To Spin or to Mash

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Yorlik [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]
....What is the current state of the art and science behind pedaling a bike?...

Realistically the current state of science is to just ride and not over think pedaling. That doesn't necessarily mean mashing as in grinding low cadence with high force but it means that intentional efforts to alter the way you pedal have not been shown to be effective and may actually be counterproductive.

What has been shown is that the vast majority of the force and energy put into each pedal stroke happens through the power phase and little to no actual energy is added through the top and bottom of the pedal stroke. But that does not mean that the elite riders that ride this way aren't also spinning fluidly and may very well feel all of things you describe as what you feel and what's actually happening and being measured by force measuring pedals are not necessarily the same thing.

There's also at least one study during which the researchers tried to get the participants to alter their pedaling style while measuring the applied force and power. In this study they found attempts to consciously alter natural pedaling style to be counterproductive and resulted in reduced overall power. I wouldn't take that as gospel as you can poke holes in just about any single study but I haven't seen anyone demonstrate the opposite, that is that rider power can be improved via conscious attempts at improving the pedal stroke.

There's a ton of cycling mythology centered on pedaling style and hopes of finding magic efficiency but when it's been looked at in studies it's not clear that there's much value in those attempts to spin perfect circles. I'd go with whatever feels good and work on riding faster and sustaining more power and not spend too much time or energy worrying about the perfect pedal stroke. Sure if you have no high end cadence at your disposal and your riding demands it (think track racing, crits, feisty punchy group rides with frequent accelerations) then work on being able to sustain power and speed in lighter gears. But I wouldn't spend a lot of time focusing on what your feet are doing and scraping mud or otherwise trying to consciously alter your pedal stroke.

-Dave

If you want to pool lactic acid in your thighs and tear the cartilage in your knees and hips, then by all means mash if you think it will move you faster. While the current wisdom on pedaling technique holds that power gains are pretty marginal, the damage that can be caused by big-gear mashing is well known.

I'm presuming you're interested in developing some level of speed and power. If that's correct, then the development of some degree of leg speed is necessary for health and longevity. If you're simply pedaling around the neighborhood for fresh air, do whatever feels comfortable.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by oldbobcat [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

If you want to pool lactic acid in your thighs and tear the cartilage in your knees and hips, then by all means mash if you think it will move you faster. While the current wisdom on pedaling technique holds that power gains are pretty marginal, the damage that can be caused by big-gear mashing is well known....

Hmmmm, alarmist much? Sounds like a big dose of Bro-Science.

- Your blood lactate levels are primarily tied to the intensity and power you sustain, not the cadence at which you sustain it. If a rider turns 300 watts for a given time they will have a lactate response that's related to that power. Whether they sustain that blood lactate level at 50 or 100 rpm is secondary at best and there's actually some evidence that lactate clearing and with it HR rise and RPE are lower at cadences below what's typically recommended for cyclists. IOW, there's evidence that riders generate less blood lactate, have lower HR response and reduced RPE at closer to 60 rpm than they do at 90 or 100. Yeah that would suck for responding to attacks in a crit or fast road race but from a pure lactate response standpoint you don't 'pool blood lactate in your thighs' just due to low cadence for the sustained power.

Here's one study that demonstrated lower HR and blood lactate levels in trained cyclists when riding at 60 rpm vs 80 or 100: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22648142 there are others with similar results.

- Sure cycling mythology is full of the horrors of blowing up knees due to low cadence mashing. Have you actually looked at the torque and from it force requirements of cycling? Take a rider sustaining 300 watts and riding 170mm cranks their average pedal force per revolution works out to:

- at 90 rpm: 42 pounds average pedal force, ~ 84 pounds peak force (per Coyle, Kautz, etc on peak vs average pedaling forces)
- at 50 rpm: 68.7 pounds average pedal force, ~ 137 pounds peak force

For almost all adult riders that's below body weight which it almost has to be by definition if the rider wants to stay seated while producing that power. IOW, even at 50 rpm the peak pedal forces are less than what the person experiences while walking up a flight of stairs or hiking up a hill and lifting their own body weight with each step (and most hikers actually have more weight on their backs when walking up long hills). The forces are not huge and are in fact less than what people experience doing normal daily things that involve lifting their body weight repeatedly with each leg. Compared to a weight bearing sport like running, cycling pedal forces are very low even at 50 or 60 rpm which most riders would consider mashing.

Chronic use knee injuries have a lot more to do with bike fit and cleat fitting than they do with cadence selection or grinding gears but the mythology just won't die.

