ChainGang 17.03

[Toks]

[quote="Antloony"]Toks, its me who's in contact with him.

Ben, he does ride for Sutton I think but he feels he's wasting his time there.

[-Adam-]

Ah yes, I forgot google has all the answers.

Why don't you ask BC or the UCI why they impose gear restrictions...

[Paul H]

I tried google because as usual you cannot justify your opinions.

[-Adam-]

Haha, yes, well I'm struggling to find the motivation to continue to explain to you that there is more to being a good rider than power meters. And that I trust my own coaches, who are far more experienced in the development of young riders than your good self.

Getting back to the point, I just hope that if Jack decided to join Addiscombe, that Addiscombe looks after him. Because on recent form, that doesn't seem to be the case.

I would be interested to hear Huws opinion on gear restrictions, however I suspect he can't be bothered to wade into a debate with you, Paul. As you do seem to have all the answers.

Only this afternoon a friend of mine was talking about someone he knew, who as a result of excessive weight training from th age of 12, now has serious problems with arthritis in his wrists. He's now 18.

[Paul H]

Probably caused by bench pressing massive weights and not holding the bar properly. Ive have been on a weight lifting course and apparently most people hold the bar too high causing stress in the wrist.

The wrist is not designed for heavy stress but the legs are.

[Alex S]

I think this guy must have been doing it wrong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EDcH3jPsyA

[Dombo]

[quote="Paul H"]Ive googled this and cannot see any evidence supporting over stressing junior muscles. Gear restrictions would not stop this anyway unless juniors are banned from riding up hills as well. Im sure Rugby, Running, Rowing and various other school sports put more strain on muscles.

Gear restrictions would surely affect the performance of certain riders depending on there muscle fibre FT/ST makeup, leg length, size etc which could put them off cycle racing.

Quality means differnt things to different people and I would say things have moved on over 100 years.

[-Adam-]

There you go.

I rest my case... your honour!

Your honour, Im not finished.

[quote]Over gearing puts undue stresses on growing bones and joints, not the muscles.

[-Adam-]

Ok, alright Paul... seriously, why don't you email BC or the UCI to see their response....

[Keith]

[quote="Paul H"]Your honour, Im not finished.

[huw williams]

Sorry chaps my forum was a load of jumbled text the last few days and i've only just seen this thread

So at Adam's suggestion, I emailed a couple of other BC coaches working with junior riders to get their response. As you'd expect I got a fairly mixed bag of opinions. I couldn't find any coaches advocating zero big gear work. What the underlying trend seems to be is that no-one gives junior riders excessively high-volumes of big gear work, the thinking being that whilst big gear work is not in itself harmful in any way (quite the opposite, it's shown to have very positive adaptive effects) the cumulative effect of lots of it could be - but more in terms of fatigue than any Musculoskeletal deterioration. This of course is little different to adults using excess amounts of big gear work in their training - put a rider of any age on a strict diet of 53*11 for 14 hours a week and you're likely to see some interesting conditions

As in most examples of structured training programmes, big gear work is progressively included in juniors' sessions at harder intensities and longer durations to gradually overload and condition skeletal muscles. I've got a couple of kids I'm working with and i make sure they do controlled big gear sessions twice a week with easier sessions in between. Each big gear session is progressed slightly from the week before in terms of intensity and duration and they are instructed to monitor the stress response very carefully.

Gear restrictions at junior races are in place because BC doesn't know what kind of preparation/coaching riders will have had and don't want them jumping into a race in 53*11 if they've only been conditioned to riding around the school playground on a mountain bike in the past. This is understandable but as Paul says the science behind that thinking is archaic and the gear restrictions themselves a fairly ineffective way of controlling stress on young hips/knees/ankles. For example a 7st junior rider pedaling a bike weighing 17lbs up hill is going to experience wholly different stress factor on his hips/knees/ankles than a 10st junior on a 24lb bike in the same gear on the same hill - yet the gear restriction is the same for both riders.

[huw williams]

And as an aside to the above - who is this kid cos he sounds very promising?

[Antloony]

Thanks for clearing that up Huw. I was a little concerned at reading through some of the comments made as it was I who adjusted Jacks gears to enable him to keep up with the chain gang. You've confirmed the view I took though and that is that riding a higher gear from time to time would do him no long term damage at all.

Now obviously I'm no talent scout but when a 15 year old can keep up with the cream of the training group then he's got something going for him. I 've spoken to his parents and they're keen for him to progress and get some proper guidance.

[Paul H]

There you go.

I rest my case... your honour!