PowerCranks Training Diary #3 Friday, May 07, 2004 1:56:28 PM PT
by Josh Horowitz
The PowerCranks training series returns! After a
crash-induced hiatus – Josh is on his bike, regaining his form and back
in the bunch for a “test” race. Josh reports that PowerCranks have been
a useful tool in getting him back faster than expected…
The Bad News
I’ve been dreading writing this installment of my PowerCranks diary for
some time now. Ever since a bad crash in stage 1 of the Redlands
Classic (a month ago) left me with a third degree concussion,
concentrating on anything for more than a few minutes at a time has
been almost impossible. In the movies, a character gets a concussion
and stumbles around for a few minutes, dizzy and confused and that’s
about the end of it. In reality, a bad concussion means weeks of
blurred vision and poor short-term memory and months of increased
anxiety, depression and poor sleep.
That’s one nasty coco-bonk! And another good reason to wear a helmet…
Last week, my neurologist cleared me to start racing again, but in the
same breath, also warned me that it could be up to 8 months before I
feel completely normal again. I guess I should count my blessings
though. US postal rider Dave Zabriskie and Mariano Fredericks of Jelly
Belly also both went down that day and suffered injuries far worse than
mine which will keep them from racing for quite some time.
The Good News
The good news is that after over a month off the bike, I have faith
that I will be able to quickly regain my lost fitness. What gives me
that faith? PowerCranks! In fact, this is the new start that I had been
looking for. I now have the opportunity to rebuild my cycling muscles,
better and more efficiently than before. The best part is that the team
bikes have finally arrived and I have installed the PowerCranks
permanently now on the Paketa, so I can train on them every day and not
worry about taking them off for the races on the weekend.
The Paketa gets a permanent set of PowerCranks.
Back on the Bike – Week 1
The first week was tough. At first, I was pleasantly surprised that
after only about 30 seconds of jerky pedaling, I once again found the
rhythm of the PowerCranks and regained most of my previously smooth
pedal stroke. However, coming back from a fall like this is mentally
challenging. On my first ride, awful visions of crashing horribly in
every conceivable manner kept flashing before my eyes. Fortunately,
things quickly improved and after only a few days I was sitting
nervously in the back of the club ride. However, in the back is where I
stayed, as my legs just seemed weaker than ever before. In addition, I
also found myself gasping for oxygen on the climbs in a way that a Cat.
1 cyclist usually doesn’t gasp.
2 hours seemed to be the absolute limit during this first week back on
the Cranks, but the initial soreness from the very beginning never
returned. Even after over two months off the Cranks, the new muscles
still remain strong and ready to work. The reason for this (I guess) is
that these muscles have in fact, been in use all this time without my
realizing it. After only a few months of riding PowerCranks, enough
muscle memory has been created so that when I return to regular cranks,
the pedaling motion has remained. Even though the cranks are fixed, my
legs effectively don’t know this and continue to pedal as if they had
to pull across, up and around just like on the PowerCranks. Those
muscles have been operating; at least enough, so that it is not that
much of a shock upon returning to the PowerCranks. This goes a long way
towards answering the question about whether or not the techniques
learned on PowerCranks actually translate back into regular cycling.
Learning to stand takes some time, but delivers power you never knew you had.
Back To Racing
After only about two weeks, I was so excited about my progress on the
Cranks that I decided to bring them out to a weeknight practice
Criterium. Ok, partly I just wanted to show off, and partly I wanted to
be the first guy to do a Criterium on PowerCranks (although I’m
probably not), but also, I had a few recovery days coming up on my
schedule and a really hard workout on PowerCranks, would make them well
deserved. My biggest concern was the hour-long ride down to the race,
and the hour-long return trip, which would bring the total ride to over
3 hrs of hard PowerCranking.
Initially I was very nervous. It was enough that this was my first race
back and that it was a mixed field of mostly lower category racers, but
I would not only have to concentrate on staying safe, but also on
making sure I didn’t drop a crank while going through a corner. Still,
my old racing instincts quickly returned and soon I was riding fairly
comfortably in the middle of the pack.
The corners were tough. For some reason, it was very hard to hold a
good line going through a tight corner. I think on regular cranks, I
brace a lot of weight against the outside foot to stabilize my lean,
but with these, I needed to focus on holding the inside crank up, which
put more of my weight on the inside, causing me to swing just a little
bit wide. Still, in a crit like this, with a lot of amateur riders, no
one expected my to take a perfect line through every corner (I was in
disguise, not wearing my team kit), so I could get away with it.
About 10 minutes into the race I started my interval workout which was
to consist of 8, one minute, max efforts. Still not feeling the power
that I used to have, I decided to start each one with a few seconds out
of the saddle. This would not only get my speed up, but since standing
up on PowerCranks is unbelievably exhausting, it would help get my hear
rate up into the “max effort” range. I’m not sure why, but for some
reason, when standing up on PowerCranks, you just fly. Perhaps it is
because you are forced to apply power to every single inch of the pedal
stroke, but every time I stood, there would instantly be a huge gap
between the pack and me. Still, the numbers were not all that
impressive. Max wattage of 920 (not great for a sprint, but good for a
longer effort) and an average of about 440 (not great at all). What
this tells me is that I was starting off too hard, and getting tired by
the end. Not exemplary intervals at all (I would scold any of my
coaching clients if they did intervals like these), but nevertheless,
an interesting experiment.
The Newbies
Meanwhile, I have been working with two riders (one a cat 3, the other
a masters racer) who are recent PowerCranks converts, giving them
advice I have acquired over my own short tenure. I had them each set
their PowerCrank bikes up on a trainer, with instructions to do between
5 and 15 minutes on the PowerCranks, before and after every ride. Of
course, predictably, neither could contain their excitement and were
out on the road after only a few days, showing off to all their friends
and of course, later on experiencing the severe muscle pain that I was
trying to help them avoid in the first place.
I got a positive response however on my other piece of advice. I
suggested that they somehow warm their muscles up with a massage or hot
shower before they jump on their bike. Because the first few minutes of
any ride on PowerCranks can be tough because even going slow, you end
up working the muscles hard, before they are ready (especially in the
beginning because you tend to always ride the big chain ring), I think
it is important to do something before you start to get the muscles
ready. Ideally, when the next generation of PowerCranks comes out, they
will have a locking and unlocking mechanism so you can use them as
regular cranks for about 15 minutes while you get warmed up, and then
switch to the independent operation.
Regardless, they both love their new toys!
Postscript
I did my first USCF road race this past weekend and got dropped pretty
fast. Although I have been doing everything right, I must have lost a
little more fitness than I thought. Besides severe lack of fitness, the
109-degree heat and the brutally hilly course, I have a few ideas why I
only lasted about 40 miles. One is that since I had been riding my
Paketa all week, I had not properly adjusted to my new team Cannondale
and the slight change in position caused my undoing. The other is that
I may have just over done it on the PowerCranks and my legs were a bit
fatigued.
Even after several months, I am still trying to figure out the best way
to mesh the muscle building effect of the PowerCranks, with a hard
training and racing schedule. Most of my workouts are specifically
designed to stress the pulmonary and cardiovascular system rather than
the muscular system so that hard training or races can be done on
successive days. I’ve specifically adopted a high cadence for my
climbing so that muscle fatigue does not build up. However, with
PowerCranks, even at a high cadence (which I have finally managed to
master), you are doing some damage to the muscles. For now, I will
restrict myself to just one or two days a week on the PowerCranks and
only when I have plenty of time for complete recovery. In the meantime,
I will look forward to the off-season, when these things can be used
exclusively resulting in huge gains in power.