Sure there are good reasons to spin lower gears, it's very helpful when rapid acceleration is necessary like many racing situations. Most folks also find they don't fatigue as quickly when spinning lighter gears so it's a good idea for longer rides as it puts more emphasis on cardiovascular fitness and less on neuromuscular fitness. But the mythology of dreaded lactate build up or blowing up your knees doesn't really make sense but it's embedded in the cycling culture.

-Dave

"Mash" was poor choice of words on my part. I wasn't concerned with fast or slow cadence. My average cadences after a 3 to 5 hour club ride are usually in the high 80s and low 90s.

When I referred to mashing, I was attempting to describe pushing down on the pedal from 12 or 1 o'clock to 5 or 6 o'clock. Some riders have been telling me that I only need to push down on the pedals rather than advance the pedal across the top of the pedal stroke. Nor do I need to scrape the mud off the the bottom of my shoes in the bottom of the pedal stroke.

It feels faster when I just hammer the pedals, rather than pedaling with a back swing and follow through.

Thanks for the replies, they have been helpful.

Pat

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

- at 90 rpm: 42 pounds average pedal force, ~ 84 pounds peak force (per Coyle, Kautz, etc on peak vs average pedaling forces)
- at 50 rpm: 68.7 pounds average pedal force, ~ 137 pounds peak force

For almost all adult riders that's below body weight which it almost has to be by definition if the rider wants to stay seated while producing that power. IOW, even at 50 rpm the peak pedal forces are less than what the person experiences while walking up a flight of stairs or hiking up a hill and lifting their own body weight with each step (and most hikers actually have more weight on their backs when walking up long hills). The forces are not huge and are in fact less than what people experience doing normal daily things that involve lifting their body weight repeatedly with each leg. Compared to a weight bearing sport like running, cycling pedal forces are very low even at 50 or 60 rpm which most riders would consider mashing.

Chronic use knee injuries have a lot more to do with bike fit and cleat fitting than they do with cadence selection or grinding gears but the mythology just won't die.

While I don't beieve that mashing is going to do damage, your analysis has problems.

The ability to do 1 repeat is not correlated to the ability to do thousands of repeats. A correct analysis might be to do an hour or several hours at each cadence.

But more important in considering cadence is that 300w at 90rpm and 150w at 45rpm place close to the same load on the joints. The higher cadence of course has a higher repeat rate of the loading. So one could argue that the higher cadence does more damage than the lower cadence. This is especially important on hills where one might try to keep their cadence up by increasing power rather than letting their cadence fall with an understandable outcome.

But like most questions, the answer depends.

Hiking up an all day hill with a loaded backpack is also thousands of repeats at a much greater load then even low cadence mashing on the bike. That's the point of the analysis. Peoples knees are not exploding when they repeatedly lift their body weight plus extra weight on their backs while hiking all day. Those forces are greater than seated cycling forces yet cyclists fret about the knee damage that will result from these much lower forces.

You want to talk about knee damaging repetitive forces, turn that hike around and plunge step downhill all day with a loaded pack off something like Denali or even Mt Rainier. Keep doing that day after day and you'll feel it in your knees but those dynamic loads are much greater than what a cyclist experiences at even very high sustainable power.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming

For almost all adult riders that's below body weight which it almost has to be by definition if the rider wants to stay seated while producing that power. IOW, even at 50 rpm the peak pedal forces are less than what the person experiences while walking up a flight of stairs or hiking up a hill and lifting their own body weight with each step (and most hikers actually have more weight on their backs when walking up long hills). The forces are not huge and are in fact less than what people experience doing normal daily things that involve lifting their body weight repeatedly with each leg. Compared to a weight bearing sport like running, cycling pedal forces are very low even at 50 or 60 rpm which most riders would consider mashing.

-Dave

While knee stress may be similar during walking and out of the saddle pedalling, things are very different during seated pedalling. When walking or out of saddle pedalling all the force applied to the ground or pedal is coming down directly from the hip joints through the knee and all pedal force resistance is freely available from the gravity effect of bodyweight but during seated pedalling with the hip joints well behind the bottom bracket indirect pedalling resistance has to be used and pedal power will depend on how much of a rider's bodyweight the thigh muscles can deliver from the hip joints to the knees, pedal power has to come from the knee instead of through the knee, putting it under much more stress during high gear pedalling. As I have stated many times the simple solution for safe high gear high power TT pedalling is to switch to a technique that replicates the out of saddle technique during seated pedalling.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by n crowley [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

........ As I have stated many times.....

Awesome AOG and n crowley in the same thread.... we're gettin' the band back together!

Yeah we know what you've been saying without a shred of evidence to support your theories, we're going on what a decade of these assertions without any credible data to back it up? Yeah I know iif only Brim Brothers would release their pedals we'd all see the light. I'm not holding my breath on this one.

