6 Comments

1. 

   Chuck Cali on June 26, 2012 at 12:15 pm

   Cameron/Doug,

   Thanks for getting this perspective out there. Especially the relationship of time to effort. A largely missed but incredibly important fact that our riders must understand.

   I just get so excited when I can listen to industry leaders discuss ‘verbal descriptors’. It is my belief that – at the indoor rider level – what we say, when we say it and how it is said still holds the greatest value for our riders.

   I hope for some clarification on a couple of points you touch on.

   Your choice to re-establish true RPE by educating your riders in RPE seems to indicate that, at least at stages, you have given up on heart rate. Or at least for now resigned to the fact that getting enough people into heart rate monitors to use heart rate (or heart rate zones) as qualifiers is a battle you chose not to fight for now. I can certainly relate to that. Is that the case?

   My next question comes from your statement that to “make it all work one must anchor the middle” You do that through field testing for FTP or FTHR. If you have resigned not to use heart rate why do you bring up FT HR? If you are doing FT HR is it for the limited number of riders actually wearing their heart rate strap? What are the majority of riders doing that are not wearing HR monitors?

   Since the your new bike has power and you chose to test for FTP, why not just use FTP to create zones and go that way. Weight does not really come into play at this level since the field test cares not about ones weight. Indeed would you agree that weight only gets important when one wants to know how many watts to to do XXX?

   Of course I realize that this is all not so black and white. That to accomplish the field tests in the first place, some benchmark of effort must be put out there. After all, one must begin somewhere. Which, like the podcast, brings us back to the beginning, verbal descriptors. 🙂

   Thanks for taking to the time to prepare an excellent AP. I look forward to your reply.

2. 

   Cameron Chinatti on June 29, 2012 at 3:28 pm

   Hey Chuck,

   Thanks for listening! I imagine that you are a busy man these days 😉

   I’ll do my best to answer your many questions below… In short we ABSOLUTELY coach FTHR! My preference is for people to be aware of the relationship between their FTP and their FTHR, but as you know it takes time for them to learn all these languages, which for many participants have been totally skewed or are still completely foreign.

   I’ll write answers within…

   [CHUCK]Cameron/Doug,

   Thanks for getting this perspective out there. Especially the relationship of time to effort. A largely missed but incredibly important fact that our riders must understand.

   I just get so excited when I can listen to industry leaders discuss ‘verbal descriptors’. It is my belief that — at the indoor rider level — what we say, when we say it and how it is said still holds the greatest value for our riders.

   I hope for some clarification on a couple of points you touch on.

   Your choice to re-establish true RPE by educating your riders in RPE seems to indicate that, at least at stages, you have given up on heart rate. Or at least for now resigned to the fact that getting enough people into heart rate monitors to use heart rate (or heart rate zones) as qualifiers is a battle you chose not to fight for now. I can certainly relate to that. Is that the case?[CAMERON] RPE, like heart rate has been abused/misused (as you know!) but it just so happens that since everyone has access to RPE (at least I hope so!) that we start with redefining RPE. We believe that once people understand that working at an RPE of 5 for 20 minutes is actually very challenging, only then will they truly understand it’s relationship to FTHR and FTP. When we teach our threshold ride we have them capture average heart rate and average power at the same time (very easy to do on the FreeMotion bike with power console). Post ride we look at those two numbers and use them to establish BOTH heart rate and power zones. It’s pretty cool to have zones specific to each individual for both!

   [CHUCK] My next question comes from your statement that to “make it all work one must anchor the middle” You do that through field testing for FTP or FTHR. If you have resigned not to use heart rate why do you bring up FT HR? If you are doing FT HR is it for the limited number of riders actually wearing their heart rate strap? What are the majority of riders doing that are not wearing HR monitors? [CAMERON] I think I addressed most of this in the above, but to answer the later question. People that are not using HRMs are simply looking at power data, and to be frank if they don’t have an HRM, then they probably are super concerned with their power output either 😉 …It all really depends on what part of the country you’re in and the world for that matter, as to whether or not people are hip to HRMs.

   [CHUCK] Since the your new bike has power and you chose to test for FTP, why not just use FTP to create zones and go that way. Weight does not really come into play at this level since the field test cares not about ones weight. Indeed would you agree that weight only gets important when one wants to know how many watts to to do XXX? [CAMERON] We absolutely create zones with both FTP and FTHR. In fact, we help them with the math and everything… just in case 😉 You’re correct in not caring about weight. We do not even go there during our first 8 hour training. It’s way too much info! However, people always ask, “What’s good?!” in terms of wattage. At this phase in the game, we clearly steer them towards looking at their own personal trends.

