Spinning® and Breathing

We are conditioned to believe breathing is an involuntary action and we take it all too much for granted. As well as commencing and ending our lives, breathing is the single largest component of our daily human process. We breathe an average 20,000 times a day, and how we breathe determines how healthy we are or are not.

You get your oxygen naturally from your skin, water, raw living foods and from breathing. The majority comes from breathing and incorrect instruction on how to breathe, increased preservatives, chemicals, toxins, and the combined stresses of our fast paced lifestyles all hamper our body's oxygen stores and nervous system balance. I lost two dear friends to heart attacks, one from jogging and one from tennis. The heart must have adequate oxygen lest it goes into spasms we call heart attacks. Part of warming up is to get the natural breathing reflex to expand allowing the lungs to take in extra oxygen in the smaller air sacs towards the outer portion of the lungs.

If high intensity exercise is so good for everyone, then why don't these exercisers reach 120 years routinely and without illness? Exercising with a striving mind and insufficient breath can prove anaerobic and sometimes fatal. Torn or sore muscles, stressful over-training and excess free radical production often result. In forced exertion, one should use the breath as a foundation for exertion and vary the body position so that the natural reflex occurs often enough without resistance. One exercise that affords both forced and easy breathing positions is Spinning®. http://www.spinning.com

Using a stationary bicycle to simulate level, climbing or downhill terrain, the Spinner can as one wishes, tailor the workout to a wide variety of states of anaerobic breathlessness or aerobic breathe-ability. The error most Spinners I have observed is to do more of the anaerobic then the aerobic body positions.

We can learn a little from the Chinese high handlebar upright bicycling position and are reminded that China is the world of Chi Kung or Qi Gong, a science of breathing for health and well being that may be some 2-3 thousand years old. When the body sits upright it breathes easier. The diaphragm is likened to a bicycle pump. It must rise higher in the chest so as to draw down and suck air into the lungs. The higher the diaphragm rises, the more air can be drawn in in one breath. This increased volume creates increased efficiency and we actually breathe deeper and easier. The heart works less as well.

The body position restricts, or from another perspective, directs the breathing. Looking at a top down picture of the diaphragm we see there are front, sides and back. When we bend forward we push breath into the low back and upper chest. And this is good for some. But most of the breathing volume is in the lower front and sides of the thorax. When we remain erect we allow breath to expand at and below the rib cage where much of the rib expansion and ease of breathing can be found. The error I see is when people stay too often in the forward bending position without developing the abdominal and side rib sections. Is your rib cage getting stiff near the top of your chest? The stiffer the rib cage the less the heart gets massaged during breathing. It stiffens.

Of course in our workaholic, fast paced, firstest-with-the-mostest, survival oriented lifestyles, sitting upright can seem to many as cruising or sloughing off and most certainly will not WIN THE RACE. Frankly, I think Spinning has the perfect environment for letting go of competition and accessing internal rhythms while still staying in top condition. If you want to stay competitive think of the hare and the tortoise and choose the long races where endurance and pacing are senior to strength and speed. If you must have the strength and speed, you'd better do some serious non-Spinning breathing oriented workouts to offset the natural constriction stemming from forced inhalation.

We can get more power in the forward bending position. However, a client who was in the top seven national mountain biking champion a few years ago and could dead lift 800 pounds, came to be with significantly restricted breathing. I actually got him dizzy from extra energy in one session. His biking buddies now ask him why he no longer gets winded. He just tells them he learned to breathe. That was the end of the conversation as few people really understand that they don't know how to breathe. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Straining or breath-heaving actually locks up the breathing and you develop accessory breathing muscles that restrict deepest and easiest breathing, even while sleeping. Many champion athletes exercise properly "around" the breath. The ones that do not develop exercise induced asthma and are the happy patients of steroid dispensing MDs haven't a clue about healthy breathing. These exercise induced breathing blocks lead to exercise induced asthma, chronic fatigue, heart conditions, and sometimes emphysema in later years.