Regardless of how that force is applied the forces involved in seated pedaling are substantially less than the forces involved in normal daily weight bearing activities.

The problem with this thread is that there is an inconsistency between the tread title and the OP's question. The thread title suggests that the OP is interested in the tradeoff between making power with torque (mashing) or cadence (spinning). But, his actual question seems to be more about where to apply torque during the stroke. As to the thread title question, there are of course those who prefer to make power with torque (e.g., Ulrich) and those who prefer to make power with cadence (e.g., me), and there is no "right" answer. As to the issue of where in the stroke to apply torque, the evidence suggests that virtually all of the torque is applied from about 45 degrees to about 135 degrees with each leg regardless of what the cyclist "feels" he is trying to do. The whole concept of trying to apply power elsewhere in the stroke seems to be founded on the false notion that the leg is not doing anything to contribute to power so why not put it to work. The problem is that the leg is doing something very important to the generation of power -- it is resting. As good a cyclist as LeMond was, I think he created massive confusion for thousands of cyclists with his "scrape the mud off the bottom of your shoe at the bottom of the stroke" theory. Personally, I snap through the 90 degree peak power apex on each downstroke and relax my leg as quickly as possible on the other side.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by RapDaddyo [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

The problem with this thread is that there is an inconsistency between the tread title and the OP's question. The thread title suggests that the OP is interested in the tradeoff between making power with torque (mashing) or cadence (spinning). But, his actual question seems to be more about where to apply torque during the stroke. As to the thread title question, there are of course those who prefer to make power with torque (e.g., Ulrich) and those who prefer to make power with cadence (e.g., me), and there is no "right" answer. As to the issue of where in the stroke to apply torque, the evidence suggests that virtually all of the torque is applied from about 45 degrees to about 135 degrees with each leg regardless of what the cyclist "feels" he is trying to do. The whole concept of trying to apply power elsewhere in the stroke seems to be founded on the false notion that the leg is not doing anything to contribute to power so why not put it to work. The problem is that the leg is doing something very important to the generation of power -- it is resting. As good a cyclist as LeMond was, I think he created massive confusion for thousands of cyclists with his "scrape the mud off the bottom of your shoe at the bottom of the stroke" theory. Personally, I snap through the 90 degree peak power apex on each downstroke and relax my leg as quickly as possible on the other side.

The OP can get his answer in the research done by (Coyle et al) which was interpreted as " he who presses down hardest on the pedals (1 -5 o'c) will produce the greatest power". If you cannot apply additional maximal torque, you are better off ignoring it and that additional max torque has to be in the same 180 deg. as your main power stroke, leaving as you say the remaining 180 deg. for recovery and effortless unweighting.

n crowley said:

  The OP can get his answer in the research done by (Coyle et al) which was interpreted as " he who presses down hardest on the pedals (1 -5 o'c)  will produce the greatest power". If you cannot apply additional maximal torque, you are better off ignoring it and that additional max torque has to be in the same 180 deg. as your main power stroke, leaving as you say the remaining 180 deg. for recovery and effortless unweighting.

Please give the specific reference. You are aware, aren't you, that power isn't only dependent on force, right? Let me help you and give you a hint......P=Fv..... Here's a second hint.......P=power and F=force. I'll leave it to you to determine what 'v' is.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Yorlik [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

"Mash" was poor choice of words on my part. I wasn't concerned with fast or slow cadence. My average cadences after a 3 to 5 hour club ride are usually in the high 80s and low 90s.

Thanks for clarifying. At that cadence, anything you do to get the rear wheel turning will be fine.

I was initially brought into cycling by a family of AYH guides who knew what worked for them but assumed it would work for everyone. They taught me to shift into the bigger gears as I could. The chronic knee inflammation that came as a result nearly ended my participation in cycling, hiking, running, skiing, and walking down stairs.

A racing club schooled me in the old ways and got me rolling again. The old rationale against big-gear mashing was that it kept the large leg muscles in a prolonged state of tension, leading to bulk, strain, and pooling of blood and lactic acid. Higher cadence was said to keep the muscles supple and facilitate the flexibility to add power or reduce cadence to respond to load increases.

Hiking up a mountain carrying a heavy pack is different. There is a momentary rest at the end of every step up.

