VO2max versus technique: bicycling vs skiing

I've been working on improving my pedaling technique in bicycling, started
researching buying some devices for measuring or developing specific stroke
phases or muscle groups -- and found out that there are really smart
well-informed experts who think this is mostly a waste and unlikely to
improve my speed or endurance any more than would just getting more serious
about following a better-designed training program.

Some people have made similar claims about trying to improve techniques for
XC skiing -- but I think there's a key difference between skiing and
bicycling about VO2max.

The main argument for bicycling that normal pedaling already uses the big
obvious "natural propulsion" muscles from walking + running + climbing so
effectively, that it's straightforward for bicycling to take the central
cardio-vascular system close to its limits in delivering pressure and volume
of oxygenated blood to the muscles. So adding + developing some some
non-obvious muscle mostly just takes blood pressure away from the obvious
muscles, so not as much oxygen gets pushed thru the capillaries into them,
and they either have to operate more anaerobically or else slow down. So
achieving sustainable gains in power by this approach are not impossible,
but tricky and difficult to achieve. That's the theory, and in practice lots
of training concepts and special devices like this have been tried for
bicycling, but it's been hard to demonstrate their superior effectiveness in
carefully-designed, well-controlled studies.

XC skiing?
The obvious thought is that since bicycling uses only legs, and XC skiing
uses both arms + legs, then of course skiing must put more load on central
cardio-vascular systems than bicycling (so then trying to improve skiing
technique is going to be tricky and unlikely). But there are critical
differences:
* XC skiing does not use _all_ the big bicycling leg muscles.
* XC skiing uses muscles at higher speeds which are less effective.

Classic "diagonal" striding on flat terrain does not use the big quadriceps
muscles. And at higher speeds the hip extensors and knee flexors must be
used with very high acceleration ("plyometric") in order to match speed with
the kick grip zone on the surface of the snow. They can't deliver as much
power in this "explosive" high-acceleration+speed mode, so they cannot fully
load the Central CV system. Elite racers just give up on using their legs
for direct pushing on the flat, instead switch to pure double-poling.

Skating leg-push does not require matching speed with ground, so higher
overall forward skiing speed does not require the big leg muscles to go into
an ineffective high-acceleration+speed mode, so ski-skating speeds on gentle
terrain are clearly faster than Classic striding. But there's still a
problem with using the obvious gluteus + quadriceps + calf muscles: Because
the obvious "piston" leg-extension push roughly along the line from hip to
ankle cannot have a significant propulsive (horizontal) component of force
until the foot is way out to side from the hip -- so far out that the
upper body is rapidly falling down. So trying to get more range-of-motion
out of the obvious big extension muscles requires compromising something
else.

Uphill skating -- Skating up a steep hill seems like it should be able to
fully load the skier's Central Cardio-Vascular capacity. Since elite racers
can Skate up faster than Classic striding or herringboning or non-ski
running up the same hill -- and at least two of those other techniques are
usually thought able to achieve "true" VO2max. So you'd think this would be
the situation where the elite racers could use the obvious "piston"
leg-extension (bicycling) muscles _plus_ poling and that would put them as
close to VO2max as they would chose to go in the current race situation.
Here would be the case where the VO2max approach says there's no point in
trying to add new non-obvious muscles.

But the elite racers _do_ add more muscles for skating up a steep hill. The
land the ski roughly underneath their hip with the knee and ankle joints
pretty much in the line from the hip joint to the (roughly flat) ski. Before
the finish of the stroke, the knee joint moves strongly inside the line from
the hip to the ankle, and the ankle joint is obviously inside the line from
the knee to the ski. There's nothing like those two sideways-bending moves
in normal seated bicycling. The skiers have definitely and strongly added
non-obvious muscles to their technique (medial hip-rotation and
ankle-pronation) even in a potential VO2max limited situation. It's
certainly possible to skate up a hill without adding those -- using only
"bicycling" muscles -- funny that was my normal method two years ago.

This seems to show that skaters cannot sufficiently utilize the obvious
bicycling muscles to achieve VO2max
. . . or something else?

Ken

P.S. Ice speedskating
has a different story from bicycling. Although the same big "natural
propulsion" gluteus + quadriceps muscles are used for skating propulsion,
elite racers _also_ devote lots of attention to adding and using non-obvious
sideways-pushing muscles like the hip abductors and ankle-pronators --
landing the skate blade way underneath obviously on its outside edge -- with
many elite racers developing large muscles on the _outside_ of their upper
legs. And when a new device was introduced to engage another muscle -- the
klap-frame to use ankle-extension for propulsion -- very soon a whole bunch
of new world records were set.

Uphill running and plain cycling offer one really unique thing : resistance.
On a bike, you can decide "when", and the next moment (sub-second) you're
putting out power well above your CV capacity. Same for running, the moment
you start accelerating you put out more power than you'll be able to hold on
to, even for shorter than a dozen seconds.
If you take it to the extreme, classic striding uphill is like those tv
games where people get to run up a soaped ramp. Lots of effort, but no way
to put out any power.
With rollerski-skating, I found that as an utter newbie, I was unable to
reach heartrates that got me to breathe hard. And I'm even athmatic. My
technique didn't allow for power to be put out. Legs and bum got only tired
from the body weight, not the propulsion itself.

