Study Controls
One of the next most important aspect of executing your research is having a way to accurately and consistently conduct the prescribed drills and record their results. This is the proverbial “before and after”; also commonly referred to as “baseline” and “performance testing”. This is so important that we researcher types typically like to be physically present for all Baseline tests, as well as final and/or intermittent performance tests.
The training that takes place between these before and after events can be conducted without this type of close oversight, provided the subjects have a clear understanding of exactly how the training is to be conducted. If all of the subjects performed the drills in different ways, they couldn”™t realistically be compared to each other. Likewise if they performed the drill in nearly the same manner, but then recorded the results differently, we would likewise have a significant problem comparing results.
Consequently, researchers must emphasize how important it is to be true to the method of the training drills as well as the “before and after” measurements. The tools and techniques we use for gathering the results must be defined and assigned clearly.
Indoors vs Outdoors
Fortunately for those of us who are enlightened as to the power and benefit of Indoor Cycling, this is one of the times where the indoor environment really shines. We can control so many extraneous factors, that we are virtually guaranteed solid repeatability in not only baselining and performance testing afterwards, but also the day to day training if it is done indoors.
When working on a bike that doesn”™t move, where there are no “imminent dangers” as there are on the road and trail, and where we can control both temperature and airflow, we have a typical “laboratory environment”. Some argue that this makes it also unrealistic, and thus brings any conclusions from the study under question. While there is merit to that argument, it can be put to rest by including outdoor baselines and performance tests along with the indoor protocols if that criticism seems to be worth addressing.
The advantages of the indoor environment doesn”™t mean that we can”™t conduct any of these experiments or trials outside, it just means we do have an ideal environment inside if and when we need it. If weather or traffic disrupt our consistency or flow in executing the drills prescribed for the study, we simply move operations inside and resume.
Muscular Endurance Baseline Test
Given the fact that we are studying muscular endurance (not muscular strength), we know that we want to have our test be one with a significant time duration. In addition, university researchers use “the point of failure” as an measurement indicator when researching Muscular Endurance, so will also incorporate this into our baseline protocol. Finally we have already defined the parameters of muscular endurance training to fall within a certain cadence range and at a heart zone of no less than zone 3. Thus we have enough details to create our specific Muscular Endurance Baseline Test Protocol.
Protocol Details:
- Subjects will be instructed to warm up for 15 to 25 minutes before the test begins
- Subjects will hold a steady pedaling cadence at an average of 75 RPM as far as possible
- Subjects will find a resistance or gear level that will bring their heart rate into the middle of their zone 3 (using Heart Zones® methodology of zone determination)
- The subject will increase their effort by 25 watts every 2 minutes and maintain the new wattage level without more than a 5 watt fluctuation
- The test continues until the subject can not maintain the current watt level without fluctuating more than 5 watts, or they feel physically unable to continue increasing wattage.
Data Collected:
- Date, time, location, and type of bike used in the test
- Subject name, age, gender and self described fitness level
- From minute 00:00 the following parameters are recorded precisely as they read on the bike console:
- Time the readings were taken (00:00, 1:00, 2:00, etc)
- Heart rate
- Power Level
- Cadence Level
This is starting to look like a real project now. In the next post we will discuss Sample size for the study, and recruiting those squealers, er… guinea pigs…. I mean volunteer subjects 🙂
Originally posted 2012-06-30 10:35:40.
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Gino,
A five watt fluctuation seems like a tight number to hold at anytime. Wattage is so closely related to cadence – which is another number difficult to hold – that it seems like your results might not be very repeatable.
Another confusion comes from whether you are using heart rate or power as your constant. ‘Protocol details C, D & E seem to incongruent as you set cadence, heart rate and starting power. Then you increase power output until the subject cannot hold +/- 5 watts.
It would seem to this aerospace researcher that for muscular endurance one would set power and end the test when heart rate got became unmanageable rather than seeing when the legs fail. For an experienced rider at a given power, heart rate can get pretty high perhaps reaching max before the legs fail.
Clearly at a constant cadence as power output goes up so to will heart rate. Since this is a muscular endurance project would you gain more insight if your test subject was tested at constant power until heart rate reached, say, mid zone 4?
This protocol is similar to what I used when doing some testing of a new HRV monitor developed to discover VT1. It just did not work out on the bike because the subjects could not hold a constant enough power. Which again is closely related to cadence.
How do you plan to deal with such vagaries?
This looks like a pretty darn decent project to run with, Gene.
It’s a good idea to take Chuck’s comments on board (ain’t that what the Scientific Method is all about??) but also to realise that there’s a limit to how you can control the *variables* when dealing with a general population outside of an ex. phys. lab ……and even then it’s not so easy.
My natural inclination is to have everything cut and dried and totally reproducible……hey, I’m a dentist so what would you expect?!?…..however *Science* doesn’t work that way.
My husband sits on an NIH grant application committee twice a year and I oftentimes get to eyeball the stuff that drifts onto his radar screen (sometimes he even <> asks my opinion) Long story short…..you have to be prepared to be wrong.
In the years we’ve been together I’ve been a subject in more preliminary studies than I can remember….
Most have gone nowhere.
Some have generated info about what doesn’t work.
A few have put my husband on a track to a Nobel Prize (I would say that, right??!?)
I thank you for putting in this effort, Gene.
Me
Thanks Chuck & Vivienne – I much appreciate the dialog!
Let me take Chuck’s points one at a time:
1. The Initial misunderstanding is that you interpreted one of my protocols as holding power and/or heart rate constant. The only constant in the test is supposed to be Cadence. One of the main objectives of the study is to determine if a specific cadence range can be a critical component to developing muscular endurance. Heart rate and power will change, as we attempt to find a point of failure or exhaustion.
2. While we will try to hold power steady (perhaps within a 10 watt range if 5 is too tight) for the length of the stage, it is merely to allow the body and mind to acclimate before we add additional stress. It was not done to act as one of the constants. Without some sort of acclimation period however, we may end up measuring how quickly someone adapts to change instead of how much power they can sustain.
3. I like your suggestion of using a constant power and measuring how long before the rider gets to a certain zone or heart rate range. The problem with that approach is one of logistics, especially for the initial test. For our first test, we will really not have any idea where to set that power – and many subjects won’t either. It will take an initial “test to fail” protocol to help define their limits.
Secondly, we want to set a baseline as quickly and conveniently as possible, otherwise just performing tests on multiple subjects can become unmanageable. So, we keep increasing the stress on the muscle until it fails to be sustainable. If we determine that failure occurs at 150 watts, and then the rider uses our prescription for improving M.E. for the duration of the study, we can then perform the same test. If at that point the watts attained before failure becomes 175, it stands to reason their muscles have become stronger.
However, at this point, I would like to do the test that you are suggesting, as a way to confirm this result. It is possible that they became more efficient aerobically through the training, and that their improvement in watts is more a function of their advances in cardiovascular fitness instead of muscular improvements. As you know, and as my partner Tom likes to emphasize, all of these systems work together, and training one in pure isolation of the other is all but impossible. It is one of the things that makes research like this “tricky”.
Nevertheless, by using TIME as the measure, we now can confirm that the muscles did not require more O2 until say 15 minutes later than the baseline test, and therefore they were able to sustain the same wattage for longer periods – a good reflection of endurance.
So thanks for the input, I think we have just improved our testing protocols!
Thanks for the clarification Gino.
Certainly these systems work together. that improvement can be measured and quantified is proof that training works. Being able to isolate results to the extent possible priceless. 😉