ibike pro power meter
yirgster
Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
Peter Cole
> ibike pro power meter. http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
>
I looks like a much cheaper but somewhat less accurate version of the
hub power meters. As such, it would depend on use. Setting general power
levels for a structured training program (or in competition) would be
useful, but it's debatable how much more useful than a HRM. Looking at
finer grained tweaks, or short term performance changes, it would
probably not be accurate enough.
Personally, unless you are a serious racer, all that stuff looks like
serious buzz killer.
Rik Van Slick
> ibike pro power meter.http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
Bear in mind: this thing does not measure power, but calculate it from
data that it is measuring. This notion drive some folks nuts
Accurate setup is paramount, and a bit fussy. The necessary pre-ride
calibration is easy but can be a buzz kill.
Rough roads can be vexing to the Ibike.
Customer service from Ibike is very good. They are always quick to
answer question and address issues. The user forum is a great resource
for users and people thinking of buying an Ibike.
Really, for your own safety, you should be asking Magilla if a power
measuring device is appropriate for any rider other than a TDF
contender. I think the Minkey will suggest what you need to do is lose
some weight and get more sleep.
Magilla Gorilla
> ibike pro power meter. http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
Youngster,
You don't need no power meter. Use your license from USA Cycling as a
rough digital power meter. If it says you're a Cat. 5 it means you need
to produce a hell of a lot more watts. If it says you're a Cat 2, but
the only prize money you collected this year is $300 in cash you had to
split 4 ways and a 20% discount from your sponsoring shop, then you
still need to generate a lot more power.
The bottom line is you don't need no power meter. You'd be better off
using that money to get some EPO and a little refrigerator you can keep
it in. That's gonna give you that extra 15% I think you're looking for.
Thanks,
Magilla
Gorilla Training Systems - GTS
Mike Jacoubowsky
"yirgster" <yirg....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:986e63ba-d81a-48a8...@x18g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
> ibike pro power meter. http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
You'd make the CR2032 battery manufacturers very happy.
--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com
DirtRoadie
> ibike pro power meter.http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
I used one of the early versions but gave it up since it seemed that
I was paying them for the privilege of testing their not-yet ready-for-
primetime product. It wasn't the basic concept that was bad, it was
the specific hardware implementation that they began with. the
biggest problems -It failed on rough roads and the battery life was
dismal, especially in cold weather.
Presumably many of the kinks have now been ironed out and they are a
couple of generations of hardware ahead of where they were.
Its viable if you really think you want or need a power meter and it
is cheaper and simpler than other options.
But your question would probably be best answered if you describe
what your needs/wishes/goals are.
DR
Fred on a stick
> Bear in mind: this thing does not measure power, but calculate it from
> data that it is measuring. This notion drive some folks nuts
All PMs calculate power from data that they measure. The difference is
that the SRM, PT, Quarq, Ergomo, Polar, and now the Look measure force
from a single sensor while the iBike calculates it by combining
measurements from multiple sensors. The iBike people created the post
hoc neologism "DFPM" for "direct force power meter" but that's not quite
right. First, I've never really liked "DFPM" because there are too many
times I've finished DFL or been the recipient of epithets beginning with
"DF." Second, a more accurate description of these other PMs is that
they are "single force power meters" or "SFPM." Accordingly, since the
iBike measures multiple forces, it should rightly be called a "MFPM."
Coincidentally, many former users refer to them in exactly that way.
Jobst Brandt
>> ibike pro power meter:
http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
From the web site and other comments, this seems not to be a useful
device because they don't explain what it measures and how. It seems
to be a heart rate meter and a poor speedometer. No picture of it
installed and in use is shown.
Jobst Brandt
Anton Berlin
> ibike pro power meter.http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
A team I know bought them, they never worked, service and support were
non-existent and they eventually trashed the units and threw them
away. Complete fucking crap.
Don't waste your time with any product that is named i - anything.
Any team of people that can only come up with a product name that
copies Apples iPod and iPhone is not creative enough to come up with
a decent or working product.
Rik Van Slick
> device because they don't explain what it measures and how. It seems
> to be a heart rate meter and a poor speedometer. No picture of it
> installed and in use is shown.
>
> Jobst Brandt
Like I said this thing drives people nuts. I am always amazed at how
passionate critics get when they have not tried the thing.
It is not a poor speedometer - that function works just fine. The
power measuring (or calculating) function works fine for me. It needs
careful calculation and pre-ride calibration. If you lack patience to
do proper set-up it will not do much good.
Rik Van Slick
I have had nothing but excellent customer service and support from
Ibike. Sorry to hear about your friends.
MikeWhy
> ibike pro power meter. http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
It depends on your expectations and needs. If the question is, can the iBike
help you attain and measure progress toward fitness and performance goals,
absolutely yes. I've identified and filled fitness holes with the iBike. The
progress, I think, has been phenomenally fast, aided mostly by targetting
the specific weakness, and as importantly, identifying when the workout is
done and more intervals no longer working that area. I especially like and
recommend "Training and Racing with a Power Meter", by Hunter Allen and
Andrew Coggan. It works particularly very well with the TrainingPeaks WKO+
software.
If the question is instead, how does the iBike compare with the more
expensive PowerTap or SRM/Qarq type meters, I would recommend strongly just
buying the direct measuring power meter, even if doing so means increasing
your credit card debt by the difference in prices. If you buy cheap, you'll
surely buy twice. The iBike is cantankerous with its calibration, and you're
never quite sure if it's reading right. My objections are less strong with
the iPro rather than their iSport. With the iPro, their software allows you
to correct the data files after the fact, and can also calibrate more
closely through offline analysis of coast downs. The iSport does not
download to the PC. I use an iSport GT and record the ANT+ power channel on
a Garmin Edge 705. My recommendations are colored by the limitations of this
combination. I ride as much on limestone rail trails as I do on good
asphalt. The iBike can be calibrated for one or the other, but not both. If
you ride only or mostly on consistent, good pavement and *always* on either
the hoods or drops, the iBike iPro can be almost as good a direct
powermeter, but you still have the aggravation of lengthy, periodic
recalibration.
My iSport is calibrated for me on the hoods on good clean pavement, with a
manually applied estimated correction for a compromise between pavement and
rail trails. (It galls me to have to enter guesses into a measuring device.)
It reads slightly high on pavement, and slightly low on the limestone
trails. It's almost close enough for monitoring intervals on either, but
grossly inaccurate if I hit the drops at speed on pavement, where all the
inadequacies compound on each other. The price was relatively low, $250, and
I already owned an Edge 705 at that point. My plan all along was to buy the
PowerTap when I started to feel the pinch of the iSport's limitations. You
can tell from my whinging that it's pinching rather tight already.
Rik Van Slick
Good observations. It is fussy, but I have a hard time laying out the
cash for a more expensive device, so I live with its imperfections.
Mostly because of work schedules and inherent crabbiness I train
alone. The Ibike Pro gives more useful data than a speedometer/HRM
alone - not perfect, but I have seen performance improvements. My
place in the pecking order of the race world does not justify the
expense for a DFPM or PEDs. What I need to find are better parents.
MikeWhy
The iBike measures road speed, headwind, and road grade, and calculates
sensible work and derives power. A small pitot in the front of the unit and
a static port on the underside of the case measures head wind. An
accelerometer measures road grade. Road speed and cadence are measured the
old fashioned way with magnets and pickup coils in the appropriate places.
The head wind measurement is sufficiently sensitive, but finicky at times to
calibrate right. Aside from finicky sensor calibration and measurement
errors, its weakness is the calculations are based on the conditions
prevailing during its calibration. It assumes the pavement surface is always
what it measured, and you will always ride in the same position -- hoods,
drops, or otherwise -- as you did during calibration. It works adequately
well, perhaps surprisingly, depending of course on your needs. Often, a
crude yardstick will suffice even if it's not as accurate as a machinist's
rule.
MikeWhy
Your parents are saints already for funding this purchase.
DirtRoadie
That's an interesting conclusion, but it isn't based upon any facts,
just your assumptions. Wrong ones at that.
Exactly the type of analysis that you find so offensive in others.
DR
Beloved Fred No. 1
> All PMs calculate power from data that they measure. The difference is
> that the SRM, PT, Quarq, Ergomo, Polar, and now the Look measure force
> from a single sensor
First time I've seen a reference to the Look. I wonder if they bought or
stole the idea from MetriGear (http://www.metrigear.com). Having power
measured in the pedal seems ideal from an intrusiveness point of view
anyway since you can use standard wheels and cranks and its easy to move
between bikes.
DirtRoadie
wrote:
Rather than referring to measured "force" a better term might be
"parameter." And even the devices you have described as "single force
power meters" must measure some other parameter(s) in conjunction
with force (or torque) to determine power. And the iBike
doesn't measure ANY force (unless you want to count air pressure), but
just a bunch of parameters that together can be used to give a value
for power.
DR
DirtRoadie
>
> >> ibike pro power meter:
>
> http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> >> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
> > I looks like a much cheaper but somewhat less accurate version of
> > the hub power meters. As such, it would depend on use. Setting
> > general power levels for a structured training program (or in
> > competition) would be useful, but it's debatable how much more
> > useful than a HRM. Looking at finer grained tweaks, or short term
> > performance changes, it would probably not be accurate enough.
> > Personally, unless you are a serious racer, all that stuff looks
> > like serious buzz killer.
>
> From the web site and other comments, this seems not to be a useful
> device because they don't explain what it measures and how.
See if this helps:
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT7377180
DR
Fred on a stick
> First time I've seen a reference to the Look. I wonder if they bought or
> stole the idea from MetriGear (http://www.metrigear.com).
Nope, Look have been working on their own power-measuring pedals for a
while.
> Having power
> measured in the pedal seems ideal from an intrusiveness point of view
> anyway since you can use standard wheels and cranks and its easy to move
> between bikes.
It's easier to move the Quarq if you have the same BB on your bikes.
Fred on a stick
Dumbass:
Don't step on the punchline.
James
> ibike pro power meter.http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
It measures aerodynamic and barometric pressure. I guess this is to
measure your effective air speed.
It measures time and distance.
It measures the road gradient.
It doesn't measure bearing, drive train or tire loses.
So my guess is that it assumes an aerodynamic drag coefficient (or you
program one in), and it then estimates power to overcome the
aerodynamic drag and change in altitude.
Whether or not it takes into account acceleration is unclear.
I'm not convinced that it would be particularly accurate compared to a
device that measures mechanical forces.
Regards,
James.
Fredmaster of Brainerd
What many of the power meters measure is strain - not
exactly the same as force. But quite close. Some others
measure a related parameter, for example the Polar
measures something that can be used to infer chain
tension (force).
The real question is how complex of a model the
device must apply in order to convert observables
into power, and how reliable that model is under
real world conditions. And how reliable the device
hardware itself is, of course.
You can't make inferences from measurements without
a model, though sometimes it's a simple model
(This is staking out a position in the philosophy
of science, but I believe it to be a correct position).
I think it is fair to say, even though I've never used any
of these devices, that the iBike's model has to be
significantly more complex (or have significantly more
assumptions) than most of the others.
I also agree with the criticisms of the overused
iSomething prefix and the "direct force power meter"
neologism, but those are marketing issues.
Fredmodeler Ben
Michael Press
<ed6ac538-76df-4647...@13g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
DirtRoadie <DirtR...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Sep 6, 10:33 am, Fred on a stick <anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
> > On 9/6/2010 8:19 AM, Rik Van Slick wrote:
> >
> > > Bear in mind: this thing does not measure power, but calculate it from
> > > data that it is measuring. This notion drive some folks nuts
> >
> > All PMs calculate power from data that they measure. The difference is
> > that the SRM, PT, Quarq, Ergomo, Polar, and now the Look measure force
> > from a single sensor while the iBike calculates it by combining
> > measurements from multiple sensors. The iBike people created the post
> > hoc neologism "DFPM" for "direct force power meter" but that's not quite
> > right. First, I've never really liked "DFPM" because there are too many
> > times I've finished DFL or been the recipient of epithets beginning with
> > "DF." Second, a more accurate description of these other PMs is that
> > they are "single force power meters" or "SFPM." Accordingly, since the
> > iBike measures multiple forces, it should rightly be called a "MFPM."
> > Coincidentally, many former users refer to them in exactly that way.
>
> Rather than referring to measured "force" a better term might be
> "parameter." And even the devices you have described as "single force
> power meters" must measure some other parameter(s) in conjunction
> with force (or torque) to determine power.
You can chase that line of reasoning forever.
Ultimately no theoretical concept in physics is real.
Force is not a productive concept contrasted with the
energy principle. A piezoelectric crystal develops a
charge bias proportional to strain, and the strain
changes with pressure, and the pressure changes with
the force on the piezoelectric crystal. Given that the
area of the piezoelectric crystal upon which the force
is exerted changes hardly at all, we have a very good
measurement of force.