It seems to me good technique helps to allow power to be put down, raising
oxygen demand and ultimately : speed.
However I don't see how I could ever put as much power through my cycling
muscles on ski's. There's just my bodyweight and some lateral movement to
resist. Holding on to the handlebar, I've got constant leverage, and
especially something to push off against. Try putting out high wattage
without holding the handlebars. Or on steep hills, a narrow hand spread on
the handlebar.


"Ken Roberts" schreef in bericht
...
I've been working on improving my pedaling technique in bicycling, started
researching buying some devices for measuring or developing specific
stroke
phases or muscle groups -- and found out that there are really smart
well-informed experts who think this is mostly a waste and unlikely to
improve my speed or endurance any more than would just getting more
serious
about following a better-designed training program.

Some people have made similar claims about trying to improve techniques
for
XC skiing -- but I think there's a key difference between skiing and
bicycling about VO2max.

The main argument for bicycling that normal pedaling already uses the big
obvious "natural propulsion" muscles from walking + running + climbing so
effectively, that it's straightforward for bicycling to take the central
cardio-vascular system close to its limits in delivering pressure and
volume
of oxygenated blood to the muscles. So adding + developing some some
non-obvious muscle mostly just takes blood pressure away from the obvious
muscles, so not as much oxygen gets pushed thru the capillaries into them,
and they either have to operate more anaerobically or else slow down. So
achieving sustainable gains in power by this approach are not impossible,
but tricky and difficult to achieve. That's the theory, and in practice
lots
of training concepts and special devices like this have been tried for
bicycling, but it's been hard to demonstrate their superior effectiveness
in
carefully-designed, well-controlled studies.

XC skiing?
The obvious thought is that since bicycling uses only legs, and XC skiing
uses both arms + legs, then of course skiing must put more load on central
cardio-vascular systems than bicycling (so then trying to improve skiing
technique is going to be tricky and unlikely). But there are critical
differences:
* XC skiing does not use _all_ the big bicycling leg muscles.
* XC skiing uses muscles at higher speeds which are less effective.

Classic "diagonal" striding on flat terrain does not use the big
quadriceps
muscles. And at higher speeds the hip extensors and knee flexors must be
used with very high acceleration ("plyometric") in order to match speed
with
the kick grip zone on the surface of the snow. They can't deliver as much
power in this "explosive" high-acceleration+speed mode, so they cannot
fully
load the Central CV system. Elite racers just give up on using their legs
for direct pushing on the flat, instead switch to pure double-poling.

Skating leg-push does not require matching speed with ground, so higher
overall forward skiing speed does not require the big leg muscles to go
into
an ineffective high-acceleration+speed mode, so ski-skating speeds on
gentle
terrain are clearly faster than Classic striding. But there's still a
problem with using the obvious gluteus + quadriceps + calf muscles:
Because
the obvious "piston" leg-extension push roughly along the line from hip to
ankle cannot have a significant propulsive (horizontal) component of force
until the foot is way out to side from the hip -- so far out that the
upper body is rapidly falling down. So trying to get more range-of-motion
out of the obvious big extension muscles requires compromising something
else.

Uphill skating -- Skating up a steep hill seems like it should be able to
fully load the skier's Central Cardio-Vascular capacity. Since elite
racers
can Skate up faster than Classic striding or herringboning or non-ski
running up the same hill -- and at least two of those other techniques are
usually thought able to achieve "true" VO2max. So you'd think this would
be
the situation where the elite racers could use the obvious "piston"
leg-extension (bicycling) muscles _plus_ poling and that would put them as
close to VO2max as they would chose to go in the current race situation.
Here would be the case where the VO2max approach says there's no point in
trying to add new non-obvious muscles.

But the elite racers _do_ add more muscles for skating up a steep hill.
The
land the ski roughly underneath their hip with the knee and ankle joints
pretty much in the line from the hip joint to the (roughly flat) ski.
Before
the finish of the stroke, the knee joint moves strongly inside the line
from
the hip to the ankle, and the ankle joint is obviously inside the line
from
the knee to the ski. There's nothing like those two sideways-bending moves
in normal seated bicycling. The skiers have definitely and strongly added
non-obvious muscles to their technique (medial hip-rotation and
ankle-pronation) even in a potential VO2max limited situation. It's
certainly possible to skate up a hill without adding those -- using only
"bicycling" muscles -- funny that was my normal method two years ago.

This seems to show that skaters cannot sufficiently utilize the obvious
bicycling muscles to achieve VO2max
. . . or something else?

Ken

P.S. Ice speedskating
has a different story from bicycling. Although the same big "natural
propulsion" gluteus + quadriceps muscles are used for skating propulsion,
elite racers _also_ devote lots of attention to adding and using
non-obvious
sideways-pushing muscles like the hip abductors and ankle-pronators --
landing the skate blade way underneath obviously on its outside edge --
with
many elite racers developing large muscles on the _outside_ of their upper
legs. And when a new device was introduced to engage another muscle -- the
klap-frame to use ankle-extension for propulsion -- very soon a whole
bunch
of new world records were set.