Nose breathing is a good way to make sure you are not forcing the issue. Make sure you have nostrils that are open. Some habitual mouth breathers may want to keep their mouth closed with an aid called a Chin-Up Strip purchased in drug stores. The Breathe Right band-aid-type over the nose aid may also be of some use. Try each one and see how you like them Perhaps together as well.

If you want to see the possible damage you can do by over doing it, then check out health benefits of better breathing.

But if you want to increase your efficiency even though you will probably not lengthen your life you can improve power to the wheel of a bicycle by both improving pedaling efficiency and increasing muscle mass available to power the bicycle.

Basic Science

What do we mean when we say pedaling efficiency? First, a little background science. The cells in our bodies use high energy compounds to provide molecules to provide the energy for all sorts of functions. The most common high energy molecule used by the cell and the one important for our discussion is named adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The cell normally gets ATP by a process called oxidation of a molecule called glucose. This process only occurs in the cell, in the mitochondria, and, for maximum efficiency, requires that both oxygen and glucose be transported to the cell for this to occur. For our purposes, the ATP interacts with muscle contractile elements to cause muscle contraction. In this way the body converts chemical energy into mechanical energy.

One of the major differences between fast and slow twitch muscle fibers is the amount of contractile elements and the amount of mitochondria (where ATP is made), and the amount of ATP stored, ready for immediate use. Fast twitch fibers have lost of contractile elements and stored ATP. Because they have lots of contractile elements, they have little room for mitochondria, so have few of those. This allows them to respond quickly and strongly but not for very long. Slow twitch fibers have fewer contractile elements and stored ATP but many more mitochondria. Because they have lots of mitochondria they can sustain lower levels of contractile activity for very long periods of time. Whenever, we stress a muscle cell, it will respond with time by trying to increase the amount of contractile elements and mitochondria, depending upon the stresses it regularly undergoes. This is part of the training effect.

Whichever type of cell we are talking about, as soon as a cell uses some ATP for some function, it immediately senses a need to replace it. This is done most efficiently when the cell has the optimum concentration of oxygen, fuel, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water, while at the right temperature and pH. This is called aerobic energy production because it requires and uses oxygen. Maintaining these optimum conditions is called homeostasis. The purpose of blood is to deliver all of these nutrients to those cells that need it and to carry away the waste products, maintaining the homeostasis. Intermittent stressing of muscles (training) causes new blood vessels to develop in the stressed muscles until the vessels have developed to the point that such stress can be sustained, no longer being perceived as stressful. This is called aerobic training. However, if at anytime insufficient oxygen is available, despite maximum blood flow, the cell will still try to make enough ATP to meet the demand. It does so by using anaerobic production pathways. Generally, the cell makes 38 ATP's per glucose molecule aerobically and 2 ATP's per glucose anaerobically. For most types of racing anaerobic production of ATP (metabolism) must be avoided at all costs, not only because it is very inefficient at producing ATP, but the end product is lactic acid. Why this is so bad is discussed below.

Most people think it is the ability of the lungs to take in oxygen that limits our ability to perform. This is wrong. If it were true, when we reached our exercise limit we would turn blue from the lack of oxygen. I have never seen an athlete turn blue when exercising, have you? So what really limits our performance? It is not the ability to take up oxygen, it is the inability to get rid of carbon dioxide. Let me explain.

As noted above, normally lungs take in oxygen during inhalation where it is transferred to the blood which delivers it to the tissues, where it is used to "burn" glucose for energy. The waste product of this metabolism is carbon dioxide. The blood takes this waste gas and delivers it to the lungs where it is eliminated when we exhale. So, the lungs primary function is to take in oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide, keeping the concentrations of these compounds in the body constant.