Contrast the analysis above with an estimate of wind
drag from the wind whisling through a port on a bit of
electronics strapped to your handlebars, a bit of
electronics that contains a piezoelectric crystal. That
is only one of the measurements that must be calibrated
for and synthesized into a calculation that ends with a
number and the dimension kg-m^2/sec^3.
I know how I would go if I wanted to measure my power.
And I say `power' with an implied disclaimer.
> And the iBike
> doesn't measure ANY force (unless you want to count air pressure), but
> just a bunch of parameters that together can be used to give a value
> for power.
>
> DR
--
Michael Press
MikeWhy
> Contrast the analysis above with an estimate of wind
> electronics strapped to your handlebars,
A minor, irrelevant to the point nit: a pitot does not pass air. The ram
pressure at its orifice is transmitted to the sealed pressure sensor at the
other end.
DirtRoadie
> I know how I would go if I wanted to measure my power.
If the one and only factor being taken into account were the method of
measuring power, I would have to agree. But I'll bet the OP is
concerned with other factors as well.
DR
Michael Press
"MikeWhy" <boat042...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thanks.
--
Michael Press
MikeWhy
> ibike pro power meter. http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
Something more about the iBike... It doesn't read negative wind. The winds
were howling and gusting today, about 18 gusting 35 mph according to the
iBike. The absolute wind never read more negative than my road speed. I am
certain the power readings were affected. Loafing along and accelerating up
a hill with the wind helping, it read huge wattages. I wouldn't make too
much of that, since it's very unusual for the wind to blow faster than
you're running ahead of it. I don't expect anything can be done to improve
matters, since the device is mounted in my wind shadow for following winds.
It's an unimportant limitation. I don't expect to be time trialing in winds
like this.
Randall
> On Sep 6, 6:39 pm, yirgster <yirg.ke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ibike pro power meter.http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> > Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
>
> It measures aerodynamic and barometric pressure. I guess this is to
> measure your effective air speed.
>
> It measures time and distance.
>
> It measures the road gradient.
>
> It doesn't measure bearing, drive train or tire loses.
>
> So my guess is that it assumes an aerodynamic drag coefficient (or you
> program one in), and it then estimates power to overcome the
> aerodynamic drag and change in altitude.
>
> Whether or not it takes into account acceleration is unclear.
Awhile back there was a study that showed the Ibike was within 5% as
accurate as the SRM. Sorry but I forget where this was. In my mind
the Ibike is accurate enough.
Fred on a stick
> Awhile back there was a study that showed the Ibike was within 5% as
> accurate as the SRM. Sorry but I forget where this was. In my mind
> the Ibike is accurate enough.
The issue isn't how close it is on average to a SRM (or PT or Quarq).
The issue is "under which conditions isn't it?" Under steady conditions
almost anything is good enough and the proportion of steady state riding
will influence numbers like that 5% you quote. However, the value of a
more precise and accurate PM shows when power is very variable, or when
you're trying to measure small changes with high precision.
That said, not everyone needs a PM that handles extreme conditions. For
them the iBike could be a perfectly appropriate purchase. One coach
calls the iBike a "gateway drug." Some buy it then move on to the hard
stuff. Others just puff away at a low level in perfect bliss.
MikeWhy
> On Sep 6, 6:39 pm, yirgster <yirg.ke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ibike pro power meter.http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>>
>> Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
>
> It measures aerodynamic and barometric pressure. I guess this is to
> measure your effective air speed.
>
> It measures time and distance.
>
> It measures the road gradient.
>
> It doesn't measure bearing, drive train or tire loses.
>
> So my guess is that it assumes an aerodynamic drag coefficient (or you
> program one in), and it then estimates power to overcome the
> aerodynamic drag and change in altitude.
It measures aero drag in a 2 mile out and back calibration ride. You can
optionally override its assumptions of rolling resistance for those
measurements. It also integrates the results from a few coast downs to
refine its aero estimates. I don't know if it accounts for changes in air
density in its calculations. It does measure altitude with its static
pressure port, and has menu for setting elevation, but that's buried a
couple levels deep in the menus. I stopped bothering early on since it
changes so drastically from day to day with ambient air pressure. It also
measures case temperature, but that won't accurately reflect ambient air
temperature (and thus its density). I doubt density changes with temperature
are accounted in its calculations.
>
> Whether or not it takes into account acceleration is unclear.
It does. In fact, it spikes hugely when accelerating from slow speed, likely
due to the big time interval before that spoke magnet comes around again.
I'm not sure if that's inaccurate, though. I see similar spikes in data
files from a PowerTap SL+ I rented. I'll dig up the comparison/calibration
rides I did with them together, and post if there's anything worth
mentioning. Nothing really stood out, aside from them being very similar.
> I'm not convinced that it would be particularly accurate compared to a
> device that measures mechanical forces.
Aside from its occasional fussiness, and a certain amount of mistrust at any
given moment of its calibration, it does quite well. It's reasonably
accurate, precise, and repeatable. With that said, I'm continually
monitoring road grade and relative wind, and cross checking against road
speed and exertion level plus heart rate to make sure it's reading in the
right ballpark. It seems to lose its tilt calibration at the beginning of
rides from time to time, but somehow figures it out and resets correctly,
usually as I'm stopping in a parking lot to recalibrate. I don't know how or
why it does that. So, I go as much as a month between calibrations, but
always looking for signs that it needs recalibrating. That's the part that
gets old.
yirgster
> yirgster wrote:
> > ibike pro power meter.http://www.ibikesports.com/products_ipro.html
>
> > Any opinions on this? I'm thinking of getting one.
>
>
> You don't need no power meter. Use your license from USA Cycling as a
> rough digital power meter. If it says you're a Cat. 5 it means you need
> to produce a hell of a lot more watts. If it says you're a Cat 2, but
> the only prize money you collected this year is $300 in cash you had to
> split 4 ways and a 20% discount from your sponsoring shop, then you
> still need to generate a lot more power.
>
> The bottom line is you don't need no power meter. You'd be better off
> using that money to get some EPO and a little refrigerator you can keep
> it in. That's gonna give you that extra 15% I think you're looking for.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Magilla
> Gorilla Training Systems - GTS
Finally back to groups. Another emergency at work ...
Good advice, Magilla. I'd produce my cycling federation license but it
got wasted in the wash last week. I was going to be on a tdf squad
this year (I'm prohibited from mentioning which one), but the night
before the prologue the dog ate my chain.
Being 65, not and never a racer, I know I need more watts. I've ridden
for more than 35 years and now, quite unexpectedly, I've been riding
like bananas for the last months. How long this can continue because
of age, work, injury, illness whatever I don't know. But now I want to
train with a program. By intent I did not want to do so when I first
started this recent streak. I have done so previously and, got to
admit, it was very helpful. Difficult since I've grown up in the "no
pain, no gain" school of "want to be in better shape: ride longer
and harder".
So, I was looking for an all in one device: hrm, bike computer with
cadence. Some people I know have garmins, but for this expense I
thought maybe an inexpensive power meter. Thus my question. I really
don't need elevation gain. I think bikemap.net usually does a decent
enough job (though I've written to them about some obvious elevation
gaffs),
I appreciate everyone's replies. As usual, it's been educational.
Maybe I should just go with a separate hrm and then bike computer with
cadence. I need also to have a light (I use planet bike) on my bars,
as I will be caught out in the dark at the end of some of my rides.
Maybe I can squish them in without problem.
But Magilla, I need some help with that epo stuff. I really don't know
too much about it. What street corner should I venture to? I assume
they give senior discounts. Would I have to show an id? They never ask
at the movies.
zencycle
wrote:
>
> The issue isn't how close it is on average to a SRM (or PT or Quarq).
> The issue is "under which conditions isn't it?"
Repeatability is actually more important (remember that repeatability
and accuracy aren't the same thing) . Once you set up a power meter,
you want consistent results for the same 'effort' under the same
conditions. If the meter shows 5% variations from day to day under the
same conditions (weather and terrain), all it will do is confuse you.
It sounds like the ibike will do just that if you don't calibrate it
for each ride - a real PITA.
zencycle
>
> > On Sep 6, 10:33 am, Fred on a stick <anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> > wrote:
>
> > > All PMs calculate power from data that they measure. The difference is
> > > that the SRM, PT, Quarq, Ergomo, Polar, and now the Look measure force
> > > from a single sensor
the polar actually uses 2 sensors - chain deflection and chain speed.
> the Polar
> measures something that can be used to infer chain
> tension (force).
It senses chain deflection by a magnetic sensor mounted on the drive-
side chain stay and chain speed by a sensor mounted on the lower
jockey wheel. You then have to input the chainstay length, chain
weight, chain length, and rider weight.
> I also agree with the criticisms of the overused
> iSomething prefix
i thought so too.
Fred on a stick
> So, I was looking for an all in one device: hrm, bike computer with
> cadence. Some people I know have garmins, but for this expense I
> thought maybe an inexpensive power meter.
If you have a reasonably accurate and precise power meter you don't need
HR or cadence.
yirgster
wrote:
Why wouldn't you need cadence? Pls forgive if this should be obvious.
Fred on a stick
As long as you have a multi-geared bike (and I'm assuming you're not
talking about either a track bike or a single speed) cadence is a
dependent variable, so focusing on it is a red herring. The same goes
for HR. If you have a good PM, HR and cadence are unnecessary and can
actually be misleading.
Andy Coggan
If you have a multi-geared bike, you need to know your cadence to be
able to perform a quadrant analysis.
Even with a track bike, you need to know either cadence or speed to do
the same.
Outside of that, though, I agree with your last comment (and in fact I
think you're paraphrasing me, at least with respect to heart rate).
Andy Coggan
Fred on a stick
> I
> think you're paraphrasing me, at least with respect to heart rate).
HR is a red herring.
zencycle
wrote:
> On 9/8/2010 10:20 AM, yirgster wrote:
>
> > Why wouldn't you need cadence? Pls forgive if this should be obvious.
>
> As long as you have a multi-geared bike (and I'm assuming you're not
> talking about either a track bike or a single speed) cadence is a
> dependent variable, so focusing on it is a red herring.
Focusing on cadence has its place, like low/high speed drills. Not so
useful for the non-racer.
> The same goes
> for HR. If you have a good PM, HR and cadence are unnecessary and can
> actually be misleading.
I disagree. One of the key metrics for gauging fitness and power
development is power output as a function of heart rate. Without an
HRM, you have no _real_ way of determining if you've really done a
stellar power workout or you were pushing too far into 'zone 4' (for
example). Also, over time, being able to see power output gains at a
specific HR (or HR dropping at targeted power levels) is the clearest
indication of fitness gains.
Conversely, having an HRM is a good way of determining short term
fitness and fatigue - if, for example, you were to do a set of
intervals and couldn't quite reach your power goal, checking your
heart rate would tell you if you were suffering from fatigue or
possibly even getting sick. HR is your body's most reliable feedback
mechanism. Training for power without an HRM is similar to training
just by speed.
Not having a heart rate monitor leaves you relying on 'feel' alone. OK
as an interpretive assessment, but not very useful for crunching
numbers, and if you're using a power monitor, that's what your doing.
Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally useful
for determining your pedaling efficiency. A cadence too high or too
low is less bio-mechanically efficient in terms of both aerobic
efficiency and power output, and usually the two numbers are a bit
different. The trick is to find that sweet spot, the cadence and gear
that gives you the most efficient pedal stroke, power, and O2 uptake.
You can certainly approximate this with a cadence monitor, but as I
said before, if you're buying a power monitor you're going by the
numbers. Considering your cadence in terms of that is quite beneficial.
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 8, 1:42 pm, Fred on a stick <anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> > On 9/8/2010 10:20 AM, yirgster wrote:
>
> > > Why wouldn't you need cadence? Pls forgive if this should be obvious.
>
> > As long as you have a multi-geared bike (and I'm assuming you're not
> > talking about either a track bike or a single speed) cadence is a
> > dependent variable, so focusing on it is a red herring.
>
> Focusing on cadence has its place, like low/high speed drills. Not so
> useful for the non-racer.
>
> > The same goes
> > for HR. If you have a good PM, HR and cadence are unnecessary and can
> > actually be misleading.
>
> I disagree. One of the key metrics for gauging fitness and power
> development is power output as a function of heart rate.
I disagree. If you know your power, then at best knowing your heart
rate is redundant, but at worst it is misleading.
> Without an
> HRM, you have no _real_ way of determining if you've really done a
> stellar power workout or you were pushing too far into 'zone 4' (for
> example). Also, over time, being able to see power output gains at a
> specific HR (or HR dropping at targeted power levels) is the clearest
> indication of fitness gains.
