Single Speed Training

imposter2.0

er, and the point you are making is ?

rob churchill

Imposter wrote:

er, and the point you are making is ?

That an SS rider in hilly country will frequently find him or herself at, or approaching, the point where he/she lacks the physical strength to turn the pedals, as opposed to the aerobic fitness to maintain cadence. Which you either do, or do not, agree will build muscle, depending on which of your posts one is reading.

negativelycra

On second thoughts, I'll leave you all to it.

imposter2.0

rob churchill wrote:

Imposter wrote:

er, and the point you are making is ?

That an SS rider in hilly country will frequently find him or herself at, or approaching, the point where he/she lacks the physical strength to turn the pedals, as opposed to the aerobic fitness to maintain cadence. Which you either do, or do not, agree will build muscle, depending on which of your posts one is reading.

Nobody ever said that pushing big weight would not build muscle. But if you were to put Froome/Contador/Wiggins on your bike in that situation, he/they would almost certainly have the same problem sooner or later.

The only issue here is whether increased muscle strength is beneficial to improved aerobic cycling performance. Which it isn't.

rob churchill

Imposter wrote:

rob churchill wrote:

Imposter wrote:

er, and the point you are making is ?

That an SS rider in hilly country will frequently find him or herself at, or approaching, the point where he/she lacks the physical strength to turn the pedals, as opposed to the aerobic fitness to maintain cadence. Which you either do, or do not, agree will build muscle, depending on which of your posts one is reading.

Nobody ever said that pushing big weight would not build muscle. But if you were to put Froome/Contador/Wiggins on your bike in that situation, he/they would almost certainly have the same problem.

The only issue here is whether increased muscle strength is beneficial to improved aerobic cycling performance. Which it isn't.

Well if you say so. Only I don't recall discussing whether increased muscle strength is beneficial to aerobic cycling performance. For the third time now :

rob churchill wrote:

I haven't suggested that it's anything other than sh1t training for riding a geared bike. I simply take issue with the ideas that (i) riding an SS is likely to result only in being in a 'slightly higher' gear, and (ii) that riding a hill so overgeared that every pedal stroke represents the kind of proportion of 1RM that someone doing weight training would employ won't build any muscle.

imposter2.0

rob churchill wrote:

Well if you say so. Only I don't recall discussing whether increased muscle strength is beneficial to aerobic cycling performance. For the third time now :

rob churchill wrote:

I haven't suggested that it's anything other than sh1t training for riding a geared bike. I simply take issue with the ideas that (i) riding an SS is likely to result only in being in a 'slightly higher' gear, and (ii) that riding a hill so overgeared that every pedal stroke represents the kind of proportion of 1RM that someone doing weight training would employ won't build any muscle.

and for (probably) the third or fourth time in response - nobody has ever said that it would not build muscle. Incidentally, how are you with roundabouts - do you often have trouble finding the exit and end up going round in circles ?

rob churchill

Imposter wrote:

rob churchill wrote:

Well if you say so. Only I don't recall discussing whether increased muscle strength is beneficial to aerobic cycling performance. For the third time now :

rob churchill wrote:

I haven't suggested that it's anything other than sh1t training for riding a geared bike. I simply take issue with the ideas that (i) riding an SS is likely to result only in being in a 'slightly higher' gear, and (ii) that riding a hill so overgeared that every pedal stroke represents the kind of proportion of 1RM that someone doing weight training would employ won't build any muscle.

and for (probably) the third or fourth time in response - nobody has ever said that it would not build muscle. Incidentally, how are you with roundabouts - do you often have trouble finding the exit and end up going round in circles ?

1. Froomes Edgar wrote that riding in a 'slightly higher gear' will not develop physical strength. He (or she) is quite correct in that. However, I pointed out that an SS rider will not uncommonly find themselves in a situation where it takes all their physical strength to turn the pedals, and that in these circumstances they will indeed develop physical strength. You quoted me, and responded that riding over-geared was "nothing to do with strength". Am I to understand that you were in fact agreeing with me?

2. Murr X suggested that riding severely overgeared will not develop physical strength because cycling uses only concentric, rather than eccentric muscular contractions.

