Read this

[toolonglegs]

Tell me if you know what this dude is freakin talking about!.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/fea ... ermyotonia

[JV911]

Lo siento, yo no comprendo

[daacha]

Interesting article.
It seems to me the idea is a bit like the law of diminishing marginal returns. They are trying to identify the extra benefit gained by adding an extra input. However it's not simply a matter of utilising excess capacity because as the author says these athletes are at or near their physical capacity. It's not just a case of more efficiency but rather a matter of some small changes (not identified) making a significant change on output.

This is no good for me though cause i've got mountain loads of excess capacity to use up first.

daacha

[ClownBoy]

Where he is talking about tension, etc, it 'sounds' like the reason I now include pilates in my training.

One part is because your body is expending energy to assume a relaxed position. For me, part of it is tightness in my hamstrings. It caused parts of my body to have to flex and hold itself a certain way to assume a proper position. By fixing that tension in my hamstring I can more easily assume that neutral position and thus focus more energy on the cycling, etc.

The other part was re-learning how to use specific muscle groups. Like the deep abdominals that should be holding my spine and lower torso stable. They were flaccid and I have been using my higher level abdominals. Bigger muscles that use more energy AND don't do the job as well as they should.

This stuff may not be exactly what he is talkiong about but I will guarantee it is in the ballpark.

Will have a more detailed read tonight and study it if I get a chance. Looks interesting.

[DanielS]

I read it about three times this morning, each time I thought I'd missed something that was stopping me from understanding it. I still don't know what he is going on about!

ClownBoy - think you might have clarified it a bit for me.

[AllDan]

I had the same what the reaction to this article.

The writer doesn't understand how shock works or how the nervous system is structured - muscles and blood vessels have inputs from different divisions of the nervous system.

The other stuff is more or less along the lines of relaxation to improve recovery, it's all the other stuff about Coppi that is bollocks