>
> Conversely, having an HRM is a good way of determining short term
> fitness and fatigue - if, for example, you were to do a set of
> intervals and couldn't quite reach your power goal, checking your
> heart rate would tell you if you were suffering from fatigue or
> possibly even getting sick. HR is your body's most reliable feedback
> mechanism. Training for power without an HRM is similar to training
> just by speed.
>
> Not having a heart rate monitor leaves you relying on 'feel' alone. OK
> as an interpretive assessment, but not very useful for crunching
> numbers, and if you're using a power monitor, that's what your doing.
>
> Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally useful
> for determining your pedaling efficiency.
Again, I disagree. You cannot determine efficiency using a cadence
monitor (or a CompuTrainer, for that matter).
> A cadence too high or too
> low is less bio-mechanically efficient in terms of both aerobic
> efficiency and power output, and usually the two numbers are a bit
> different. The trick is to find that sweet spot, the cadence and gear
> that gives you the most efficient pedal stroke, power, and O2 uptake.
> You can certainly approximate this with a cadence monitor, but as I
> said before, if you're buying a power monitor you're going by the
> numbers. Considering your cadence in terms of that is quite beneficial.
Andy Coggan
Andy Coggan
wrote:
Red herrings are red herrings.
Andy Coggan
MikeWhy
Andy's book explains this in some detail. The basic gist is the workout is
done when the average power for an interval falls below some percentage of
your repeatable interval power. This strikes me as reasonable and sound, and
far superior to guessing with HR zones.
If we're talking instead about how successfully you hit the interval, you'll
see it in the power graphs afterward, and apply what you learned for the
next workout. For example, I had a real hard time at first with the 3- and
5-minute intervals, grossly overshooting at the start or holding back too
much and trying to dump it all into the final seconds. Again, HR and
perceived exertion are very poor guides.
I understand you to be saying HR during exercise is driven by lactate levels
and O2 debt. I still have to disagree because HR can be influenced by too
many other unrelated factors. Lactate and O2 debt result from exertion,
which can be measured directly as power. Measuring power then measures
cardio load from exercise without having to account for those other
unknowns. The reverse isn't true.
>>
>> Conversely, having an HRM is a good way of determining short term
>> fitness and fatigue - if, for example, you were to do a set of
>> intervals and couldn't quite reach your power goal, checking your
>> heart rate would tell you if you were suffering from fatigue or
>> possibly even getting sick. HR is your body's most reliable feedback
>> mechanism. Training for power without an HRM is similar to training
>> just by speed.
>>
>> Not having a heart rate monitor leaves you relying on 'feel' alone.
>> OK as an interpretive assessment, but not very useful for crunching
>> numbers, and if you're using a power monitor, that's what your doing.
I have not found a strict relationship between HR and power, or even
exertion level. The power I can make over a given period is fairly
consistent from day to day regardless of HR.
>>
>> Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally
>> useful for determining your pedaling efficiency.
>
> Again, I disagree. You cannot determine efficiency using a cadence
> monitor (or a CompuTrainer, for that matter).
I'm curious what you mean by that, in context.
Andy Coggan
> Andy Coggan wrote:
> > You cannot determine efficiency using a cadence
> > monitor (or a CompuTrainer, for that matter).
>
> I'm curious what you mean by that, in context.
Efficiency = thermodynamic efficiency, which can only be determined
via use of calorimetry (direct or indirect) in conjunction with
measurement of power.
I paranthetically mentioned the CompuTrainer due to the way the
SpinScan function attempts to capitalize on the myth that the pattern
of force application while pedaling is a measure of efficiency.
Andy Coggan
zencycle
> On Sep 8, 1:08 pm, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
> > I disagree. One of the key metrics for gauging fitness and power
> > development is power output as a function of heart rate.
>
> I disagree. If you know your power, then at best knowing your heart
> rate is redundant, but at worst it is misleading.
so the implication is then, that seeing your HR slowly decline of a
period of time in relation to your power output is an indication
of...nothing?
Or that attempting an LT workout in which you see uncharacteristically
low power numbers means...nothing? that you simply weren't working
hard enough? How would then evaluate a workout in which you weren't
able to sustain power levels that you normally _would_ without knowing
how close you were to your AT?
> > Without an
> > HRM, you have no _real_ way of determining if you've really done a
> > stellar power workout or you were pushing too far into 'zone 4' (for
> > example).
I stand by this statement.
> > Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally useful
> > for determining your pedaling efficiency.
>
> Again, I disagree. You cannot determine efficiency using a cadence
> monitor (or a CompuTrainer, for that matter).
OK, I'll concede wrong use of the term 'pedaling efficiency since that
implies quadrant analysis of the pedal stroke. Let's go with bio-
mechanical, in the context of cadence - most efficient _cadence_.
It would seem that knowing at what cadence you can achieve maximum
sustained power and at what power you reach AT would be exceptionally
useful in terms of determining what cadence in what gear is going to
give you the maximum sustainable power over the time that your
interested in. Note: I'm not talking about strict quadrant analysis.
I'm talking about overall bio-mechanical efficiency. You _need_ to
monitor your cadence for this.
Fred on a stick
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's a moray.
Fred on a stick
> I disagree. One of the key metrics for gauging fitness and power
> development is power output as a function of heart rate.
I disagree. The key metric for gauging power development is power output.
> Also, over time, being able to see power output gains at a
> specific HR (or HR dropping at targeted power levels) is the clearest
> indication of fitness gains.
I disagree. The clearest indication of fitness gains is the gain in
power output.
> Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally useful
> for determining your pedaling efficiency.
Pedaling efficiency is not particularly important (unless you have some
weird pathological problem with pedaling) and cadence by itself isn't
going to help you determine that anyway.
Fred on a stick
> It would seem that knowing at what cadence you can achieve maximum
> sustained power and at what power you reach AT would be exceptionally
> useful in terms of determining what cadence in what gear is going to
> give you the maximum sustainable power over the time that your
> interested in. Note: I'm not talking about strict quadrant analysis.
> I'm talking about overall bio-mechanical efficiency. You _need_ to
> monitor your cadence for this.
What's the torque at which you can achieve maximum sustained power? Have
you been monitoring your torque for this?
zencycle
>
> The basic gist is the workout is
> done when the average power for an interval falls below some percentage of
> your repeatable interval power.
That's a standard workout regimen. People have been doing that since
power was able to be measured in real time, and even without being
able to directly measure power before that. One standard is the basic
hillclimb. measure your time over a known distance in similar
climactic conditions. You stop when you can't make the targeted times
> This strikes me as reasonable and sound, and
> far superior to guessing with HR zones.
I would hardly consider being aware of your AT to be guesswork.
> If we're talking instead about how successfully you hit the interval, you'll
> see it in the power graphs afterward, and apply what you learned for the
> next workout. For example, I had a real hard time at first with the 3- and
> 5-minute intervals, grossly overshooting at the start or holding back too
> much and trying to dump it all into the final seconds. Again, HR and
> perceived exertion are very poor guides.
Not when viewed in context with the power numbers. If you hit your
power goals, but had to constantly go anaerobic, versus hitting your
power goal and _not_ going anaerobic - you're implying this isn't
useful information?
> I understand you to be saying HR during exercise is driven by lactate levels
> and O2 debt.
Obviously.
> I still have to disagree because HR can be influenced by too
> many other unrelated factors.
such as....sickness, diet, fatigue, ambient temperature....yes, we
know that. That's why it's critical to monitor it.
Let's say in your example above you had three sessions of declining
performance. However, you aren't aware that in each case, you've been
hitting AT earlier and earlier. _now_ you have to guess at the cause.
However, knowing your HR, you just _might_ be able to surmise that you
need to go into a rest period, or that you've set your goals
unrealistically high.
> Lactate and O2 debt result from exertion,
> which can be measured directly as power.
But it presents an incomplete picture. Ask any exercise physiologist
to perform a conconi test without HR data - see how far that gets you.
HR is a critical component of VOmax testing. It's hard to explain then
why it's as irrelevant as you're claiming with regards to power
workouts.
> Measuring power then measures
> cardio load from exercise without having to account for those other
> unknowns.
first off, they shouldn't be unknowns. If you haven't been keeping
track of your rest phases or diet, then you really shouldn't be too
concerned with trying to take meaningful power data anyways. Second,
since they _aren't_ actually unknowns, they present a much more clear
picture of _why_ you did or didn't reach your power goals.
> The reverse isn't true.
I never said it was. You can't extrapolate power numbers from HR,
cadence, and speed without at least factoring in climate and terrain.
> I have not found a strict relationship between HR and power, or even
> exertion level. The power I can make over a given period is fairly
> consistent from day to day regardless of HR.
I'm not buying that. I'd be interested to see you produce the same
power at 80% AT as you do 90% AT, unless your going to try and tell me
there's no correlation between AT and HR.......
> >> Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally
> >> useful for determining your pedaling efficiency.
>
> > Again, I disagree. You cannot determine efficiency using a cadence
> > monitor (or a CompuTrainer, for that matter).
>
> I'm curious what you mean by that, in context.
Who was that meant for?
zencycle
wrote:
Since torque is a function of power (power = torque * 2π * rotational
speed) that's pretty much irrelevant.
Oh, and see that 'rotational speed' factor? Let's not dismiss cadence
so easily then.
zencycle
wrote:
> On 9/8/2010 11:08 AM, zencycle wrote:
>
> > I disagree. One of the key metrics for gauging fitness and power
> > development is power output as a function of heart rate.
>
> I disagree. The key metric for gauging power development is power output.
Sure, if you're only interested in power lifting. But we're interested
in _sustaining_ power, not one brute force effort.
> > Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally useful
> > for determining your pedaling efficiency.
>
> Pedaling efficiency is not particularly important (unless you have some
> weird pathological problem with pedaling) and cadence by itself isn't
> going to help you determine that anyway.
Again, apologies for mis-use of the term. But still, I never said to
use HR or cadence in a vaccum. I said it's necessary to present a
complete picture of what your doing on the bike. Cadence by itself
doesn't tell you anything. Cadence in the context of power and HR
tells you quite a bit..
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 8, 3:02 pm, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 8, 1:08 pm, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
> > > I disagree. One of the key metrics for gauging fitness and power
> > > development is power output as a function of heart rate.
>
> > I disagree. If you know your power, then at best knowing your heart
> > rate is redundant, but at worst it is misleading.
>
> so the implication is then, that seeing your HR slowly decline of a
> period of time in relation to your power output is an indication
> of...nothing?
>
> Or that attempting an LT workout in which you see uncharacteristically
> low power numbers means...nothing? that you simply weren't working
> hard enough? How would then evaluate a workout in which you weren't
> able to sustain power levels that you normally _would_ without knowing
> how close you were to your AT?
You seem to be ignoring the fact that our bodies are wired with
numerous sensors that monitor things like muscle length and tension,
metabolic status, temperature, etc., etc., etc., all which are
integrated to yield a sense of effort.
In contrast, all a heart rate monitor tells you is how fast your
heart is beating.
> > > Without an
> > > HRM, you have no _real_ way of determining if you've really done a
> > > stellar power workout or you were pushing too far into 'zone 4' (for
> > > example).
>
> I stand by this statement.
>
> > > Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally useful
> > > for determining your pedaling efficiency.
>
> > Again, I disagree. You cannot determine efficiency using a cadence
> > monitor (or a CompuTrainer, for that matter).
>
> OK, I'll concede wrong use of the term 'pedaling efficiency since that
> implies quadrant analysis of the pedal stroke. Let's go with bio-
> mechanical, in the context of cadence - most efficient _cadence_.
From a biomechanical perspective, your most efficient cadence is the
one that results in the lowest metabolic rate...which again, can only
be determined via direct or indirect calorimetry, and not with a
cadence monitor.
> It would seem that knowing at what cadence you can achieve maximum
> sustained power and at what power you reach AT would be exceptionally
> useful in terms of determining what cadence in what gear is going to
> give you the maximum sustainable power over the time that your
> interested in. Note: I'm not talking about strict quadrant analysis.
> I'm talking about overall bio-mechanical efficiency. You _need_ to
> monitor your cadence for this.
No, you don't. You just monitor your power output - or before that/
probably better still, whether you're gaining or losing ground
relative to your riding buddies - and shift up or down as required to
optimize your performance. Your actual cadence is, as Freddie Fred
likes to point out, a red herring.
Andy Coggan
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 8, 4:49 pm, Fred on a stick <anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> > On 9/8/2010 1:30 PM, zencycle wrote:
>
> > > It would seem that knowing at what cadence you can achieve maximum
> > > sustained power and at what power you reach AT would be exceptionally
> > > useful in terms of determining what cadence in what gear is going to
> > > give you the maximum sustainable power over the time that your
> > > interested in. Note: I'm not talking about strict quadrant analysis.
> > > I'm talking about overall bio-mechanical efficiency. You _need_ to
> > > monitor your cadence for this.