I'm fine with roundabouts, thanks. I'm also professionally qualified to test for short-term memory impairment, perhaps you'd like me to refer you to someone?

imposter2.0

rob churchill wrote:

You quoted me, and responded that riding over-geared was "nothing to do with strength". Am I to understand that you were in fact agreeing with me?

The inability to continue turning the pedals in a certain gear is ultimately a fitness issue. Do you get that ? If so, we can stop.

rob churchill

Imposter wrote:

rob churchill wrote:

You quoted me, and responded that riding over-geared was "nothing to do with strength". Am I to understand that you were in fact agreeing with me?

The inability to continue turning the pedals in a certain gear is ultimately a fitness issue. Do you get that ? If so, we can stop.

Of course it is. Then the gradient increases a little more, and it becomes a strength issue. In my rock-climbing days I could do chin-ups in good form with my girlfriend hanging on my back. Please explain why I can't do that anymore, although my aerobic fitness is now considerably better?

imposter2.0

rob churchill wrote:

Of course it is. Then the gradient increases a little more, and it becomes a strength issue.

It doesn't. It is still a fitness issue, because you are not exceeding your maximal strength capabilities - which we already agreed are more than enough to lift your own bodyweight vertically.

rob churchill wrote:

In my rock-climbing days I could do chin-ups in good form with my girlfriend hanging on my back. Please explain why I can't do that anymore, although my aerobic fitness is now considerably better?

My guess is that she probably left you - that's why.

Seriously though - do you understand what aerobic means ? In your 'rock climbing days' you probably had the aerobic conditioning in your arms to do that. If you don't rock-climb any more (and why would you when you can ride a fixie instead?) that might explain why you would not be able to perform such an impressive manoeuvre.

briantrumpet

Only page 4 on this one before the personal insults... splendid.

Buried in there might be some points worth discussing, but I think that points are trying to be scored rather than discussed. In any case, I think you might be arguing two different things.

rob churchill

Imposter wrote:

rob churchill wrote:

Of course it is. Then the gradient increases a little more, and it becomes a strength issue.

It doesn't. It is still a fitness issue, because you are not exceeding your maximal strength capabilities - which we already agreed are more than enough to lift your own bodyweight vertically.

rob churchill wrote:

In my rock-climbing days I could do chin-ups in good form with my girlfriend hanging on my back. Please explain why I can't do that anymore, although my aerobic fitness is now considerably better?

My guess is that she probably left you - that's why.

Seriously though - do you understand what aerobic means ? In your 'rock climbing days' you probably had the aerobic conditioning in your arms to do that. If you don't rock-climb any more (and why would you when you can ride a fixie instead?) that might explain why you would not be able to perform such an impressive manoeuvre.

It does, if we increase the gradient and/or gear to the point where we are approaching or exceeding maximal strength capabilities - this doesn't happen to road racers going up Ventoux with lots of gears, but can easily happen to singlespeeders. Yes, my maximal strength is more than enough to raise my bodyweight vertically, but not geared beyond a certain velocity ratio. Find the steepest hill you can, and try riding it in higher and higher gears. You will eventually find a gear in which you cannot finish the hill. Continue with higher and higher gears. You will eventually find a gear in which you cannot turn the pedals even once. Is this latter limit defined by your maximum aerobic power, your peak anaerobic power, or just the maximum torque you can make?

She did leave me, but I'm happily married with four kids and don't miss her. Now, do you understand what anaerobic means? Do you not understand that those chin-ups were anaerobic virtually from the first twitch of muscle fibre?

(BTW, I don't ride a fixie - not nice on the downhills. I keep it flipped to the freewheel)

rob churchill

briantrumpet wrote:

Only page 4 on this one before the personal insults... splendid.

Buried in there might be some points worth discussing, but I think that points are trying to be scored rather than discussed. In any case, I think you might be arguing two different things.

I'm pretty sure I first called him a smartarse on page 3 But I don't usually start with the personal insults and probably shouldn't have done that :oops:

I don't know if we're arguing two different things, I thought maybe we were, then not... time for bed I think

rob churchill

...Oh, I almost forgot; we need to have the souplesse argument now - would two of you please pick that up? thanks.

goodnight.

imposter2.0

rob churchill wrote:

Is this latter limit defined by your maximum aerobic power, your peak anaerobic power, or just the maximum torque you can make?