Carbon dioxide and oxygen gasses behave very differently in the body. Oxygen is very insoluble in body fluid. If it were not for hemoglobin in the red cells of the blood our blood could not carry enough oxygen to the tissues to sustain life, let alone allow for heavy exercise. Carbon dioxide is very soluble in tissue fluid. In fact, even more CO2 is present than we would expect to see from the solubility alone since, at the normal pH of 7.4, CO2 combines with water to form carbonic acid (H2CO3) which then must come into balance with bicarbonate ions. In fact, there is about 20 times more CO2 in the body in the form of bicarbonate as carbonic acid. This is one of the major buffer systems the body uses in trying to maintain optimum pH. If it were not for the large store of bicarbonate in the body pH would fluctuate wildly and cells would only rarely operate at optimum efficiency. It is an amazing and finely tuned system that works extremely well as long as enough oxygen is delivered to the tissues and the pH is maintained.

Our breathing is primarily controlled by the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood, trying to maintain the arterial CO2 constant at 40 ppm (with a secondary control based on the pH of the blood). Cardiac output is controlled by the demands of the tissues for oxygen. Under normal aerobic circumstances, the consumption of one molecule of oxygen (O2) results in about 1 molecule of CO2 and the minute ventilation of the lungs is equal to the minute cardiac output. However, when the energy demands of the muscle exceeds the ability of the blood to provide oxygen to meet these demands, the muscle gets the energy it needs from metabolism that doesn't require oxygen, referred to as anaerobic metabolism. The waste product of anaerobic metabolism is an acid, lactic acid. When lactic acid is produced it does two bad things, it changes the local pH of the cell, interfering with optimum efficiency of the cells enzymes and it interacts with the bicarbonate buffer system (which tries to modulate the pH effect). When it interacts with the bicarbonate system it releases a CO2 from these bicarbonate stores. So, we get about 38 ATP per CO2 molecule under aerobic conditions and only 2 ATP per CO2 under anaerobic conditions.

Therefore, when a muscle goes anaerobic its production of energy tries to stay the same so its production of CO2 increases about 20 times. In order to keep our muscles working efficiently we must maintain a narrow intracellular pH. When a fixed acid such as lactate is present, the body must compensate by reducing the amount of volatile acids (CO2) to maintain the pH. So not only does the body have to increase breathing to just keep blood CO2 within the normal limits, it must increase even more to try to reduce it below normal. (When this is done it is referred to as a compensated metabolic acidosis.) No wonder the lungs cannot get rid of this amount of extra CO2 (when it is already working near maximum). It does not take much lactic acid production to overwhelm the bodies ability to compensate, causing the intracellular pH to change, making it impossible for the muscles to maintain the current level of performance. The physiologic feature that limits our ability to exercise is not the ability to take up oxygen from the lungs but, rather, the inability to eliminate CO2 from the lungs to compensate for the production of fixed acids.

Theoretical Maximum Efficiency

If we were to burn a sugar molecule in oxygen completely we get CO2, H2O, and energy in the form of heat. Measuring the heat produced from this reaction is the maximum amount of energy that can be extracted from this process. When the cell uses ATP to contract a muscle it is converting the potential energy of the sugar molecule into another high energy molecule (ATP) which the body can use to convert into mechanical energy. The ratio of the amount of mechanical energy produced to the total energy burned is muscle contractile efficiency. The maximum efficiency of this process is about 50%, i.e., half of the energy available in sugar is always converted into heat rather than useful work. This is the reason you sweat when you exercise, the body is trying to get rid of this heat. The mechanical energy that is produced, however, can then have two things happen to it. It can 1) be further directed to the rear wheel and leave as external work. or 2) be inefficiently applied and converted back into, and lost, as heat. The higher the percentage of the total energy expenditure that is transmitted to the wheel, the higher the pedaling efficiency. Experimentally measured energy efficiency of bicycle riders (including professional cyclists) ranges from about 16-22%, which is only about 30-40% of the theoretical maximum possible 50%. This leaves a lot of room for improvement, even amongst the professionals.

What Training Does

As soon as a body sees a stress beyond what it is used to it will begin adaptation to be better prepared to respond to similar stresses in the future. If the stress is not regularly repeated this adaptation will not eventually occur, but if the stress is regularly repeated, the body will eventually adapt. So, when we train the cells adapt to improve aerobic muscle functioning by increasing the concentration of the necessary cell proteins (including the number of mitochondria and contractile elements, meaning we get stronger and develop more endurance capability) and improving the ability of the body to provide oxygen and sugar to the cell by developing improved heart function and blood flow to the muscle (necessary for improved endurance). The sum total of these capacities when measured is called the aerobic capacity. Training improves our aerobic capacity.