>
> > What's the torque at which you can achieve maximum sustained power? Have
> > you been monitoring your torque for this?
>
> speed) that's pretty much irrelevant.
>
> Oh, and see that 'rotational speed' factor? Let's not dismiss cadence
> so easily then.
Whoosh....
Andy Coggan
zencycle
>
> You seem to be ignoring the fact that our bodies are wired with
> numerous sensors that monitor things like muscle length and tension,
> metabolic status, temperature, etc., etc., etc., all which are
> integrated to yield a sense of effort.
a "sense of effort"....why bother with a power meter then?
> In contrast, all a heart rate monitor tells you is how fast your
> heart is beating.
and all a power meter tells you is how much power you're putting out.
As I said before, you can't analyze _any_ of this in a vaccum.
> > OK, I'll concede wrong use of the term 'pedaling efficiency since that
> > implies quadrant analysis of the pedal stroke. Let's go with bio-
> > mechanical, in the context of cadence - most efficient _cadence_.
>
> From a biomechanical perspective, your most efficient cadence is the
> one that results in the lowest metabolic rate
Not in the perspective of power output.
>...which again, can only
> be determined via direct or indirect calorimetry, and not with a
> cadence monitor.
I really wish you would get off this idea that I'm suggesting one
parameter can give you meaningful data. I've said from the beginning
that cadence and HR data are _useful_. Knowing the relationship
between power, cadence, and HR gives a much more complete picture than
any one parameter alone.
> > I'm talking about overall bio-mechanical efficiency. You _need_ to
> > monitor your cadence for this.
>
> No, you don't.
Yes, you do.
>You just monitor your power output - or before that/
> probably better still, whether you're gaining or losing ground
> relative to your riding buddies - and shift up or down as required to
> optimize your performance. Your actual cadence is, as Freddie Fred
> likes to point out, a red herring.
And in the case of keeping up with your buddies, your actual power is
a red herring as well. How much power you can put out in comparison to
your riding partners is completely irrelevant. I don't put out nearly
as much power as most of my training partners, but then I weigh
between 20-50 pounds less, yet I'm still the one winning the town line
sprints.
Your power output only means some thing to one person, and that's you.
It's used strictly as a personal development tool. You use cadence and
HR to determine where your most efficient zones are, and it that
regard those too are personal development tools.
zencycle
>
> Whoosh....
>
> Andy Coggan
Gee, I didn't realize we were in the presence of someone who has
rewritten the laws of physics.
Are you going to tell me torque is _not_ a function of power? I'm sure
the national academy of sciences would be interested in seeing your
white paper on the subject.
Fred on a stick
> On Sep 8, 5:15 pm, Andy Coggan<acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> Whoosh....
>
> rewritten the laws of physics.
>
> Are you going to tell me torque is _not_ a function of power? I'm sure
> the national academy of sciences would be interested in seeing your
> white paper on the subject.
You know, if you stop digging the points wouldn't be whooshing quite so
far above your head. Just sayin'.
MikeWhy
> On Sep 8, 4:09 pm, "MikeWhy" <boat042-nos...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> The basic gist is the workout is
>> done when the average power for an interval falls below some
>> percentage of your repeatable interval power.
>
> That's a standard workout regimen. People have been doing that since
> power was able to be measured in real time, and even without being
> able to directly measure power before that. One standard is the basic
> hillclimb. measure your time over a known distance in similar
> climactic conditions. You stop when you can't make the targeted times
>
>> This strikes me as reasonable and sound, and
>> far superior to guessing with HR zones.
>
> I would hardly consider being aware of your AT to be guesswork.
>
>> If we're talking instead about how successfully you hit the
>> interval, you'll see it in the power graphs afterward, and apply
>> what you learned for the next workout. For example, I had a real
>> hard time at first with the 3- and 5-minute intervals, grossly
>> overshooting at the start or holding back too much and trying to
>> dump it all into the final seconds. Again, HR and perceived exertion
>> are very poor guides.
>
> Not when viewed in context with the power numbers. If you hit your
> power goals, but had to constantly go anaerobic, versus hitting your
> power goal and _not_ going anaerobic - you're implying this isn't
> useful information?
I'm saying HR by itself doesn't say anything about anaerobic. It varies for
many reasons. I've seen it vary, and you likely have as well, especially
with illness.
>
>> I understand you to be saying HR during exercise is driven by
>> lactate levels and O2 debt.
>
> Obviously.
>
>> I still have to disagree because HR can be influenced by too
>> many other unrelated factors.
>
> such as....sickness, diet, fatigue, ambient temperature....yes, we
> know that. That's why it's critical to monitor it.
As an early indicator of illness or something else, sure. That's hardly
critical, directly, in regards training. I'm saying I can still hit my power
numbers even when HR says I'm cooked. Surely that's your experience as well.
> Let's say in your example above you had three sessions of declining
> performance. However, you aren't aware that in each case, you've been
> hitting AT earlier and earlier. _now_ you have to guess at the cause.
> However, knowing your HR, you just _might_ be able to surmise that you
> need to go into a rest period, or that you've set your goals
> unrealistically high.
I record HR. I know how it looks when I'm on form. I know how it looks when
I'm ill, or catching ill. But I'm still not buying. HR is too variable from
day to day to have the consistent meaning you associate with AT.
>
>> Lactate and O2 debt result from exertion,
>> which can be measured directly as power.
>
> But it presents an incomplete picture. Ask any exercise physiologist
> to perform a conconi test without HR data - see how far that gets you.
> HR is a critical component of VOmax testing. It's hard to explain then
> why it's as irrelevant as you're claiming with regards to power
> workouts.
Sure, I record HR and look at the trace for answers. But that's after the
fact. The single number without trend, rate of increase, or context is
meaningless. It's irrelevant for the workout, which was the context. HR is
useless for pacing, since it lags behind effort considerably. It doesn't
tell me anything I don't already know from other sources. I did interrupt a
workout once recently when HR was reading weird and too high. Adjusting the
HR strap brought it instantly from 178 bpm to a more believable 140. The
weather was a bit cool that day, and I'm guessing the unsweaty skin wasn't
conducting right.
>
>> Measuring power then measures
>> cardio load from exercise without having to account for those other
>> unknowns.
>
> first off, they shouldn't be unknowns. If you haven't been keeping
> track of your rest phases or diet, then you really shouldn't be too
> concerned with trying to take meaningful power data anyways. Second,
> since they _aren't_ actually unknowns, they present a much more clear
> picture of _why_ you did or didn't reach your power goals.
It works the other way for me. I look at diet, rest, weather, stress, etc.
for explanations when HR looks off kilter. I don't tally up these factors
and come up with an adjustment for how they affect HR to makes sense of it
on the coming ride. HR is at best secondary for understanding why the power
numbers might be off, and then only after the fact, looking at the graphs.
>
>> The reverse isn't true.
>
> I never said it was. You can't extrapolate power numbers from HR,
> cadence, and speed without at least factoring in climate and terrain.
You snipped the quotes too small, and now you're losing track of the
conversation. The "reverse" referenced was extrapolating lactate levels and
O2 debt from the noise -- diet, rest, stress, weather -- inherent in HR,
whereas power corresponds directly.
>
>> I have not found a strict relationship between HR and power, or even
>> exertion level. The power I can make over a given period is fairly
>> consistent from day to day regardless of HR.
>
> I'm not buying that. I'd be interested to see you produce the same
> power at 80% AT as you do 90% AT, unless your going to try and tell me
> there's no correlation between AT and HR.......
You probably mean HR at AT, which I don't know offhand. HR hasn't been
consistent enough for me to know this. I know my lactate threshold as a more
or less fixed wattage which changes only slowly, through great effort and
high training load. On any given day or even part of a single ride, HR can
be high or low at that effort, and tells me nothing of where I am relative
to LT.
We're talkling about pacing for a race or a training interval, right? I
can't imagine doing this with only HR as a guide. OTOH, I know precisely how
hard I can afford to pull and what it will cost me to do so. Those effort
levels are expressed in watts. If you can do that consistently and well with
bpm, more power to you.
>>>> Moving on to cadence, having a cadence monitor is exceptionally
>>>> useful for determining your pedaling efficiency.
>>
>>> Again, I disagree. You cannot determine efficiency using a cadence
>>> monitor (or a CompuTrainer, for that matter).
>>
>> I'm curious what you mean by that, in context.
>
> Who was that meant for?
That was for Andy. already answered.
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 8, 5:15 pm, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > You seem to be ignoring the fact that our bodies are wired with
> > numerous sensors that monitor things like muscle length and tension,
> > metabolic status, temperature, etc., etc., etc., all which are
> > integrated to yield a sense of effort.
>
> a "sense of effort"....why bother with a power meter then?
>
> > In contrast, all a heart rate monitor tells you is how fast your
> > heart is beating.
>
> and all a power meter tells you is how much power you're putting out.
> As I said before, you can't analyze _any_ of this in a vaccum.
And I'm not suggesting that anyone do so. However, if you wish to
monitor the response to the applied load, why worry about heart rate
per se when there are better indicators (i.e., perceived exertion)?
> > > OK, I'll concede wrong use of the term 'pedaling efficiency since that
> > > implies quadrant analysis of the pedal stroke. Let's go with bio-
> > > mechanical, in the context of cadence - most efficient _cadence_.
>
> > From a biomechanical perspective, your most efficient cadence is the
> > one that results in the lowest metabolic rate
>
> Not in the perspective of power output.
From any perspective with respect to exercise physiology: efficiency =
thermodynamic efficiency. Any other use of the term is incorrect.
> >...which again, can only
> > be determined via direct or indirect calorimetry, and not with a
> > cadence monitor.
>
> I really wish you would get off this idea that I'm suggesting one
> parameter can give you meaningful data. I've said from the beginning
> that cadence and HR data are _useful_. Knowing the relationship
> between power, cadence, and HR gives a much more complete picture than
> any one parameter alone.
Oh, it's not that I don't understand your position (which you must
surely realize is hardly novel). It is just that after several decades
of training/studying exercise physiology/measuring power, I don't
agree with it.
>
> > > I'm talking about overall bio-mechanical efficiency. You _need_ to
> > > monitor your cadence for this.
>
> > No, you don't.
>
> Yes, you do.
And again, no, you don't. Effiiciency = thermodynamic efficiency =
energy out/energy in x 100%. Cadence has nothing to do with it.
> >You just monitor your power output - or before that/
> > probably better still, whether you're gaining or losing ground
> > relative to your riding buddies - and shift up or down as required to
> > optimize your performance. Your actual cadence is, as Freddie Fred
> > likes to point out, a red herring.
>
> And in the case of keeping up with your buddies, your actual power is
> a red herring as well. How much power you can put out in comparison to
> your riding partners is completely irrelevant. I don't put out nearly
> as much power as most of my training partners, but then I weigh
> between 20-50 pounds less, yet I'm still the one winning the town line
> sprints.
Sorry, but even in this context you are wrong: if you shift down and
your power increases, such that you gain relative to your much heavier
friends, then obviously you've gravitated towards a better cadence for
you. OTOH, if you shift up, your power falls - or, importantly, it
feels harder to maintain the same power/keep up with your buddies,
then obviously you've overgeared. Rinse-and-repeat a few hundred
times, and you'll know how fast you need to pedal/what gear you need
to be in w/o ever measuring your cadence (or power, if you've got
other people as an immediate reference).
> Your power output only means some thing to one person, and that's you.
> It's used strictly as a personal development tool. You use cadence and
> HR to determine where your most efficient zones are\
Sorry, but you can't use cadence or heart rate to quantify efficiency.
Andy Coggan
thirty-six
Yuk, get them pickled as rollmops.
Andy Coggan
>. If you hit your
> power goals, but had to constantly go anaerobic, versus hitting your
> power goal and _not_ going anaerobic - you're implying this isn't
> useful information?
You can't use a heart rate monitor to determine when you "go
anaerobic" (although somewhat ironically, a powermeter can help answer
this question).
> Ask any exercise physiologist
> to perform a conconi test without HR data - see how far that gets you.
> HR is a critical component of VOmax testing. It's hard to explain then
> why it's as irrelevant as you're claiming with regards to power
> workouts.
First, no exercise physiologist who knows what they are doing would
refer to a VO2max test as a Conconi test.
Second, while collecting heart rate data during a VO2max test can be
helpful (primarily in helping guage when someone is close to VO2max),
knowing your VO2max is of little relevance to your training,
especially if you have a powermeter.
The latter is why, when people approach me about putting together a
"performance center" to test cyclists, I suggest that they invest in a
good ergometer first, a lactate analyzer second, and a metabolic cart
as a distance third (and I view using the latter to quantify someone's
efficiency as a more important application than using it to measure
their VO2max).
Andy Coggan
Fredmaster of Brainerd
> On Sep 8, 4:09 pm, "MikeWhy" <boat042-nos...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > This strikes me as reasonable and sound, and
> > far superior to guessing with HR zones.
