Posted by Frank Day (63.201.228.13) on January 20, 2004 at 09:30:20:
In Reply to: Re: It is my impression ...and I have to back this up posted by Juerg on January 20, 2004 at 08:24:28:
A couple of observations to add to the mix.
90% of all new PC users can only ride them 10-15 minutes first time. A few can go an hour, even a couple have gone 2 hours first time (not pedaling normally or constantly but not having to stop). One thing most of these "freaks" seem to have in common is a strong XC skiing background, so I believe their hip flexors have better capabilities than most from XC skiing.
Second, when I was gathering my initial data I had several people out training with the cranks and I would bring them in once a month or so and do a Conconi ramped power test on them. I rememeber one kid in particular. After about 3 months we were doing the test and he was doing great, running about 20 beats lower than he did on the initial test for the same wattage. I was thinking "Wow, we are really going to see some real improvement here" when suddenly he just quit. He couldn't do another pedal stroke even though his HR was about 40 below his max. Clearly, we had toasted his hip flexors and if you can't get them over the top you can't pedal. No cheating allowed.
So, it would appear that until one has adapted that HR and ability or effort are disconnected. One shouldn't put much faith in looking at HR or even lactate levels as indicators of effort until one can ride these things pretty normally.
Your comments on winter triathletes are interesting. Last season I got Ben Sonntag on the PC's. I recently had some feedback from him because I had asked him about any improvements in his XC skiing ability. He mentioned several improvements he and his brother (a pure XC skiier, who is also on them) had seen. He didn't mention this cycling stuff but it may be because I didn't ask the right question.
Frank