Torque is a component of power, so it won't be that. It won't be your maximal strength either. So what's left ?

Alex_Simmons/RST

twotyred wrote:

Yawn

Sorry if the physics proving you wrong bores you.

It does help to get the physics right though.

Average Effective Pedal Force (AEPF) Newtons = (watts x 60) / (crank length metres x 2 x PI x cadence rpm)

700W @ 100 rpm on 175mm cranks, AEPF = 382N, which is equivalent to both legs pressing about 39kg.

At 400W, that would be 22.3kg for both legs.
At 300W then it's 16.7kg

Not exactly what I call a strength demand.

It's a power demand, and for that we need ATP. Lots of it and regularly supplied, replenished and turned over - with the vast majority being provided via an aerobic metabolic process. Even the very short duration anaerobic sources have to be replenished via aerobic mechanisms.

Alex_Simmons/RST

twotyred wrote:

Track sprinters - absolutely. No argument there. Bit different to road cycling though.

We've just been arguing about where Andre Geipel gets his sprint power at the end of a road race. Pretty similar situation to track sprinting.

No, it's nothing like a track sprint, the way sprints occur and are run on track at at end of road race is very different. Examination of power files makes that pretty clear.

Which is why roadie sprinters are only ever considered as track endurance riders when they race the track (e.g. Mark Cavendish, Eric Zabel) or make excellent team pursuit riders (e.g Stuart O'Grady, Graeme Brown). Some roadie sprinters also make good prologue riders (e.g. Hushovd, O'Grady) but they would be murdered in a track sprint. Cross over athletes between track sprint and road are very rare (e.g. Theo Boss).

twotyred wrote:

For general road cycling I agree that the pedal forces required for maintaining 200-300 watts are nothing special and maybe your granny could generate the required force and yet cycling a lot leads to slow and fast twitch muscle hypertrophy. If increased strength isn't beneficial why does the human body respond to cycling by making bigger muscles? I may be being naive here but aren't bigger muscles stronger muscles? However there may well some other advantage to bigger muscles that I'm missing.

Larger muscle mass generally correlates with being stronger, however the nature of the adaptations that are most important are those that support aerobic metabolism. There is no point gaining muscle mass if it costs you more to propel it than you've gained.

Hypertrophy of slowtwitch muscles through large volumes of cycling is usually accompanied by significant improvements in mitochondrial density and muscle capillarisation - which are far more important elements of infrastructure development - because these are the things that enable us to repeatedly generate the relatively low forces for lengthy periods of time.

There are in between athletes, e.g. pursuit events, where W/m^2 is more important than W/kg, and so they will tend to be heavier than their road going selves (when competitive in each discipline - think Wiggins or Thomas in pursuit vs road physique).


As for single gear / fixed gear riding - in reality the forces will still be pretty low, and insufficient to generate improvements is maximal force generation capacity. Fortunately that's not what matters most when it comes to road riding.

Single speed / fixed gear riding can be fun, a nice change to the regular routine, uses a bike that's easy to maintain in crappy weather, and provides a different and wide range of pedal forces and speeds that what one typical experiences when using gears. It's no magic bullet but if it means you are riding when you may other wise have not done so, well there's your answer.

twotyred

Thanks for your comments Alex

Yes it does help to get the physics right. Your calculation gives the average pedal force for one crank revolution and is the one I used. However max force isn't being applied evenly for all of that crank revolution. As a rough approximation I assumed each leg applied force for 90 degrees so force is only being applied for roughly half the crank revolution and multiplied by 2. I'm sure the real figure is somewhat different but I think your calculation underestimates the force required.

Still using your calculation gives me 89kg for 1600 watts which is around body weight and above.

I bow to your superior knowledge about road sprints and track sprints being different and I'd be interested to know what the difference is.

Thanks for clearing up the question about why repeated low forces in cycling lead to bigger/stronger legs. It is a by-product of training although I accept not necessarily a useful one.

imposter2.0

twotyred wrote:

Thanks for clearing up the question about why repeated low forces in cycling lead to bigger/stronger legs. It is a by-product of training although I accept not necessarily a useful one.

just to be clear - 'repeated low forces' do not lead to bigger, stronger legs. Is that what you meant ?