>
> I would hardly consider being aware of your AT to be guesswork.
Your aerobic threshold, or lactate threshold, is more
closely represented as a wattage than a heart rate.
Technically, lactate threshold is defined in terms of
blood lactate, but few measure that often. In practice,
threshold is roughly the power you can ride at for a
long time without blowing up. I said "the power,"
not the heart rate. There's no great training advantage
to knowing the heart rate you can ride at without
blowing up. Especially since it might be different
from one day to another.
> I'm not buying that. I'd be interested to see you produce the same
> power at 80% AT as you do 90% AT, unless your going to try and tell me
> there's no correlation between AT and HR.......
I got no clue what you mean by a correlation between
AT and HR. Do you mean that there is a correlation
between power as a percentage of threshold, and HR?
Sure there is a correlation, but it shifts with time, training,
overtraining, whatever. If you want to know power, you're
probably best off measuring power, not HR.
I don't care enough and am too cheap to buy a power meter,
so I just time myself up hill climbs. It tracks my guess
of how fit/sluggish I am pretty well.
Fredmaster Ben
zencycle
>
> I'm saying HR by itself doesn't say anything about anaerobic. It varies for
> many reasons. I've seen it vary, and you likely have as well, especially
> with illness.
first of, I'll say the same thing to you I said to andy - please stop
implying I ever suggested to use HR in a vacuum.
Secondly, my AT/HR relationship is and always has been quite
consistent. Up until the last few years (I'm getting old) every time
I've had been tested it was consistently 187 BPM. I had it done last
year and it's now 183. as I've been racing for over 25 years now, I
can tell when I'm at my AT, and sure enough, the HR is always within a
few beats of that.
> I record HR. I know how it looks when I'm on form. I know how it looks when
> I'm ill, or catching ill. But I'm still not buying. HR is too variable from
> day to day to have the consistent meaning you associate with AT.
then why bother?
> Sure, I record HR and look at the trace for answers. But that's after the
> fact. The single number without trend, rate of increase, or context is
> meaningless.
Of course, but....
> It's irrelevant for the workout, which was the context. HR is
> useless for pacing, since it lags behind effort considerably.
Pacing? Do you mean a long intervals or speedwork? Certainly the lag
is a problem during short intervals, but when riding a time trial it
shouldn't vary all that much unless it's a very hilly route or your
fitness is poor. I've taken HR data during cyclocross races, and it's
varied very little. From the first minute after the gun is fired, I'm
at 90% of AT, and it will stay there +/- 10 bpm for the duration.That
said, in my case using my HR as a pacing guide has been _quite_
useful.
> HR is at best secondary for understanding why the power
> numbers might be off, and then only after the fact, looking at the graphs.
I give it much more weight than 'at best secondary'. I'm a strong
proponent of 'zone' training in lieu of available power data.
> You snipped the quotes too small, and now you're losing track of the
> conversation. The "reverse" referenced was extrapolating lactate levels and
> O2 debt from the noise -- diet, rest, stress, weather -- inherent in HR,
> whereas power corresponds directly.
I think that's what I said.
> > I'm not buying that. I'd be interested to see you produce the same
> > power at 80% AT as you do 90% AT, unless your going to try and tell me
> > there's no correlation between AT and HR.......
>
> You probably mean HR at AT, which I don't know offhand. HR hasn't been
> consistent enough for me to know this.
As I noted above, for me it's quite consistent
> I know my lactate threshold as a more
> or less fixed wattage which changes only slowly, through great effort and
> high training load.
Ok, that's strange. Your power doesn't change? How do you become more
fit without producing more power for longer periods of time? Certainly
dropping weight over the course of the season will give a better power
to weight ratio, but unless you're ballooning and dropping every
season like Jan Ulrich, it shouldn't really make all that much
difference.
> We're talkling about pacing for a race or a training interval, right? I
> can't imagine doing this with only HR as a guide. OTOH, I know precisely how
> hard I can afford to pull and what it will cost me to do so. Those effort
> levels are expressed in watts. If you can do that consistently and well with
> bpm, more power to you.
To be quite honest, I race strictly by feel. I have a cheap
speedometer on my race bike just for laughs to see the average and
max. I know when I can go, when I can't, and when I need to back it
off based purely on how I feel. However I have a polar 720 (no power)
on my TT bike, and use it to pace myself by HR. I can say without
exception that never set a PR on the local TT course without my HR at
or near AT - in other words, there has never been a case where I've
set a good time and my HR as been more than a few beats below AT. That
said, I suck at TTs.
zencycle
>
> You can't use a heart rate monitor to determine when you "go
> anaerobic"
I can, and do. As I said to mikewhy "my AT/HR relationship is and
always has been quite consistent. Up until the last few years (I'm
getting old) every time I've had been tested it was consistently 187
BPM. I had it done last year and it's now 183. As I've been racing for
over 25 years now, I can tell when I'm at my AT, and sure enough, the
HR is always within a few beats of that."
> First, no exercise physiologist who knows what they are doing would
> refer to a VO2max test as a Conconi test.
I didn't. I said "see how far you get asking for a conconi test
without HR data" and HR is critical to VOmax testing". Two different
statements. Sorry that wasn't clear.
> Second, while collecting heart rate data during a VO2max test can be
> helpful (primarily in helping guage when someone is close to VO2max),
OK, so HR isn't useful for much, but it's used to gauge when someone
is close to VO2 max? Seems pretty useful to me....
I did a little research this morning, and I found this nugget: "The
power output/heart rate relationship in cycling: test standardization
and repeatability." ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10527323 )
Of course, I haven't read the entire article, but the abstract is
pretty self explanatory: "It is concluded that the deflection point
obtained by determining the PO/HR relationship on a wind-load
simulator is not an artifact dependent on the incremental test
protocol but rather a repeatable physiological phenomenon."
Lets parse that out - "It is concluded that the deflection point
obtained by determining the PO/HR relationship....[is] a repeatable
physiological phenomenon."
This seems to not support the idea that 'hr is at best confusing' and
'hr varies too wildly to be of any training use' as has been suggested
in this thread.
> knowing your VO2max is of little relevance to your training,
> especially if you have a powermeter.
Knowing VO2 max isn't really helpful at all. AFAIK it's only helpful
for a coach to berate his client for not performing better - e.g. If
you have a VO2 max of 95, there's no reason not to be a pro. On the
other hand, Marla Streb switched to downhill racing because she
recorded below 60, and her coaches basically told her there's no way
she could be _really_ competitive at a world cup level in XC. Of
course she went on to win several single speed world championships, so
what the hell do they know.......
Andy Coggan
So I have to ask: have you ever even used a powermeter?
I ask because based on your comments, choice of terminology (e.g., AT,
Conconi), it sounds to me as if you "grew up" (as a cyclist) in the
heart rate monitor era, and hence are still carrying all those
misconceptions around with you.
Andy Coggan
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 9, 8:00 am, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > You can't use a heart rate monitor to determine when you "go
> > anaerobic"
>
> I can, and do.
No, you don't. You only *think* that you do because you mistakenly
believe that your "go anaerobic" when your heart rate exceeds some
particular *submaximal* value.
In fact, mitochondrial respiration in exercising muscle is only truly
limited by O2 availability when exercising at or above a power that
elicits VO2max....but since heart rate plateaus at that point, you
can't use a heart rate monitor to quantify the intensity of such supra-
maximal exercise (although you can use a powermeter to do so).
> As I said to mikewhy "my AT/HR relationship is and
> always has been quite consistent. Up until the last few years (I'm
> getting old) every time I've had been tested it was consistently 187
> BPM. I had it done last year and it's now 183. As I've been racing for
> over 25 years now, I can tell when I'm at my AT, and sure enough, the
> HR is always within a few beats of that."
>
> > First, no exercise physiologist who knows what they are doing would
> > refer to a VO2max test as a Conconi test.
>
> I didn't. I said "see how far you get asking for a conconi test
> without HR data" and HR is critical to VOmax testing". Two different
> statements. Sorry that wasn't clear.
>
> > Second, while collecting heart rate data during a VO2max test can be
> > helpful (primarily in helping guage when someone is close to VO2max),
>
> OK, so HR isn't useful for much, but it's used to gauge when someone
> is close to VO2 max? Seems pretty useful to me....
As I said, at best heart rate is redundant, but at worst it is
misleading. In this case, seeing heart rate start to plateau is
redundant with seeing VO2 begin to plateau and/or simply noting the
demeanor of the subject.
> I did a little research this morning, and I found this nugget: "The
> power output/heart rate relationship in cycling: test standardization
> and repeatability." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10527323)
>
> Of course, I haven't read the entire article, but the abstract is
> pretty self explanatory: "It is concluded that the deflection point
> obtained by determining the PO/HR relationship on a wind-load
> simulator is not an artifact dependent on the incremental test
> protocol but rather a repeatable physiological phenomenon."
>
> Lets parse that out - "It is concluded that the deflection point
> obtained by determining the PO/HR relationship....[is] a repeatable
> physiological phenomenon."
I suggest that you read more of the literature (and in particular, the
full papers, not just the abstracts) before drawing any conclusions
re. the validity of the Conconi test. If you do so, you will see that
it is widely discredited in the scienitifc literature, and hence by
the scientific community (as it true of other concepts you have
apparently embraced, e.g., the so-called anaerobic threshold).
Andy Coggan
Fred on a stick
> I did a little research this morning, and I found this nugget: "The
> power output/heart rate relationship in cycling: test standardization
> and repeatability." ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10527323 )
> Of course, I haven't read the entire article, but the abstract is
> pretty self explanatory: "It is concluded that the deflection point
> obtained by determining the PO/HR relationship on a wind-load
> simulator is not an artifact dependent on the incremental test
> protocol but rather a repeatable physiological phenomenon."
> This seems to not support the idea that 'hr is at best confusing' and
> 'hr varies too wildly to be of any training use' as has been suggested
> in this thread.
First, your straw man is wrong: the claim is "if you have power then hr
is at best redundant and at worst misleading", not "hr is at best
confusing." Second, you haven't shown what additional information hr
provides over power. Third, it's kinda amusing that you're citing an
article co-authored by Conconi as a defense of Conconi testing.
BTW, in case you're wondering, since you've got your hands full with the
HR part of your claim I thought it'd be more polite to wait until Andy
is finished with you before I take up the cadence part.
Andy Coggan
wrote:
> it's kinda amusing that you're citing an
> article co-authored by Conconi as a defense of Conconi testing.
Especially when 1) he apparently hasn't read the article, and 2) he's
throwing PubMed references at me.*
*John Holloszy once half-jokingly said "I can either read the
literature or I can write the literature, but I can't be expected to
do both." However, I'm not John Holloszy (few, if any, are), so I can
do a little of both.
Andy Coggan
zencycle
> On Sep 9, 9:34 am, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 9, 8:00 am, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > > You can't use a heart rate monitor to determine when you "go
> > > anaerobic"
>
> > I can, and do.
>
> No, you don't. You only *think* that you do because you mistakenly
> believe that your "go anaerobic" when your heart rate exceeds some
> particular *submaximal* value.
No. I don't look at my heart rate and suddenly think "oh, gee, I'm in
zone 5". I use it as a point of reference to confirm my perceived
effort. If I feel like I'm going anaerobic, I check to see if HR is
where I think it should be.
> > Lets parse that out - "It is concluded that the deflection point
> > obtained by determining the PO/HR relationship....[is] a repeatable
> > physiological phenomenon."
>
> I suggest that you read more of the literature (and in particular, the
> full papers, not just the abstracts)
In the case of this paper, it isn't necessary. they conclude a direct
and repeatable coorelation between heart rate and power output.
> before drawing any conclusions
> re. the validity of the Conconi test. If you do so, you will see that
> it is widely discredited in the scienitifc literature, and hence by
> the scientific community
I would say your characterization of "widely discredited" is more than
a bit overstated.
I went to the the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
(http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/pages/default.aspx) and did a
search on conconi. It returned about 16 results, a few of which were
unrelated, but more than half of them suggest correlations between HR
and AT, or suggest that HRDP is a valid predictor of LT. I've included
links and relevant clips from the abstracts below, if you're
interested.
> (as it true of other concepts you have
> apparently embraced, e.g., the so-called anaerobic threshold).
OK, so now the concept of anaerobic threshold is a canard as well?
Sustained, Prolonged Exercise at Stable Heart Rate Defined by the
Deflection Point Identification Method
(http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/2009/03000/
Sustained,_Prolonged_Exercise_at_Stable_Heart_Rate.36.aspx)
"These results suggest the efficacy of the HRDP as an auxiliary method
for prescribing and controlling sport training: after the defined HRDP
has been reached, the technique confirms maintenance of power output,"
Identification of a VO2 Deflection Point Coinciding With the Heart
Rate Deflection Point and Ventilatory Threshold in Cycling
(http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/2008/07000/
Identification_of_a__latin_capital_V_with_dot.13.aspx)
"In conclusion, a V̇o2def coinciding with HRdef and VT was shown. This
confirms that the determination of the WR-HR relationship and of HRdef
is a practical and noninvasive means of identifying anaerobic
threshold."