Although training can increase the capacity of our muscles to do work, as mentioned above, the overall measured muscle energy efficiency can never be more than about 50%, even in trained individuals. Overall pedaling efficiencies of bicyclists are measured to be, generally, 16-22%. The primary accounting for this discrepancy is inefficiencies associated with the direction the muscle contractile force is applied to the pedal. We intuitively know how to improve this efficiency because we know it is better to pedal in circles (as shown in Figure 2) as opposed to Figure 1?

Isn't that why you spent good money on fancy (and sometime expensive) shoes and clipless pedals? But, even though you purchased and use toe clips or clipless pedals, so you can pedal in circles (as shown in Figure 2) studies have consistently shown that even professional cyclists pedal as shown in Figure 1, contributing negative torque during the recovery portion of the pedaling movement (from Bicycling Science, The MIT Press, 1995, p. 63). Doubters of PowerCranks® claims consistently point to these studies as proof that figure 1 is really the most efficient method of pedaling or the pros would be pedaling as shown in figure 2. Therefore the PowerCranks claims cannot be true. However, they neglect to show any evidence that anyone (pros included) are capable of learning to pedal as shown in Figure 2 without PowerCranks technology such that the pros are pedaling in that fashion as a matter of choice. Further, as more and more professionals learn about PowerCranks® and switch to training on PowerCranks, this argument will no longer be valid.

So, if you could pedal as shown in Figure 2 how much more power would you have? I (Frank Day) believe it will be possible for PowerCranks trained cyclists to eventually achieve overall energy efficiencies of about 40% (about 80% of the theoretical maximum, there must always be some inefficiencies). This means your power could double (Yes, double!) over what is possible training using previously available techniques. Even if this potential improvement is grossly wrong, even an improvement of only 10% would be huge. Such dramatic increases, however, will probably take several years of dedicated use. Again, experimentally measured efficiencies for even the best professional cyclists only gets to about 25%. So everyone has lots of room for improvement.

Why Is Our Pedaling So Inefficient?

About the time our brains had about got down the coordination to walk reasonably well without thinking about it our parents got us our first tricycle so we could start teaching the brain how to pedal without thinking about it. But, since our first tricycle, we have always pedaled using crank arms fixed 180° apart and, until we became serious about cycling as a sport, we were never even attached to the pedals. Despite these equipment deficiencies most of us tried to go as fast as possible, sometimes even racing our friends. Therefore, our nervous system learned that "proper" and "efficient" pedaling technique involves keeping a small amount of back pressure on the pedal during the recovery, in order to facilitate rapid application of power on the down stroke. This is the most efficient pedaling dynamic if one is not attached to the pedals! By age 7 or 8 your nervous system could pedal in this "most efficient" manner without thinking and you continued to reinforce this motion for many years. But, when you eventually "graduated" to clipless pedals, what did you do to teach your unconscious brain a new, more efficient and better, basic pedaling technique? Nothing I suspect! If it were possible to correct this poor pedaling dynamic by previously available training techniques the pros would have figured out how a long time ago, but they have not! So, from the point of view of your unconscious pedaling coordination, you are still pedaling like you did as a kid ­ your pedaling dynamic has never changed.

The technological innovation places a very strong one-way clutch between each crank arm and the crankshaft. Because of this, PowerCranks work exactly like regular cranks when pedaled in a complete circle but they don't work at all if you apply a little back-pressure on the upstroke. If either leg ever stops pedaling in a complete circle, even briefly, you get immediate negative feedback as your pedals fall out of synch. This is a simple, but very effective, negative feedback system. Negative feedback systems have been shown to be effective in changing all sorts of unconscious behavior. While isolated pedaling systems have existed in the past, mostly as research tools and recently in an exercycle (Reebok Strength Cycle) none of these can actually be used during actual training, giving enough repetitions to actually change behavior.

