as he used in the
> 1991 MSSE paper with Coyle. You can see it on page 96:
> http://www.midweekclub.com/articles/coyle91.pdf
>
>

My value added the left and right foot at each data point, taking the mean and
the peak of the sum, which probably isn't what is wanted,

Dan

 

[Robert Chung]

Dan Connelly wrote:

> My value added the left and right foot at each data point, taking the
> mean and the peak of the sum, which probably isn't what is wanted,

It's in the right ballpark, though. The main point is that these SE
workouts don't really demand much strength.

 

[Andy Coggan]

"Wes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Okay...point well taken, *but*, if we take that to the illogical
> conclusion, then if I want to go out and TT at 420 watts, then I should
> just ride at 420 watts and go longer everyday??

I see nothing logical about extapolating from my comments about motor
learning to the best way to improve TT performance.

Andy Coggan

 

[mtb Dad]

Hi Andy:

Glad to see the questioning of SE training. Aside from 'strength', is
it possible that the percevied effort is based more on hypoxia (sp?)
from blood flow occlusion during the longer and more forceful
contractions? Not sure what if any training effect that might have,
other than what specificity might suggest; you would get better at
longer more forceful contractions and tolerating the muscle pain,
though not much better at more normal cycling.

 

[Ewoud Dronkert]

[email protected] wrote:
> That is, if my TT power were 300 watts for an hour (which I
> don't believe it isin the summer, let alone January, alas)

I just did a very depressing Pmax test. Starting at 50 W, increasing 2 W
each 8 s, I only reached 356 W (20:24 min, HR 166). The legs hurt more
than the lungs. But wait, I've got excuses! I'm only training 5x/week for
a month now after doing absolutely nothing for 3 months (needed that), I
did some weights training yesterday afternoon (light, but still stupid), I
only slept 5h, I had a big job interview this morning (hired!), I brought
my spd shoes but in spite of what they wrote they only had Look so had to
make do with tennis shoes, the bars were too high, and ermmm, errr... Well
I suck I guess.

--
E. Dronkert

 

[Robert Chung]

Ewoud Dronkert wrote:
>
> I just did a very depressing Pmax test. Starting at 50 W, increasing 2 W
> each 8 s,

That's a pretty fine-grained ramp.

 

[yeahyeah]

Andy Coggan wrote:
> "Wes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > Okay...point well taken, *but*, if we take that to the illogical
> > conclusion, then if I want to go out and TT at 420 watts, then I should
> > just ride at 420 watts and go longer everyday??
>
> I see nothing logical about extapolating from my comments about motor
> learning to the best way to improve TT performance.
>
> Andy Coggan

Thanks for coming back, Andy. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed
a thread on this ng.

 

[Michael Press]

In article
<[email protected]>,
"Andy Coggan" <[email protected]> wrote:

> "Wes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > Okay...point well taken, *but*, if we take that to the illogical
> > conclusion, then if I want to go out and TT at 420 watts, then I should
> > just ride at 420 watts and go longer everyday??
>
> I see nothing logical about extapolating from my comments about motor
> learning to the best way to improve TT performance.

I would rather see citations of articles that define the
circumstances where fast, intricate, motions are best
learned at speed. I can think of too many exceptions to
the assertion, and am not at all persuaded by your
comments on motor skill learning.

--
Michael Press

 

[yeahyeah]

Dan Connelly wrote:
> Mark Fennell wrote:
>
> >
> > OK, homework assignment complete. In a 53x12 up a 6% slope, a SE
> > practitioner ascends ~ 0.57 m per crank revolution, or ~0.28 m per
> > downstroke. Now I'll postulate that most of the downstroke force occurs
> > +/-45 degrees about horizontal crank arms which means the rider is pushing
> > his/her body and bike mass up 0.28 m with a downstroke distance of ~.24 m.
> > So I'll concede that the low rpm SE workout is like climbing big steps in
> > slow motion with 9 kg of dead weight on your back. Yep, that sounds about
> > right.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> >
>
> peak force per pedal (F) = M * gear * effective rolling circumference * grade / (crank length * 2 alpha)
> where alpha ~ the efficiency of the application of the pedal force. 0.5 seems a reasonable
> estimate. 1 would be uniform in the direction of pedal motion.
>
> Result:
> (F/M) = 53/12 * 0.06 * 2.1m / 0.1725 m = 3.2 m/s^2
>
> compare with gravity of 9.8 m/s^2
>
> so the force applied at the feet when pedaling is approximately 1/3 as much
> as when stair climbing w/o additional load.
>
> Cadence doesn't enter the equation -- it affects power, not force.
>
> Dan

So Andy et al, is there a difference between doing your LT power at 75
rpm and 95 rpm? Is this training different physiological systems? Or
is the only difference the gear you're riding in?
I realize that everyone's optimal cadence is different, and one person
might be more efficient at 75 rpm than 95rpm and vice versa, but is
there any specific reason to train above or below your optimal cadence?
Will your heart rate be higher at a less efficient cadence? And is
that a good thing?