Reliability and Validity of the Modified Conconi Test on Concept II
Rowing Ergometers (http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/
2005/11000/Reliability_and_Validity_of_the_Modified_Conconi.25.aspx)
"In conclusion, this study showed that the modified CT is a reliable
and valid method for determining the AT of elite men rowers."
Comparison of Heart Rate Deflection and Ventilatory Threshold During a
Field Cross-Country Roller-Skiing Test
(http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/2008/11000/
Comparison_of_Heart_Rate_Deflection_and.36.aspx)
"Our results indicate that the specific incremental RS test is
effective in eliciting HRd in the field for all skiers and is an
accurate predictor of VT2."
Utility of the Conconi's Heart Rate Deflection To Monitor the
Intensity of Aerobic Training (http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/
Abstract/2006/02000/Utility_of_the_Conconi_s_Heart_Rate_Deflection_To.
14.aspx)
"training at a constant HR using a HR monitor is a good method to
control the intensity of the training with subjects not used to pacing
themselves with the split-time approach."
The Relationship of the Heart Rate Deflection Point to the Ventilatory
Threshold in Trained Cyclists
(http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/2002/11000/
The_Relationship_of_the_Heart_Rate_Deflection.14.aspx)
"There were significant relationships between HRDP and VT for the
physiological variables of HR... and power. HR values derived from
HRDP may be used to set parameters for training intensity."
Heart rate-based lactate minimum test: a reproducible method
(http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/6/432.abstract)
"Conclusion: The LMT using a heart rate-based protocol is a
reproducible method of assessing HR at an exercise intensity where an
equilibrium exists between blood lactate accumulation and
elimination."
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 9, 10:47 am, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 9, 9:34 am, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Sep 9, 8:00 am, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > > > You can't use a heart rate monitor to determine when you "go
> > > > anaerobic"
>
> > > I can, and do.
>
> > No, you don't. You only *think* that you do because you mistakenly
> > believe that your "go anaerobic" when your heart rate exceeds some
> > particular *submaximal* value.
>
> No. I don't look at my heart rate and suddenly think "oh, gee, I'm in
> zone 5". I use it as a point of reference to confirm my perceived
> effort. If I feel like I'm going anaerobic, I check to see if HR is
> where I think it should be.
And unless your heart rate were maximal, your conclusion would be
incorrect (in fact, it might be incorrect even your heart rate was
maximal).
> > > Lets parse that out - "It is concluded that the deflection point
> > > obtained by determining the PO/HR relationship....[is] a repeatable
> > > physiological phenomenon."
>
> > I suggest that you read more of the literature (and in particular, the
> > full papers, not just the abstracts)
>
> In the case of this paper, it isn't necessary. they conclude a direct
> and repeatable coorelation between heart rate and power output.
>
> > before drawing any conclusions
> > re. the validity of the Conconi test. If you do so, you will see that
> > it is widely discredited in the scienitifc literature, and hence by
> > the scientific community
>
> I would say your characterization of "widely discredited" is more than
> a bit overstated.
I wouldn't, and neither would any of my colleagues in the field.
> I went to the the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
> (http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/pages/default.aspx) and did a
> search on conconi.
I suggest you broaden your search to include journals of higher
quality (i.e., there is a reason that papers end up in JSCR as opposed
to, say, Journal of Applied Physiology).
> It returned about 16 results, a few of which were
> unrelated, but more than half of them suggest correlations between HR
> and AT, or suggest that HRDP is a valid predictor of LT. I've included
> links and relevant clips from the abstracts below, if you're
> interested.
>
> > (as it true of other concepts you have
> > apparently embraced, e.g., the so-called anaerobic threshold).
>
> OK, so now the concept of anaerobic threshold is a canard as well?
It always has been. First, there is no direct, causal link between
changes in blood lactate and changes in ventilation as proposed by
Wasserman. Second, muscle is not anaerobic at the exercise intensity
at which blood lactate begins to increase.
Andy Coggan
Fred on a stick
> On Sep 9, 10:34 am, Fred on a stick<anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> it's kinda amusing that you're citing an
>> article co-authored by Conconi as a defense of Conconi testing.
>
> Especially when 1) he apparently hasn't read the article, and 2) he's
> throwing PubMed references at me.*
What'd'ja think when he explained what exercise physiologists do?
Fred on a stick
>> I went to the the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
>> (http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/pages/default.aspx) and did a
>> search on conconi.
>
> I suggest you broaden your search to include journals of higher
> quality (i.e., there is a reason that papers end up in JSCR as opposed
> to, say, Journal of Applied Physiology).
Luttrell and Potteiger got their paper into JSCR.
Frederick the Great
<40d3323a-0988-4bc5...@y3g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>,
Andy Coggan <aco...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Second, muscle is not anaerobic at the exercise intensity
> at which blood lactate begins to increase.
When you say blood lactate does that mean lactic acid?
What _is_ anaerobic?
Here are some facts I gleaned from
Biochemistry of exercise-induced metabolic acidosis
Robert A. Robergs, Farzenah Ghiasvand, and Daryl Parker
<http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/287/3/R502>
Lactate is an intermediate in glycolysis.
H+ is an intermediate in glycolysis.
At high exercise levels H+ builds up in the cell
because mitochondrial respiration cannot reduce all the H+.
Lactate takes an H+ and is transported to the
blood to reduce cell acidosis.
--
Old Fritz
Frederick the Great
<b0d26218-9209-4c07...@t3g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
Andy Coggan <aco...@earthlink.net> wrote:
I expect he read quite a bit of it before
embarking on his full time writing career.
--
Old Fritz
Beloved Fred No. 1
>> I suggest you broaden your search to include journals of higher
>> quality (i.e., there is a reason that papers end up in JSCR as opposed
>> to, say, Journal of Applied Physiology).
Fred on a stick wrote:
> Luttrell and Potteiger got their paper into JSCR.
Perhaps Vayer should have tried too.
thirty-six
> On Sep 8, 1:59 pm, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 8, 4:09 pm, "MikeWhy" <boat042-nos...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > This strikes me as reasonable and sound, and
> > > far superior to guessing with HR zones.
>
> > I would hardly consider being aware of your AT to be guesswork.
>
> Your aerobic threshold, or lactate threshold, is more
> closely represented as a wattage than a heart rate.
>
> Technically, lactate threshold is defined in terms of
> blood lactate, but few measure that often. In practice,
> threshold is roughly the power you can ride at for a
> long time without blowing up. I said "the power,"
> not the heart rate. There's no great training advantage
> to knowing the heart rate you can ride at without
> blowing up. Especially since it might be different
> from one day to another.
Reasons to keep a check on HR are to see that proper hydration, salt
and chloride levels are maintained. Imbalances will cause the heart
to work unnecessarily hard and will show in elevated HR. When this
shows, it is best to takes things easy during training until proper
levels have re-established usually following a good meal and a couple
of pints of light beer.
>
> > I'm not buying that. I'd be interested to see you produce the same
> > power at 80% AT as you do 90% AT, unless your going to try and tell me
> > there's no correlation between AT and HR.......
>
> I got no clue what you mean by a correlation between
> AT and HR. Do you mean that there is a correlation
> between power as a percentage of threshold, and HR?
> Sure there is a correlation, but it shifts with time, training,
> overtraining, whatever. If you want to know power, you're
> probably best off measuring power, not HR.
>
> I don't care enough and am too cheap to buy a power meter,
> so I just time myself up hill climbs. It tracks my guess
> of how fit/sluggish I am pretty well.
This and acceleration tests are probably of greater use and are
simpler to understand than messing with complicated monitoring
equipment. They give meaningful data which bears a direct
relationship to racing. You want to win, climb faster, accelerate
harder, learn to corner like you are on rails and wheelsuck
appropriately.
HR monitoring may be used to indicate the trigger point on low level
intervals, establishing recovery times which may also be applied to
high power intervals. Repeat at 'eyeballs out' level until there is
zero recovery between efforts, then ease for full recovery.
>
> Fredmaster Ben
Andy Coggan
> In article
> <40d3323a-0988-4bc5-9df8-4bf615069...@y3g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>,
> Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Second, muscle is not anaerobic at the exercise intensity
> > at which blood lactate begins to increase.
>
> When you say blood lactate does that mean lactic acid?
Nope. Lactate is the conjugate base of lactic acid (which exists in
only minute quantities in vivo, due to the pKa of the reaction lactic
acid -> lactate + H+ being far-removed from physiological pH).
> What _is_ anaerobic?
Technically, lacking O2.
When applied to exercise metabolism, the term is generally used to
convey the notion that lactate is being produced because O2
availability limits the rate of mitochondrial respiration, such that
more ATP must be produced via glycolysis. In point of fact, however,
the pO2 in the vicinity of mitochondria is high enough to support
aerobic ATP production at intensities all the way up to
VO2max...lactate is always being produced, but begins to accumulate in
muscle and hence blood starting at around 60-90% of VO2max due to
pyruvate production exceeding pyruvate oxidation. Terms such as
"lactate threshold" (instead of "anaerobic threshold") and "non-
aerobic glycolysis" (instead of "anaerobic glycolysis") are therefore
routinely used by those with a good handle on the underlying
biochemistry.
Andy Coggan
Fred on a stick
> On Sep 8, 4:49 pm, Fred on a stick<anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>> On 9/8/2010 1:30 PM, zencycle wrote:
>>
>>> It would seem that knowing at what cadence you can achieve maximum
>>> sustained power and at what power you reach AT would be exceptionally
>>> useful in terms of determining what cadence in what gear is going to
>>> give you the maximum sustainable power over the time that your
>>> interested in. Note: I'm not talking about strict quadrant analysis.
>>> monitor your cadence for this.
>>
>> you been monitoring your torque for this?
>
> speed) that's pretty much irrelevant.
>
> Oh, and see that 'rotational speed' factor? Let's not dismiss cadence
> so easily then.
Hey zencycle:
You ready to come back to this yet?
zencycle
Yes, I have and use a power meter. I use it in conjunction with my HR
and cadence to monitor my performance. Note: I said monitor. I am not
and never have been a slave to electronic monitoring.
zencycle
>
> I ask because based on your comments, choice of terminology (e.g., AT,
> Conconi), it sounds to me as if you "grew up" (as a cyclist) in the
> heart rate monitor era, and hence are still carrying all those
> misconceptions around with you.
>
> Andy Coggan
Oh, and nice tangent - at least you didn't ask what length cranks I
use.
zencycle
wrote:
>
> First, your straw man is wrong: the claim is "if you have power then hr
> is at best redundant and at worst misleading", not "hr is at best
> confusing."
Do you really want to get into a semantic discussion over how
'confusing' might be be interpreted as a adequate descriptor for
range of 'redundant' to 'misleading'? Clearly, the implication from
all of Dr. Coggans posts on this issue is that HR is not adequate for
monitoring performance as it either tells you nothing (redundant) or
gives false indications (misleading). You'd be hard pressed to tell
anyone with decent english skills that 'confusing' doesn't work in
that context.
>Second, you haven't shown what additional information hr
> provides over power.
I did. Here:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.racing/msg/183607be7a2fe3df?hl=en
Try paying attention.
> Third, it's kinda amusing that you're citing an
> article co-authored by Conconi as a defense of Conconi testing.
Yeah, and six others _not_ by conconi. Your point?
> BTW, in case you're wondering, since you've got your hands full with the
> HR part of your claim I thought it'd be more polite to wait until Andy
> is finished with you before I take up the cadence part.
Bring it, bitch.
zencycle
>
> > No. I don't look at my heart rate and suddenly think "oh, gee, I'm in
> > zone 5". I use it as a point of reference to confirm my perceived
> > effort. If I feel like I'm going anaerobic, I check to see if HR is
> > where I think it should be.
>
> And unless your heart rate were maximal, your conclusion would be
> incorrect (in fact, it might be incorrect even your heart rate was
> maximal).
Did I say I would draw a conclusion from that? Do you think it might
be possible that I'm using it as a point of reference and not an
absolute metric (which is what I've been saying all along)? How about
"I'm not hitting my expected power, my HR is ten beats below where I
think it should be, and I can't get enough air in my lungs"....then I
draw a conclusion....
> > I would say your characterization of "widely discredited" is more than
> > a bit overstated.
>
> I wouldn't, and neither would any of my colleagues in the field.
So the authors of all the papers that seem to hold some sort of value
in HRDPs correlation to LT are......? Would you like to tell them
that, or would you like me to forward this thread of discussion for
them to analyze?