Alex_Simmons/RST

twotyred wrote:

Thanks for your comments Alex

Yes it does help to get the physics right. Your calculation gives the average pedal force for one crank revolution and is the one I used. However max force isn't being applied evenly for all of that crank revolution. As a rough approximation I assumed each leg applied force for 90 degrees so force is only being applied for roughly half the crank revolution and multiplied by 2. I'm sure the real figure is somewhat different but I think your calculation underestimates the force required.

Still using your calculation gives me 89kg for 1600 watts which is around body weight and above.

I bow to your superior knowledge about road sprints and track sprints being different and I'd be interested to know what the difference is.

Thanks for clearing up the question about why repeated low forces in cycling lead to bigger/stronger legs. It is a by-product of training although I accept not necessarily a useful one.

Well the formula is simply Power = torque x rotational velocity, with torque replaced with crank length and tangential force and rotational velocity being conversion from cadence. Happy to be shown where it's wrong.

Max pedal force for single leg (which only occurs briefly < 100ms) is typically roughly double the AEPF.

Track sprinters have far superior anaerobic and neuromuscular power, but would never make it over the first minor col in a road race, let alone manage a decent sprint after a VO2max like effort in the closing stages of a road race. Sprint physiology is way OT for this discussion I'd have thought.

Extra muscle is fine if that muscle delivers benefits suited to the demands sought. Hypertrophy from lots of cycling will do that, since it is a specific adaptation that comes with aerobic adaptations suitable for endurance cycling. Hypertrophy from say gym training doesn't come with the same aerobic infrastructure adaptations. Even for sprinters, it force at speed that matters, not force at no speed. You can be really strong, but a slug of a sprinter.

As far as strength goes, even the 1600W example you give, with a <100ms application of roughly body weight, is still sub-maximal force. It has to be by definition, since maximal force can only be delivered at zero or near zero velocity. If the pedals are turning / moving away from us with any normal pedal speed, it's a physical impossibility to apply maximal force.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that people often mistakenly believe they are force limited*, when really they are power limited. If you truly are force limited, then you are riding a gear that's completely ill suited to the task. Choose a better gear.


* One can determine that by examining the maximal force-velocity relationship from a standing start acceleration. At this time, only those with an SRM power meter, or laboratory grade force measurement equipment can do that.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Imposter wrote:

twotyred wrote:

Thanks for clearing up the question about why repeated low forces in cycling lead to bigger/stronger legs. It is a by-product of training although I accept not necessarily a useful one.

just to be clear - 'repeated low forces' do not lead to bigger, stronger legs. Is that what you meant ?

I'd say that sufficient volume of endurance cycling can lead to bigger more powerful legs.

Stronger? Not really. e.g. I don't see many Olympic weightlifters riding bikes to improve leg strength. Fortunately as cyclists, we are not limited by strength. We are however limited by the power we can sustainably produce over durations of interest to our event(s).

twotyred

Well the formula is simply Power = torque x rotational velocity, with torque replaced with crank length and tangential force and rotational velocity being conversion from cadence. Happy to be shown where it's wrong.

The equation works out the average pedal force. However pedal forces are not applied uniformly throughout the pedal stroke (see below from a watt bike) so the maximum force will necessarily be be greater than the average.

Strith

Yes but that model you used makes the assumption that you simply have x force for 90 or 70 degrees then nothing. As you can see from the wattbike data thats not the case.

Strith

I should add, that all you need to do is change a few of the input parameters and numbers start to approach more reasonable values.

The problem is that you're trying calculate what a human can do at their very limits, usning mathamatical model that uses a number of assumptions. When you factor in that power increses with the cube of speed then it's easy to overestimate things. According to that model 1600W puts the rider at over 77kmh on the flat.

Whilst I'm not disagreeing an elite cyclist can put more than their bodyweight in force though a pedal, I think double their body weight seems much too high for a road sprint.

twotyred

Yes but that model you used makes the assumption that you simply have x force for 90 or 70 degrees then nothing. As you can see from the wattbike data thats not the case.

Yes I said my assumption of 90 degrees was a rough approximation. The true force required is probably somewhere between my number of twice the average force and Alex' average force number.