   [CHUCK]Of course I realize that this is all not so black and white. That to accomplish the field tests in the first place, some benchmark of effort must be put out there. After all, one must begin somewhere. Which, like the podcast, brings us back to the beginning, verbal descriptors.

   Thanks for taking to the time to prepare an excellent AP. I look forward to your reply.[CAMERON] Very true, Chuck! It’s all about finding various ways to convey our intentions to our audience. I compare it to a physics teacher walking into a lecture hall full of 40 people; ages 5-99. Somehow that physics teacher needs to explain how the universe works to all of these people in 60 minutes or less (no pressure!). If they’re successful, people walk away happy and come back for the next lecture, if not… they fill out a nasty comment card. haha! Oh yeah, and the physics teacher makes $25.00 for his/her time :O Thanks again, Chuck! I hope your healing up nicely!!

3. 

   Doug Rusho on June 29, 2012 at 9:23 pm

   Chuck, when Cameron and I had our pre-discussion for this podcast she wanted to discuss FT HR but I suggested we leave it for another podcast, just too much info and not enough time to make it clear and understandable. So put that one on me:)

   As far as anchoring the middle for this discussion, it was simply a better way to connect the dots of our verbal descriptors/RPE. We described a beginning and the end, and by also anchoring the middle it will help students fill in the efforts in between. If we FTP test and find FTHR we then have the holy grail of objectively quantifying effort across the board.

   Of course we will always have students who don’t have HR monitors or have not FTP or FTHR tested so in order to teach fairly to everyone in class we need to speak the universal language of RPE/verbal effort descriptors. The challenge for the instructor is to tie in the students with the HR/power zones to described effort. With three subjective anchors lined up with 3 objective physiological anchor points we can teach to all!

   In my opinion the best instructors can clearly convey effort over a specific time frame. If I tell you to toe the start line with a $100,000 prize at the end but give you no other information, what is the first question you will immediately ask? “How far is the race?” you are trying to meter your effort over a distance. For indoor cycling we can’t directly do distance so it comes down to “For how long?”

   Communicating effort over time is the “Bullseye.” If we are just cheerleaders then we can’t even hit the outside ring. If we start describing effort and then quantify it by using a RPE scale we start hitting the smaller rings. If we add HR monitors/FTHR testing we get even closer to the bullseye. When we add power/FTP testing we hit dead center. Power for me is clearly the strongest tool since it is a “output effort” vs a response to an effort or, how our effort “feels”(our minds can play tricks on us when legs are a burning!).

   However, all of these tools effectively combined(even cheerleading) gives us more accuracy and repeatability in hitting the bullseye, rather than using just one.

   To address the most asked question when teaching with Power, “What is good wattage?”

   “It is not about what it is, it is about what it can become.” (from The Lorax).

4. 

   Chuck Cali on July 1, 2012 at 10:30 pm

   Cameron/Doug,

   It is clear why you two are industry leaders.

   Thank you for taking the time to clarify all my ‘pointed’ questions. You both are true professionals.

   Cameron I am busier these days but never too busy to learn more. Learning took place listening to you and Doug during the Audio Profile. I am a sponge for this stuff and what I’ve learned from all you cannot be measured. I am trying to give back.

   Since, like many of us, I have the opportunity to teach on a variety of bikes the verbal descriptors I have developed are a hybrid born of teaching on bikes with no metrics, some metrics and all metrics.

   Considering your rationalization of teaching true RPE it occurs to me that I may have been a tad short sighted on the subject. (I’m such a heart rate weeny I lost perspective) I love the $100,000 analogy.

   Thanks again and lets not forget that when it comes to Indoor Cycling 2.0 we are all in this together.

5. 

   Chuck Cali on July 2, 2012 at 12:59 pm

   Cameron/John,

   Was there a pdf that went with this AP. I understand it was a bit long and wordy but some boilerplate around the ‘true RPE’ as well as working the ‘middle’ would be helpful, at least to me.

   Why? Well I’m going to give RPE another chance thanks to Cameron and Doug. I liked their verbal descriptors so I’d like not to have to listen to the AP every time I want to reference it.

   If a pdf is possible it would be appreciated. If not I do understand.

6. 

   John on July 2, 2012 at 1:17 pm

   Chuck this was only a conversation – no printout is available.

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