> > I went to the the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
> > (http://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/pages/default.aspx) and did a
> > search on conconi.
>
> I suggest you broaden your search to include journals of higher
> quality (i.e., there is a reason that papers end up in JSCR as opposed
> to, say, Journal of Applied Physiology).
Sure, I'll do that.
> > OK, so now the concept of anaerobic threshold is a canard as well?
>
> It always has been. First, there is no direct, causal link between
> changes in blood lactate and changes in ventilation as proposed by
> Wasserman.
Fine. I've shown you half a dozen papers that suggest otherwise.
> Second, muscle is not anaerobic at the exercise intensity
> at which blood lactate begins to increase.
Did I say it was?
zencycle
wrote:
Sure, lets try on this for size....shall we?
From Andy Coggans blog, a post by his colleague Hunter Allen
http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/2010/04/ventoux-as-stage-20are-they-serious.html
Chris Anker Sorenson
"over 400 watts and an average heart rate of 181 bpm, his cadence was
relatively high. During these 17 minutes, Chris’ cadence was right at
100 rpm and clearly when Chris has to go ‘full gas’, then he needs to
keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark to produce the most
amount of watts."
Make note of that last participle. But, here's the best part:
"This really highlights the roll that cadence plays in the production
of power at your absolute limit. In the case of Chris Sorenson, there
is a 20% difference in cadence (from 100 rpm to 80 rpm) which causes a
15% difference in wattage that he can produce."
Let me restate the most relevant Line:
"THIS REALLY HIGHLIGHTS THE ROLL THAT CADENCE PLAYS IN THE PRODUCTION
OF POWER".
OK, Let's ignore the spelling error, I'm sure this was a simple
oversight and his spell checker picked 'roll' instead of 'role',
unless you're going to tell me that there's some sort of obscure
physiological definition for 'roll' that negates the definition of the
sentence.
zencycle
> On Sep 8, 3:30 pm, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
>
> In contrast, all a heart rate monitor tells you is how fast your
> heart is beating.
That's odd, because your own writings seem to cast it in a different
light:
from http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/2010/07/tomas-gil-wins-tour-of-venezuela.html
:
" Immediately, he (thomas gill) had a 10-15 watt increase in power
without any additional heart rate increase."
Why would you have been concerned with any elevation of Gills HR if it
was as irrelevant as you've been implying?
from http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/2010/08/estimation-of-functional-threshold.html
"there were no differences between the two tests (which were performed
in the late fall and early winter, respectively) in either their heart
rate-power output relationship or the power at which they ultimately
fatigued during the incremental exercise tests."
"This result is in keeping with the fact that there were no
significant changes in their heart rate-power output relationship
(data not shown), or in the maximal power they achieved during each
test. "
At no point in that blog entry did you preface your addressing of
heart rate metrics with any disclaimer suggesting that the results
were an indication that HR wasn't relevant. In fact, to the contrary,
in context it would appear that you are explicitly stating that HRPO
is a metric you were using to assess the results.
> > It would seem that knowing at what cadence you can achieve maximum
> > sustained power and at what power you reach AT would be exceptionally
> > useful in terms of determining what cadence in what gear is going to
> > give you the maximum sustainable power over the time that your
> > interested in. Note: I'm not talking about strict quadrant analysis.
> > I'm talking about overall bio-mechanical efficiency. You _need_ to
> > monitor your cadence for this.
>
> No, you don't. You just monitor your power output - or before that/
> probably better still, whether you're gaining or losing ground
> relative to your riding buddies - and shift up or down as required to
> optimize your performance. Your actual cadence is, as Freddie Fred
> likes to point out, a red herring.
uh, huh....
You might want to have a discussion with Hunter on this, it seems as
if you guys don't agree.
http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/2010/04/ventoux-as-stage-20are-they-serious.html
"over 400 watts and an average heart rate of 181 bpm, his [Chris Anker
Sorenson] cadence was relatively high. During these 17 minutes, Chris’
cadence was right at 100 rpm and clearly when Chris has to go ‘full
gas’, then he needs to keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark
to produce the most amount of watts.
"he immediately dialed back the intensity to a more do-able wattage of
345 watts (roughly 90% of his FTP) and dropped his cadence to 80 rpm
(see Figure 4 below). Initially you might think, well…it got steeper
so he could only do 80 rpm, but in reality the steepness of the climb
didn’t change at all when we examine the elevation data from his
downloaded power file. This really highlights the roll that cadence
plays in the production of power at your absolute limit. In the case
of Chris Sorenson, there is a 20% difference in cadence (from 100 rpm
to 80 rpm) which causes a 15% difference in wattage that he can
produce."
So lets see:
"he needs to keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark to produce
the most amount of watts." and "This really highlights the roll that
cadence plays in the production of power at your absolute limit."
but now
>Your actual cadence is, as Freddie Fred
> likes to point out, a red herring.
So which is it? Does cadence play a significant roll in power
production, or is it as irrelevant as you keep claiming HR to be?
Fred on a stick
> On Sep 9, 11:34 am, Fred on a stick<anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>>
>> First, your straw man is wrong: the claim is "if you have power then hr
>> is at best redundant and at worst misleading", not "hr is at best
>> confusing."
>
> Do you really want to get into a semantic discussion over how
> 'confusing' might be be interpreted as a adequate descriptor for
> range of 'redundant' to 'misleading'? Clearly, the implication from
> all of Dr. Coggans posts on this issue is that HR is not adequate for
> monitoring performance as it either tells you nothing (redundant) or
> gives false indications (misleading). You'd be hard pressed to tell
> anyone with decent english skills that 'confusing' doesn't work in
> that context.
Of course I want to get into that discussion. You're leaving out the
relevant piece which is "if you have a power..." How can HR be redundant
if you don't have something else? That something else is power and you
keep eliding it. Let's keep it all together: "if you have power then HR
is at best redundant and at worst misleading."
>> Second, you haven't shown what additional information hr
>> provides over power.
>
> I did. Here:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.racing/msg/183607be7a2fe3df?hl=en
>
> Try paying attention.
Ah, sorry. When I wrote "additional" I meant "useful additional." If I
tell you the temperature in celsius, telling you that today is Monday is
additional information but not particularly useful additional
information. Although you've asserted that HR is useful in that context,
you haven't shown that it tells you something that RPE and power alone
wouldn't have told you.
>> Third, it's kinda amusing that you're citing an
>> article co-authored by Conconi as a defense of Conconi testing.
>
> Yeah, and six others _not_ by conconi. Your point?
That your evidence may be weak but kookitude is impressively strong?
>> BTW, in case you're wondering, since you've got your hands full with the
>> HR part of your claim I thought it'd be more polite to wait until Andy
>> is finished with you before I take up the cadence part.
>
> Bring it, bitch.
OK. I'll respond to that other post so we can keep the HR part of the
thread together and separate from the cadence part of the thread.
Fred on a stick
Cool. What's the torque at which Sorenson can achieve maximum sustained
power? Why is cadence key while torque is irrelevant? And why does
Sorenson use a different cadence when he's on the flat to produce 400
watts than when he was on Ventoux?
zencycle
wrote:
>
> Cool. What's the torque at which Sorenson can achieve maximum sustained
> power?
I can't tell you unless I know Sorensons crank arm length, since we
would need to calculate angular velocity and the length of the torque
arm is critical for that (no wonder you think cadence is a red
herring).
> Why is cadence key while torque is irrelevant?
a) Torque isn't if you're measuring power, which we are. Sure, you may
be interested from the perspective of picking the right crank arm
length, but it's still information that can be extrapolated from the
power reading.
b) perhaps you might want to ask Hunter Allen that question, since I
was quoting him, or perhaps Andy as his proxy.
> And why does
> Sorenson use a different cadence when he's on the flat to produce 400
> watts than when he was on Ventoux?
Biomechanical efficiency, dumbass. it's been my point all along. I
don't know how much riding you've done (though I'm suspecting not
much, or else you wouldn't be asking such stupid questions), but the
cadence at which you can develop your maximum sustained power at is
different depending on your riding position (as is the maximum power
you can develop). If you ever rode a bike, you would know this.
Ge, I thought you were going to "prove" to me that cadence was
irrelevant? All you've done this far is question Hunter Allens
contention that cadence is critical to maintaining power, which I
completely agree with.
Do you have anything _relevant_ to add? Because to this point all
you've shown me is that you really have no clue what you're talking
about. I can at least have a lucid technical discussion with Coggan.
zencycle
wrote:
> On 9/13/2010 10:41 AM, zencycle wrote:
>
> > On Sep 9, 11:34 am, Fred on a stick<anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> > wrote:
>
> >> First, your straw man is wrong: the claim is "if you have power then hr
> >> is at best redundant and at worst misleading", not "hr is at best
> >> confusing."
>
> > Do you really want to get into a semantic discussion over how
> > 'confusing' might be be interpreted as a adequate descriptor for
> > range of 'redundant' to 'misleading'? Clearly, the implication from
> > all of Dr. Coggans posts on this issue is that HR is not adequate for
> > monitoring performance as it either tells you nothing (redundant) or
> > gives false indications (misleading). You'd be hard pressed to tell
> > anyone with decent english skills that 'confusing' doesn't work in
> > that context.
>
> Of course I want to get into that discussion. You're leaving out the
> relevant piece which is "if you have a power..." How can HR be redundant
> if you don't have something else? That something else is power and you
> keep eliding it. Let's keep it all together: "if you have power then HR
> is at best redundant and at worst misleading."
>
> >> Second, you haven't shown what additional information hr
> >> provides over power.
>
> > I did. Here:
>
Fred on a stick
> On Sep 13, 4:31 pm, Fred on a stick<anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>>
>> Cool. What's the torque at which Sorenson can achieve maximum sustained
>> power?
>
> I can't tell you unless I know Sorensons crank arm length, since we
> would need to calculate angular velocity and the length of the torque
> arm is critical for that (no wonder you think cadence is a red
> herring).
Dumbass,
Of course you don't need crank arm length in order to calculate crank
torque. However, that you think so is pretty revealing: you actually
don't know what you're talking about.
I don't have Chris Anker Sorenson's data file from that 2009 stage up
Ventoux, but I do have his 2010 file for stage 17 through the Pyrenees
up and over Marie Blanque and then up the Tourmalet. I've calculated the
crank torque for you since you're evidently incapable of doing so. The
left panel shows the relationship between cadence and power. On the
right you'll see the relationship between crank torque and power. Just
in case you're wondering, the correlation between crank torque and power
is 0.95. The correlation between cadence and power? A bit less.
http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/rbr/sorenson-tdf10-s17.png
I also have his TT file from two days later. That was a flat TT but the
story was quite similar: the relationship between power and cadence
looks pretty much like a blob while the relationship between power and
crank torque has a much higher correlation.
>> Why is cadence key while torque is irrelevant?
>
> a) Torque isn't if you're measuring power, which we are. Sure, you may
> be interested from the perspective of picking the right crank arm
> length, but it's still information that can be extrapolated from the
> power reading.
Of course. I just calculated it, which you weren't able to do. No, the
point that whooshed over your head last week was that you said cadence
was important while torque was irrelevant, and then you showed the power
equation wherein cadence and torque play exactly the same roles. So,
what's your explanation for why cadence is so much more important?
> Do you have anything _relevant_ to add? Because to this point all
> you've shown me is that you really have no clue what you're talking
> about. I can at least have a lucid technical discussion with Coggan.
Well, one relevant piece is that I can calculate crank torque and you,
evidently, cannot. You know, you appear to be another in a long line of
rbt'ers who has become my bitch.
thirty-six
Fixed cadence and variable torque does not accelerate. Fixed torque
and variable cadence will accelerate. Acceleration is the key in road
racing and most track events. One speed riders are still one speed
riders however many gear choices their machines may have. I feel like
I'm talking to ten year olds. The only way to get around the one
speed variable torque engine is to have a torque convertor which is
inefficient.
William Fred
$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
> Well, one relevant piece is that I can calculate crank torque and you,
> evidently, cannot. You know, you appear to be another in a long line of
> rbt'ers who has become my bitch.
Old school usenet. God I love the smell of flames in the morning.
--
Bill Fred
Frederick the Great
<38748c9f-0dc0-42b7...@c21g2000vba.googlegroups.com>,
zencycle <zenc...@bikerider.com> wrote:
> That's just plain stupid, and I'm suspecting your debating tactics are
> little more advanced that school-boy tricks like "there are three
> words in the english language that end in 'gry'. Angry and Hungry are
> two. What is the third word?"
buggry
--
Old Fritz
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 8, 5:15 pm, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 8, 3:30 pm, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
> > In contrast, all a heart rate monitor tells you is how fast your
> > heart is beating.