The problem is that you're trying calculate what a human can do at their very limits, usning mathamatical model that uses a number of assumptions. When you factor in that power increses with the cube of speed then it's easy to overestimate things. According to that model 1600W puts the rider at over 77kmh on the flat

I agree (BTW analytical cycling is someone else's work). That's why I think the simpler approach of working back to pedal force from a power output may be more accurate depending on the assumptions made on how force is distributed around the pedal stroke.

75 kph has been seen in sprints (maybe someone can work out if its possible with a 53 x 11 gear) but I've no idea if more than 1600 watts is needed to achieve it in the real world.

Alex_Simmons/RST

twotyred wrote:

Well the formula is simply Power = torque x rotational velocity, with torque replaced with crank length and tangential force and rotational velocity being conversion from cadence. Happy to be shown where it's wrong.

The equation works out the average pedal force. However pedal forces are not applied uniformly throughout the pedal stroke (see below from a watt bike) so the maximum force will necessarily be be greater than the average.

I'm fully aware of typical instantaneous pedal force data, of which a watttbike is approximately measuring (it has to be an approximation since the measurement occurs down stream of the cranks and not at the pedals).

The A in AEPF is "average", and not something else - I never claimed it was anything other than an average.

We use AEPF because the most common means to assess pedal forces and velocities is with power meters, which of course provide data averaged over a complete pedal stroke (well crank based meters do that, not hub based meters), unless of course you are using an SRM torque analysis system which will provided total crank torque (but not pedal force) data at 200Hz. Hence some insight can be gained from this crank average data, but it doesn't tell the whole story (and nor do Wattbike or CT spin scan charts).

Assessing actual pedal forces at high temporal resolution requires lab based equipment.

Strith wrote:

Yes but that model you used makes the assumption that you simply have x force for 90 or 70 degrees then nothing. As you can see from the wattbike data thats not the case.

It's pseudo-sinusoidal and varies from individual to individual, and for any individual varies with absolute and relative power output, bike set up, cadence, fatigue levels, number of whole legs they have and so on.


In any case, the issue is that we are rarely, if ever, force limited. Our limiters are biochemical/metabolic ones.

Alex_Simmons/RST

twotyred wrote:

75 kph has been seen in sprints (maybe someone can work out if its possible with a 53 x 11 gear) but I've no idea if more than 1600 watts is needed to achieve it in the real world.

You'd need wind or gravity assistance to hit 75km/h with only 1600W peak power.

twotyred

The A in AEPF is "average", and not something else - I never claimed it was anything other than an average

And I never said you had calculated anything else. My argument is that average force doesn't give the actual force required to turn the pedals to generate a certain power output. However you implied my physics was wrong becuase I estimated a peak force, rather than an average force, using the same equation you used plus an assumption on force distribution through a pedal stroke which you've just admitted is non uniform.

imposter2.0

twotyred wrote:

The A in AEPF is "average", and not something else - I never claimed it was anything other than an average

And I never said you had calculated anything else. My argument is that average force doesn't give the actual force required to turn the pedals to generate a certain power output. However you implied my physics was wrong becuase I estimated a peak force, rather than an average force, using the same equation you used plus an assumption on force distribution through a pedal stroke which you've just admitted is non uniform.

I know that letting-go of a long-held misconception can sometimes be difficult - but it might be better at this stage just to accept that you were wrong, and move on.

Alex_Simmons/RST

twotyred wrote:

My argument is that average force doesn't give the actual force required to turn the pedals to generate a certain power output.

Ah, yes, it does actually.

One could just as easily put an electric motor drive on the crank spindle with perfectly even force output at all rotational angles at same power and the bike would go and/or accelerate at the same rate as if it had a bike rider applying forces in a typical pseudo-sinusoidal manner.

The AEPF would be exactly the same.

twotyred wrote:

However you implied my physics was wrong becuase I estimated a peak force, rather than an average force, using the same equation you used plus an assumption on force distribution through a pedal stroke which you've just admitted is non uniform.

Well you were not estimating peak force either in that example you quoted from analyticcycling.com, so to be honest I'm not sure what you were estimating.

If you are averaging part of the pedal stroke (which part I'm not sure), fine but you can't just ignore the whole. By examining the whole we can see the average force demand and we already know the typical relationship between peak and average.

The fact that we pedal in a more piston like manner and have a pseudo-sinusoidal torque pattern still doesn't make us force (strength) limited for sustainable power outputs. It's a red herring.