9-10:15

Foot Position and Pedaling Mechanics (M. Hull)

The Seminar kicked off in contraversial fashion. A near academic riot after five minutes. Maury Hull is a well respected and Shimano funded intellectual whose 35 years of continual research into the foot/pedal/knee injury relationship - including mechanical experimentation on cadaver knee joints - has resulted in him concluding the following:

1. 10-20 degree of valgus (tilting up the outside of the foot) foot tilt will reduce outward forces of the foot, twisting at the knee.

2. 10-20 degrees of valgus foot tilt will reduce patella femoral pain, ITB pain syndrome and increase medial quad recruitment and stability!

3. Float in a pedal is unnecessary and does not prevent injry.

As you read this tip the outside of your foot up by about one inch and pretend to pedal (make sure you are alone). How does that feel? If Maury is right then the rest of the symposium is wrong and we should all go home. The picture below left shows our old friend Paul Swift asking Wayne Stetina (Shimano USA) if Shimano is going to add 10 degrees of valgus stack to all their road shoes? It went downhill from there.

10.30

105 Years of Cycling - Lessons from The Tour - C Earnest

A wonderfully funny an entertaining look at how bike and athlete development has shadowed the chronology of the Tour. We took away little but laughed alot:

1. Modelling technology has indicated that the first mountain stage winner in 1906 produced about 390 watts during the 10 climb

2. That power outputs changed little over 80 years until Lance came along and then jumped by about 15%

3. The first heart-rate monitor fo the bike was produced in the late 40's and weighed 40 kg.

4. Studies higher cadence studies on Banesto in the 90's are more efficeint in part due to less femoral artery impingement when the hip is in flexion. This is only a theory at the moment. But does substantiate our own measurement of every client's hip-flexion range.

1.00pm

The Cyclist's Knee - Andy Pruitt

Aside from Pruitt's exclusive design consultant status to Specialized Bicycles on its Body Geometry fit programme, the lecture really was a thorough endorsement of CycleFit practice and methodology. Essentially Pruitt disagreed with every word and statement from Maury Hull's morning class. Like Us Pruitt believes that the knee is the 'victim' in the middle of the closed biomechanical chain between the foot and the hip.

1. Proper bike fitting is essential to prevent injury and aid performance. You cannot just treat the symptom (i.e the injury) - the cause is most often improper calibration between the bicycle and the athlete. We agree

2. Knee injury/pain cannot be considered without stabilising the action of the foot and pedal interface. Issues may well also be deferred down from the hip/pelvis. We agree.

3. Footbeds and foot canting are recommended to aid performance, comfort and power for most athletes. We agree

4. Athlete health reqiures a holistic approach - flexibility, strength and conditioning, alignment, cycle-fitting. We agree.

Glut recruitment will have an affect on knee stability. We agree.

2:30-3:45

Myth and Science in Cycling: Crank Length and Pedaling Technique (J. Martin)

Martin said that he would irritate and it seemed that he did. We drifted in and out here so this is a patch summary. At the outset it seemed that his research and sample protocols were not defined enough for us to change our fundamental belief that several variables will influence the choice of crank length - the two physical ones being: 1. femur length and 2. hip-flexion range. Anyway Martin seemed to assert the following:

1. Crank length is relatively unimportant when it comes to power production or fatigue.

2. That seems to be it. Ho hum.

5:30-6:30

Specialized Presentation - BG Fit

"The only complete bicycle fit system....." You have to admire their cheek launching that at Serotta's International Science Institute annual symposium with that tag-line don't you? Jules even suggested that Scott Holz copied his crutches (see pic left). Actually Scott is a very nice man - previous to Specialized was a respected and talented Serotta Advanced fitter. Now we are presuming he is lost in M.A.S.H - or Meaningless Acronym Specialized Hell. Their presentation and polish is excellent and Scott is a talented teacher and fitter. For the rest we will have to see? We have always said that fitting is not a gimmick and only works if it is the epicentre of everything. Specialized? Gimmicks? Never.

Tuesday 29th - Day 2

7am–5pm

Dynamic Fitting (T. Carver)

We were pretty interested to see this one - Todd Carver worked last year for Pruitt at The Boulder Institute and left this year to help develop the Retul system.
Dynamic fitting essentially involves recording heart-rate v's power before making the changes to the position and then taking heart-rate v's power again. A reasonibly good theory that should yield valuable objective results. Except there is too much margin for error - as in this case when Todd Carver's subject's power:heartrate actually decreased after the changes! But that does not mean the changes were poor. This approach will almost always fail to take into account: hydration, temperature, heart-rate drift, lactic-acid levels, nutrition and energy, body adaptation over time...etc. We are working on our own model to try and take account of some of these variables. As for Retul - the jury is out for us - a faffy bit of kit in exchange for some stick drawings and questionable data? As a bit of sizzle for entertainment it does have some benefit. As a serious research and diagnostic tool we have yet to be convinced? We would want dynamic analysis on both legs to contemplte using the system at CycleFit.

9:30-10:30

The Power of Personality: Leverage your personality to connect with others 

Not relevant for British people.

Our old mate 'Swifty' takes on the whole room like a cross between The Great Santini and Norman Mailor. His inimitable style hides a huge intellect for the fitting subject. He invented wedges and knows more than anyone alive the practical application of foot positioning and stability. He was ably assisted by his wife-to-be and fellow footist intellectual - Kit Vogel. Hats off to the brave man down the front who persistently challenged Paul on the veracity of his theories - personally we would rather come between an angry rhino and its wounded offspring. Massively practical and refreshing stuff and wonderful counter-point to some of the more 'abstract' intellectuals. Swifty One : the room Nil.

2:45-4

A Bike Geometry Esperanto (D. Empfield)

Hugely funny and entertaining. Dan draws our attention to the fact that it is a minefield to compare bikes of rival manufactuers with each other as they all measure in different ways. He has devoted considerable time and skill to developing his own sizing esperanto. Look at this page on the Slowtwitch site for more information ..more

Wednesday, 1/30/08

8 - 9:15am

Pelvic Motion and Saddle Pressure during Seated Cycling (D. Thelen/H. Ploeg)

A thorough and in depth piece of research onto how we sit and move on the saddle. It seems that we don't actually sit on the sit-bones at all but more on the ram-shaped base of the pelvic cradle. And because of the shape of women's pelvis (s) they suffer hugely more when they rotate forwards onto the drops or tri-bars. This was a very useful lecture - we will follow this blog up with a more in depth pice of analysis on this topic. Very relevant to many riders.

10:45-11:45

Clincal Presentation

Low Back Pain in cyclists: from static to dynamic

(J. Dicharry)

This is another excellent practical class that we want to feature in more detail. Jay is a fitter/biomechanist and Clinical Director at University of Virginia Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

2:30-3:30

Future Directions (R. Browning)

3:45-5:00

Wrap-Up Discussion