Why should PowerCranks help pure runners?

Our natural way of moving was designed by God to be very energy efficient. Analysis of the walking motion shows this economy comes from our rotating the hips to swing the leg forward, rather than by contracting the large hip flexor muscles. The hip flexors, although large and strong, are rarely used in most activities and, therefore, have no significant aerobic capacity. Similarly, running tries to conserve energy in the same way and these muscles never develop significant aerobic capacity in even elite athletes. Even though the runner does not need to change coordination as the cyclist the runner does need to develop the aerobic capacity of these muscles.

Unfortunately, one doesn't develop aerobic capacity in muscles by simply willing it to be so, or through short bursts of anaerobic or aerobic activity. The only way to build aerobic capacity is to push a muscles aerobic limit for extended periods of time, stressing the muscle which naturally builds more capillaries for improved oxygen delivery, to reduce future stresses. PowerCranks forces these stresses to occur which will develop the aerobic capacity of the muscles and allow increased use of these muscles while running.

Once the hip flexors have increased capability they can be used during races to increase leg turnover rate and stride length, the only two variables involved in determining running speed. Muscles working at a lower percentage of maximum capability have improved control, increasing agility.

Do PowerCranks help "burst activity sports" athletes like football players?

The prime hip flexor (the iliopsoas) is primarily an anaerobic muscle. This means it has little capillary blood flow and when stressed it develops an oxygen debt that must be paid after use. Until this is paid, subsequent exertions must be less strenuous. If the potential blood flow to the muscle can be increased then this debt can be paid more quickly, allowing quicker recovery between needs.

PowerCranks, when regularly used for periods greater than 30 minutes, will provide the appropriate stimulus for the development of these capillaries and additional mitochondrial development. Consider this comment from a triathlete after only one month of use.

"... an interesting note: I play hockey and I like to cross country ski competitively. Since using the cranks I have felt much more agile on my skates and much more coordinated on my skies. These benefits are so tremendous I really can't describe. These improvements are very noticeable and very significant. Improving my hockey and skiing alone has made the investment worthwhile."

Unfortunately, you still have to work hard to see this improvement

The second key to PowerCranks success is the fact they can be mounted on your primary training bicycle and used every day. Regular exercise for prolonged periods is the key to aerobic muscle conditioning. Repetition is the key to training unconscious coordination. (How many good musicians do you know who practice a few minutes once a week or so?) When PowerCranks are on your primary training bicycle, while you are improving your unconscious nervous system coordination you are also improving your hip flexor muscular strength and aerobic capacity. Without repeated stress over time, any pedaling efficiency improvement will not be able to be maintained for long races. (How long did it take you to get your quads up to speed?) But, eventually you will be able to pedal as shown in Figure 2 for very long periods, sustaining the huge speed increases that come naturally from more of your energy expenditure being delivered to the wheel. It is the failure to have daily long-term repetition of the proper pedaling motion that results in the failure of other training methods to effect this change. Therefore: We have solved this problem!

Summary

When using PowerCranks you cannot ride at all unless you pedal properly, that is, keeping positive force on the pedal all of the time. When you purchase a pair of PowerCranks you are purchasing much more than a pair of bicycle cranks, you are purchasing the ability to take a hard nosed cycling coach with you every time you ride your bicycle. Therefore, with enough practice, PowerCranks will eventually retrain your nerves to fire in the proper order unconsciously and turn your sleeping hip flexors into major aerobic muscles. So now, you can learn proper pedaling technique and condition the major hip flexors while doing your normal daily training ride - as long as you are riding with PowerCranks

From Mike:
More slow twitch muscles is most often better because they store more ATP - energy - for longer term expenditure (conditioning). If you ride very upright, go at a medium pace, and do specific stretches and exercises to offset the damage from all that you can have the best of BOTH worlds. Conditioning AND longevity.

How good is YOUR breathing?

Recommended Program to offset damage of gasping and breath heaving.