Bicycling as ski imitation?
Reminds me of the story in Pete's book when goes to community college in Sweden
after high school. He said their training system was: train hard every day except for Monday. What about Monday? Don't train. J999w wrote: I would just focus on making yourself the biggest, leanest, meanest lumberjack around. I don't think Vladimir Smirnoff worried about such things, he probably would just say ... nah, just ride ... hard, easy, lots of hills, ALL DAY ! -- Jeff Potter **** *Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com for modern folkways and culture revival... ...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...new books featuring: XC ski culture, a Gulf Coast thriller folding bicycles ... with radical novels coming up! ...original downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums! HOLY SMOKES! |
Bicycling as ski imitation?
Cross-sport specificity of turnover-frequency raises some interesting
questions. Jeff Potter wrote I'm focusing instead on cadence. I'll take this in terms of Skating, since that's what I do nowadays. Here's some key factors in stroke-cycle performance: -- Force of push -- Distance of push, Range of motion -- Turnover frequency (a.k.a. "cadence") (and there's other dimensions like Efficiency and Endurance). (1) Focusing specificity on only one factor in isolation from the others doesn't sound like a good bet. (2) I think bicycling tends to have a smaller Distance of push or Range of motion than skating (Why? see more below). (3) If you push in a smaller range of motion, but also in a shorter phase-time (which goes with higher turnover frequency), then you can get a _MuscleSpeed_ similar to a push thru a larger range of motion at a lower turnover rate. (4) Since both Skating and Bicycling allow a wide range of "gearing" _outside_ the selection of muscle-joint sub-range (e.g. by choice of ski angle) -- it's not unreasonable to guess that by "natural feel" you can tune the turnover frequency and outside mechanical factors in both, to achieve a similar combination of MuscleSpeed and Force on the Power-Force-MuscleSpeed curve. So maybe (?) whatever combination of turnover frequency and other factors that gives the feel of "about right for good LT" on a bicycle, will also turn out to be about the same Force/MuscleSpeed combination which is "about right for good LT" on Skating -- even though the turnover frequency for good LT in skating would be rather different. (? same with Sprint workouts and LSD workouts ?) Ken P.S. Some ideas on _why_ bike racers have a smaller range of motion: This is largely determined by crank-arm length. Elite bike racers could choose longer cranks -- and easily push them. But they don't. I think that lets them focus their outside mechanical optimization (gearing, frame geometry) and muscular-performance training on a tighter sub-range of their leg-motion. Smaller "target" implies more precise optimization. I suspect Skaters need to take on a larger sub-range because the _overhead_ of initiating a skate-push and recovering from it is larger than for bicycle pedaling. So they need to accept a larger dose of Power-Force-MuscleSpeed sub-optimality in each push-stroke in order to get sufficient "payback" to justify the per-stroke overhead. (The per-stroke "overhead" is even larger for the pole-push, and guess what: elite racers select an even larger distance range for that motion). |
Bicycling as ski imitation?
Good points, Ken, mah man!
They reminded me of how back in the day I'd sometimes forget which sport I was doing. I'd do them all in a way that felt the same. It's possible to blast along at whatever sport with a similar kind of feel and output. --But the various cadences that are expressed are all different. I guess. However, maybe it's also of interest how SIMILAR they are to each other. Cycling 70-110rpm Paddling 70-90rpm Ski-skating 60rpm ?? (worldclass?) Ski-classic ?? Telebumps ?? Rowing ?? Running ?? Swimming ?? --heavy bag action seems a BIT faster, tho... Ax-chopping? Hmmm... 20-30rpm? Archery ... 20spm -- Jeff Potter **** *Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com for modern folkways and culture revival... ...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...new books featuring: XC ski culture, a Gulf Coast thriller folding bicycles ... with radical novels coming up! ...original downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums! HOLY SMOKES! |
Bicycling as ski imitation?
I seem to recall reading that Bill Koch used to do a lot of
out-of-the-saddle cycling for his off-season ski-skate training. Apparently out-of-the-saddle cycling uses almost the same muscles in the same way as skating. The story was that Koch actually removed his saddle for group rides so he would be forced to stand for the entire ride. Can anybody confirm this story? -Jim On Wed, 09 Jul 2003 11:39:31 -0400, Jeff Potter wrote: I think I've asked about this before, but here goes again... In general it seems like the more we can imitate skiing when we train, the better. So that bounding and ski-walking seems better than running or walking. Right? When bicycling, is there any chance that a cadence more like skiing is better than one normally associated with cycling? And when climbing maybe getting out of the saddle is generally better for skitraining than staying seated? I know that outofsaddle riding is taxing but maybe even on the flats it might be better to train that way and adapt to that, for skiing. For instance, one might not want to do the usual locked-arms mode that one can do to ride out of saddle with less effort but instead should keep a flexed, dynamic pose. 3 questions! Any answers? -- Jeff Potter **** *Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com for modern folkways and culture revival... ...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...new books featuring: XC ski culture, a Gulf Coast thriller folding bicycles ... with radical novels coming up! ...original downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums! HOLY SMOKES! |
Bicycling as ski imitation?
Jim Farrell wrote in message
He was also said to destroy his cranks by only pushing on the downward part of the stroke. No spinning for him! Very interesting. I just had a road bike race today (I do one a year just for fun) which was 110km on very hilly terrain in the Foothills just south west of Calgary. There was about 50 people in my category which consisted of all the riders 30 years and younger or and any elite masters. So basically there is a whole spectrum of riders from cat1 all the way down to unlicensed riders like myself. This race was going really good for me until the 92km point. I was in the lead group of about 15 guys when my crank just cracked. It was totally bent and could not pass through the rear triangle as it was hitting the chainstay. I guess XC skiers and spinning do not go very well together. Maybe if I listened to one of the riders in the pack who told me to bring it up a gear, I might have finished but then I couldn't say that I am so strong that I can crack crankarms. |
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