>
> That's odd, because your own writings seem to cast it in a different
> light:
>
> :
>
> " Immediately, he (thomas gill) had a 10-15 watt increase in power
> without any additional heart rate increase."
>
> Why would you have been concerned with any elevation of Gills HR if it
> was as irrelevant as you've been implying?
>
>
> "over 400 watts and an average heart rate of 181 bpm, his [Chris Anker
> Sorenson] cadence was relatively high. During these 17 minutes, Chris’
> cadence was right at 100 rpm and clearly when Chris has to go ‘full
> gas’, then he needs to keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark
> to produce the most amount of watts.
>
> "he immediately dialed back the intensity to a more do-able wattage of
> 345 watts (roughly 90% of his FTP) and dropped his cadence to 80 rpm
> (see Figure 4 below). Initially you might think, well…it got steeper
> so he could only do 80 rpm, but in reality the steepness of the climb
> didn’t change at all when we examine the elevation data from his
> downloaded power file. This really highlights the roll that cadence
> plays in the production of power at your absolute limit. In the case
> of Chris Sorenson, there is a 20% difference in cadence (from 100 rpm
> to 80 rpm) which causes a 15% difference in wattage that he can
> produce."
>
> So lets see:
>
> "he needs to keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark to produce
> the most amount of watts." and "This really highlights the roll that
> cadence plays in the production of power at your absolute limit."
>
> but now
>
> >Your actual cadence is, as Freddie Fred
> > likes to point out, a red herring.
>
> So which is it? Does cadence play a significant roll in power
> production, or is it as irrelevant as you keep claiming HR to be?
1. As you might (should) have noticed, I didn't author that entry,
i.e., you are ascribing words to me that are not mine.
2. Hunter's commentary re. changes in heart rate, or lack thereof,
despite changes in power does not contradict the fact that all a heart
rate monitor tells you is how fast your heart is beating (i.e, in the
absence of the power data, the lack-of-change in heart rate is
meaningless)..
3. As well, his inter-individual comparison says nothing about whether
there is any value to deliberately monitoring/manipulating one's own
cadence.
Care to try again?
Andy Coggan
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 10, 1:33 pm, Fred on a stick <anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> > On 9/8/2010 2:05 PM, zencycle wrote:
>
> > > Oh, and see that 'rotational speed' factor? Let's not dismiss cadence
> > > so easily then.
>
> > Hey zencycle:
>
> > You ready to come back to this yet?
>
> Sure, lets try on this for size....shall we?
>
> From Andy Coggans blog
Not "my" blog (oh, and BTW: it should be "Coggan's", not "Coggans").
>, a post by his colleague Hunter Allen
>
> http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/2010/04/ventoux-as-st...
> Chris Anker Sorenson
>
> "over 400 watts and an average heart rate of 181 bpm, his cadence was
> relatively high. During these 17 minutes, Chris’ cadence was right at
> 100 rpm and clearly when Chris has to go ‘full gas’, then he needs to
> keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark to produce the most
> amount of watts."
>
> Make note of that last participle. But, here's the best part:
>
> "This really highlights the roll that cadence plays in the production
> of power at your absolute limit. In the case of Chris Sorenson, there
> is a 20% difference in cadence (from 100 rpm to 80 rpm) which causes a
> 15% difference in wattage that he can produce."
>
> Let me restate the most relevant Line:
>
> "THIS REALLY HIGHLIGHTS THE ROLL THAT CADENCE PLAYS IN THE PRODUCTION
> OF POWER".
>
> OK, Let's ignore the spelling error, I'm sure this was a simple
> oversight and his spell checker picked 'roll' instead of 'role',
> unless you're going to tell me that there's some sort of obscure
> physiological definition for 'roll' that negates the definition of the
> sentence.
Andy Coggan
zencycle
wrote:
> On 9/13/2010 4:36 PM, zencycle wrote:
>
> Dumbass,
>
> Of course you don't need crank arm length in order to calculate crank
> torque. However, that you think so is pretty revealing: you actually
> don't know what you're talking about.
Wow, yer dumb as a stump, aintcha freddie.
Torque is a calucaluation of force appiled to a lever. The lever is
denoted as 'r', which is the radius of the 'orbit' about the pivot.
Radius is length.
Again, it's no wonder you think cadence is a red herring, you have no
concept of the laws of physics.
> I've calculated the
> crank torque for you since you're evidently incapable of doing so.
It's physically impossible for you to calculate torque from power
without know the length of the lever.
> the correlation between crank torque and power
> is 0.95. The correlation between cadence and power? A bit less.
More proof that your math is faulty. Power and torque have a direct
linear relationship. If the correlation between crank torque and power
is fixed, then so is cadence. Go back to school, freddie, you've
obviously missed quite a bit
> >> Why is cadence key while torque is irrelevant?
>
> > a) Torque isn't if you're measuring power, which we are. Sure, you may
> > be interested from the perspective of picking the right crank arm
> > length, but it's still information that can be extrapolated from the
> > power reading.
>
> Of course. I just calculated it, which you weren't able to do.
You aren't either, because you don't have all the variables
> No, the
> point that whooshed over your head last week was that you said cadence
> was important while torque was irrelevant,
no, once again you and your buddie andy are building strawmen. I said
torque wasn't relevant when you're measuring power, and that cadence
has a direct effect on power output. IOW - If you're measuring power,
you don't need a torque calculation.
> and then you showed the power
> equation wherein cadence and torque play exactly the same roles.
um, ok, so you're saying that the angular velocity of the torque arm
isn't the same as cadence?
Again, freddie, go back to school, take physics 101, then get back to
us when you understand derivatives.
> So,
> what's your explanation for why cadence is so much more important?
Because of biomechanical efficiency (which you notably snipped from
your reply) .
>
> > Do you have anything _relevant_ to add? Because to this point all
> > you've shown me is that you really have no clue what you're talking
> > about. I can at least have a lucid technical discussion with Coggan.
>
> Well, one relevant piece is that I can calculate crank torque and you,
> evidently, cannot.
Which I would do if I knew crank arm length, remember?
POWER = (TORQUE ÷ RADIUS) x (RPM x RADIUS x 2 x π)
Given power and solving for torque, you need to know RPM and radius.
Basic physics, freddie, go back to school and let me know when you can
discuss this intelligently.
> You know, you appear to be another in a long line of
> rbt'ers who has become my bitch.
Hardly, when you seem to be making up the laws of physics as you go
along......bitch.
zencycle
>
> 1. As you might (should) have noticed, I didn't author that entry,
> i.e., you are ascribing words to me that are not mine.
from http://www.trainingandracingwithapowermeter.com/2010/08/estimation-of-functional-threshold.html
Estimation of functional threshold power based on blood lactate data:
the Dmax method
by Andrew R. Coggan, Ph.D.
"the athlete's LT changed minimally between tests, being 271 W on the
1st occasion and 263 W on the 2nd occasion (analysis not shown). This
result is in keeping with the fact that there were no significant
changes in their heart rate-power output relationship "
Yes, andy, you wrote that. You used HRPO as a metric. Mathmatically,
if there was no change in the HRPO relationship, then HR must have
changed as a function of power output. This doesn't imply a
relationship between power and heart rate, it confirms it, in your own
words.
> 2. Hunter's commentary re. changes in heart rate, or lack thereof,
> despite changes in power does not contradict the fact that all a heart
> rate monitor tells you is how fast your heart is beating (i.e, in the
> absence of the power data, the lack-of-change in heart rate is
> meaningless)..
Tell me where I ever said to use HR data in a vacuum? You really need
to start paying attention, andy. This is at least the third time I've
said that.
> 3. As well, his inter-individual comparison says nothing about whether
> there is any value to deliberately monitoring/manipulating one's own
> cadence.
So you're saying:
"he needs to keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark to produce
the most amount of watts." and "This really highlights the roll that
cadence plays in the production of power at your absolute limit."
is clear evidence that there is no value in monitoring
cadence....right......and freddie thinks you can calculate torque
without knowing the length of the torque arm.
You two really are quite full of yourselves.
> Care to try again?
Your turn.
zencycle
>
> Fixed cadence and variable torque does not accelerate.
It does if you shift gears.
> Fixed torque
> and variable cadence will accelerate.
Given a machine with a fixed torque arm (e.g. bicycle pedal cranks),
you can't have torque or cadence vary without the other varying unless
you change the load (e.g. shift gears).
> I feel like
> I'm talking to ten year olds.
Well, freddie sure has the understanding a ten-year-old would have of
physics. I won't argue that my attitude sometimes qualifies, but at
least I can back up my arguments with facts.
> The only way to get around the one
> speed variable torque engine is to have a torque convertor which is
> inefficient.
Yes, freewheeled (multiple geared) bicycles are inherently less
efficient that fixed gear bicycles.
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 13, 11:15 pm, Andy Coggan <acog...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > 1. As you might (should) have noticed, I didn't author that entry,
> > i.e., you are ascribing words to me that are not mine.
>
>
> Estimation of functional threshold power based on blood lactate data:
> the Dmax method
> by Andrew R. Coggan, Ph.D.
>
> "the athlete's LT changed minimally between tests, being 271 W on the
> 1st occasion and 263 W on the 2nd occasion (analysis not shown). This
> result is in keeping with the fact that there were no significant
> changes in their heart rate-power output relationship "
>
> Yes, andy, you wrote that. You used HRPO as a metric.
Indeed, I did - but:
1) based on data collected under controlled laboratory conditions at
constant power, not while cycling outdoors at variable power, and
2) merely to confirm my interpretation of the lactate data (i.e.,
knowing heart rate was essentially redundant, even though I wasn't
present at the test in question and don't know how the athlete in
question perceived the effort).
Care to try again to put words in my mouth?
> Mathmatically,
> if there was no change in the HRPO relationship, then HR must have
> changed as a function of power output. This doesn't imply a
> relationship between power and heart rate, it confirms it, in your own
> words.
>
> > 2. Hunter's commentary re. changes in heart rate, or lack thereof,
> > despite changes in power does not contradict the fact that all a heart
> > rate monitor tells you is how fast your heart is beating (i.e, in the
> > absence of the power data, the lack-of-change in heart rate is
> > meaningless)..
>
> Tell me where I ever said to use HR data in a vacuum? You really need
> to start paying attention, andy. This is at least the third time I've
> said that.
And as I have said before: if you know your power*, the knowing your
heart rate is at best redundant, but at worst misleading. So far
neither you nor anyone else in this universe has ever offered evidence
contradicting this statement.
*Obviously you always know your perceived effort.
> > 3. As well, his inter-individual comparison says nothing about whether
> > there is any value to deliberately monitoring/manipulating one's own
> > cadence.
>
> So you're saying:
>
> "he needs to keep his cadence right near that 100 rpm mark to produce
> the most amount of watts." and "This really highlights the roll that
> cadence plays in the production of power at your absolute limit."
>
> is clear evidence that there is no value in monitoring
> cadence
Not in the least. I am saying that *Hunter's statements* do not
provide evidence that there *is* value in monitoring cadence.
> ....right......and freddie thinks you can calculate torque
> without knowing the length of the torque arm.
>
> You two really are quite full of yourselves.
>
> > Care to try again?
>
> Your turn.
And now it is yours.
Andy Coggan
Andy Coggan
> On Sep 13, 4:31 pm, Fred on a stick <anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
> > Cool. What's the torque at which Sorenson can achieve maximum sustained
> > power?
>
> I can't tell you unless I know Sorensons crank arm length, since we
> would need to calculate angular velocity and the length of the torque
> arm is critical for that
Power (W) = torque (Nm) x angular velocity (rad/s)
Therefore:
Torque (Nm) = power (W) / angular velocity (rad/s)
Where:
Angular velocity (rad/s) = cadence (rev/min) * 2 * pi * 1 min / 60 s
See the length of the crank in there anywhere?
Andy Coggan
Fredmaster of Brainerd
> On Sep 13, 9:48 pm, Fred on a stick <anonymous.cow...@address.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> Wow, yer dumb as a stump, aintcha freddie.
>
> Torque is a calucaluation of force appiled to a lever. The lever is
> denoted as 'r', which is the radius of the 'orbit' about the pivot.
> Radius is length.
>
> Again, it's no wonder you think cadence is a red herring, you have no
> concept of the laws of physics.
>
> > I've calculated the
> > crank torque for you since you're evidently incapable of doing so.
>
> It's physically impossible for you to calculate torque from power
> without know the length of the lever.
If you know the power, and you know the rear wheel
diameter and the speed, then you know the torque.
What happens at the crank is secondary. You only
need to know all that stuff - cadence, crank arm length,
and so on - if you care about it. Fredchung's point is
that you have gears, so at a given power you can
adjust the cadence to be more or less whatever you're
comfortable with. Power is the important number,
cadence is something the rider selects, like Clif Bar
flavors.
Fredmaster Ben