It's interesting that Coyle's research now supports "pressing down hardest on the pedals." During Lance Armstrong's first comeback, Coyle was telling skeptics that the increased wattage and climbing ability was due partly to lost weight, more significantly to improved pedaling technique. LeMond the shoe-scraper argued with Coyle, asserting that the studies he'd read said that technique could bring only marginal gains, perhaps one percent at most. Of course, now we know what really happened.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by oldbobcat [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

It's interesting that Coyle's research now supports "pressing down hardest on the pedals." During Lance Armstrong's first comeback, Coyle was telling skeptics that the increased wattage and climbing ability was due partly to lost weight, more significantly to improved pedaling technique. LeMond the shoe-scraper argued with Coyle, asserting that the studies he'd read said that technique could bring only marginal gains, perhaps one percent at most. Of course, now we know what really happened.

What Coyle's research proved was that pressing straight down on the pedals (high or low gear) was more effective than the circular style. Coaches and others used that research and their own interpretation to discourage others from experimenting with their pedalling.

n crowley said:

 What Coyle's research proved was that pressing straight down on the pedals (high or low gear) was more effective than the circular style. Coaches and others used that research and their own interpretation to discourage others from experimenting with their pedalling.

Interestingly, Coyle had data, something you've never had to back up your "claims."

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by alienator [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

Interestingly, Coyle had data, something you've never had to back up your "claims."

Research is only necessary when gains if any are marginal (OSYMETRIC RINGS POWERCRANKS) or to convince traditionalists that their long standing beliefs are false. You only have to look at a seated (standing start) 200 m sprint to know which is more effective, circular or mashing. The same applies to my claim (no research or data required) because it should be obvious to any sensible person that a technique which can apply maximal torque through 12 ,1 ,2 and 3 o'c, will produce more torque per crank revolution than one which can only apply max torque around 3 o'c and there is also the wasted non tangential force which a natural pedaller applies between 1-2 o'c to be take into consideration. From their last report Brimbros PM should be available before this year is out.

n crowley said:

 Research is only necessary when gains if any are marginal (OSYMETRIC RINGS POWERCRANKS) or to convince traditionalists that their long standing beliefs are false. You only have to look at a seated (standing start) 200 m sprint to know which is more effective, circular or mashing. The same applies to my claim (no research or data required) because it should be obvious to any sensible person that a technique which can apply maximal torque through 12 ,1 ,2 and 3 o'c, will produce more torque per crank revolution than one which can only apply max torque around 3 o'c and there is also the wasted non tangential force which a natural pedaller applies between 1-2 o'c to be take into consideration. From their last report Brimbros PM should be available before this year is out.Â

You're wrong. Research is what is done to understand a system or that system's behavior. Research provides illumination on things that people wrongly think are "obvious to any sensible person." Since you've provided zero data, there is zero reason to believe that your claims are "obvious". Research is what differentiates fact from make believe. You can't point to any research that supports your claims.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by alienator [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

You're wrong. Research is what is done to understand a system or that system's behavior. Research provides illumination on things that people wrongly think are "obvious to any sensible person." Since you've provided zero data, there is zero reason to believe that your claims are "obvious". Research is what differentiates fact from make believe. You can't point to any research that supports your claims.

As I see it, research is complete, the perfect technique has been discovered and perfected, all that remains to be done is to make a verified graph of torque application available on forums which will support my claim and confirm it is fact and not make believe. It will be interesting to see how that graph differs from natural pedalling's simusoidal graph.

n crowley said:

   As I see it, research is complete, the perfect technique has been discovered and perfected, all that remains to be done is to make a verified graph of torque application available on forums which will support my claim and confirm it is fact and not make believe. It will be interesting to see how that graph differs from natural pedalling's simusoidal graph.

As everyone else sees it, you haven't done an iota of research and don't know what qualifies as research. Watching Jacques Anquetil on video doesn't count as data collection. Watching anyone else on video doesn't count as data collection. Watching yourself doesn't count as data collection, and imagining things doesn't count as data collection. Given everything you've said to date, it appears you've actually done, well, nothing that qualifies as research or data collection. I don't think anyone expects to see data from you, especially given how you've avoided providing as much to date.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by alienator [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

As everyone else sees it, you haven't done an iota of research and don't know what qualifies as research. Watching Jacques Anquetil on video doesn't count as data collection. Watching anyone else on video doesn't count as data collection. Watching yourself doesn't count as data collection, and imagining things doesn't count as data collection. Given everything you've said to date, it appears you've actually done, well, nothing that qualifies as research or data collection. I don't think anyone expects to see data from you, especially given how you've avoided providing as much to date.

You learn absolutely nothing from videos because muscle use is invisible as is the working of the brain and pedalling is all about inter action between brain and muscles, Anquetil never did perfect the technique, his bars prevented that. My research involved searching for a technique that would make it possible to make maximum use of the arm muscles when applying torque to the cranks and I found it. Now if you can do the same, you too will have the perfect technique for TT's.