Re: It is my impression ...and I have to back this up

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: : I think , as we had once the info from Cris in earlier discussions, it is very difficult to make a clearcut , whether it is NM or only metaboilc. There is always an overlapping of a whole known and still not known factors. : I have to agree with Frank , and based on our small tests ,the initial main factor on PC for " failure is metabolically. : Here perhaps a small proof of that statement. : When we introduce independant pedals in our camps in Spain I always try to make this a practical demo. It is not always fair to the guinea pig out of the public , but every body seems at the end to get the point. : 1. If you pedal with 100 watt on your normal pedal , there is no big challange for most of us. Little increase of HR , no lactate respond in the blood. : 2. Now you pedal on your normal pedals 1 leg , so you have to hold the other leg anywhere out in the room, you feel at the beginning 1 - 2 min not a big problem by the same wattage. : . If it would be NM or intermuscular coordination, you would have some problem just to get the idea going.( Try 1 leg fw and 1 leg back wards in the same time .you need first some major concentration to even start that thing. ) : 3. So you get tired because of metabolic challange in your hip flexor system. : Interesting enough the people stop because of this before you have a dramatically increase of the HR or the Lactate. ( May be too small of a muscle group involved to challange the cardio vascular system , but much more of a local thight :" spot " ( metabolically. : This actually is also a nice way to show , that absolute Lactate values like 4 mmol/ L as the ANT have to be somehow out of the proper usage. : This people often stop with a Lactate concentration in the blood of 2 - 3 mmol. : But because we measure lactate in the system and not in the working muscles, we do not know , but expect , that metabolically this local working muscle was on the limit. : 4. Now , if you repeat one leg work on PC , where one leg can comfortably rest on the opposite pedal : or on normal pedal you put your foot on a chair to " rest ", so you immediatly can lenghten your 1 leg workout. The reason is , that you start out as before , but once you get metabolically into trouble with your hipflexor group , you start to use the resting leg on the chair or pedal, kicking in a slightly other muscle chain ( kind of cheating ) and you can sustain a little bit longer. : The increase of involved muscle groups now is also seen in a now higher HR and a higher lactate level at the end of this try outs. : 5.Never the less this one leg workout can be improved relatively fast.( functionally over enzymatic adaptation. in the local area. : So after 1 or 2 weeks this people can pedal more or less okay 1 leg from anywhere 5 - 15 minutes. : It may dependant on , how they " pulled " already on their normal pedal. Interesting is , that Mountain biker have a much smoother pedal stroke than road riders , and winter triathletes have the smoothest. : This could be , because on sand or snow , you have to avoid this high power pushes on the downstroke and you have to learn to distribute much better over 360 degree. ( In last years World winter triathlon champion ship , was a very steep hill and Martina , 4 years PC biker was clear the fastest up the hill and at the end 3 U 23. On the snow she was clearly the smoothest , even though there were absolute top road riders in this field. ) : We tried to ride PC in snow up certain hills , and you climb actually much better than on normal pedals. : 6. Now once this people where able to go over 10 - 15 min you could see a drop of the HR and the Lactate. ( Improvement of the metabolic situation and for sure also the intermuscular coordination , simple better economie.) : Now you put this people on the real thing PC and they start all over again with some problems. : The difference is , depending on their over all coordinative ability , they improve now faster. : The reason why they stop is not just loosing the pedalstroke , but still they have metaboilcally a limitation. This time with both legs the Lactate is much higher than with one leg and also the HR is higher , but still not as high as when they are on the normal pedal pushing their limit. : So it could be that the new challange with coordination of both legs makes it on the one side again harder for the flexors. ( no way now to counter act with the opposite side ) the challange of working now independant will change the muscle chain from the one you used before if you went only single leg. This will call some more muscle groups into the work , which were not used before. and the training starts all over again. : 8 If you now control EMG activity on the PC , in high intensity ( all out stress ) and than you test the same person on his normal pedal, so you often see that till up to LBP ( to a still mainly aerobic speed or effort , they can control the 360 turn quite well. Once the stress is getting higher they fall on the normal pedal back to their old technique. : Remember the NM pattern and the automatisation on movements. : That's one or perhaps the reason , that , when you use PC ( and you should ) you should use them always and not only once in a while. All the " negative " comments , that they do not work we are getting , are from people , they use it once in a while and are always " dead" after this. : So they may have to go back and rethink the reason why we have to stress our system for a while. It all comes back to functional and structural training even in the brain pattern. : Last but not least. : If we take a top athlete for demo , they are first very cocky , till they bike besides Martina , and after 1 or 2 minutes , they either accept and understand the fact of PC or they start to make some stupid jokes. That's when I try to explain the differents between open mind and opportunismus. : Now there is much more to say about this ideas , but we may come later back with some examples to discuss. : For us an easy hint: : When we start with new athletes on PC we test LBP 1 leg and PC motion and based on this we put together a workout schedule. : You will be first stressed , how low your HR has to be , but also that you should not use too much resistance , ( take LBP wattage ) and you see a much faster and much nicer progress , as when you just hammer to exhaustion. Remember Cris's remark , more be less and go on the conservative side of things. Play on your PC short controlled , but a few times during the day. Stop before you reach the meatbolic limit. Use ure feeling and once in a while perhaps even your brain. The pedals go round because of the construction. Your movement may be completely of this circle and you actually may work against yourself. : This will open Franks critical question of , How much benefit backwards pedal system may benefit the real idea of pedaling. ?

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