Originally Posted by
DnvrFox
Thanks
One can read article after article from MD's, etc., some saying "research shows . . . " yet I have not been able to easily find that research. My guess is that the "high cadence/low injury to the knees" is not a research-based conclusion, but an anecdotal conclusion, which does not make it wrong. I would just like to see some actual studies/research posted somewhere.
Here is an interesting quote from the article cited by Biker395
"Research has consistently demonstrated that cycling at 40 to 60 rpm generates the lowest oxygen consumption for a given wattage. Pedaling at too high a cadence overloads the cardiovascular system's ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles. The most obvious symptom of this is ventilatory distress."
OK, once again, I did not find the "research" - but I haven't spent several hours looking, either.
Very thoughtful post.
I've been doing in depth research for about 20 minutes, ie asking google if high cadence is really easier on the knees. So far, it's one of those "settled science" issues that everyone just assumes to be true. I've not seen any hard data yet.
I may take the easy way out and shoot my physical therapist an email asking for the hard data. Maybe he'll know it. Maybe if he doesn't know it, he'll admit it.
I remember reading an article about "we must all drink 64 oz of water a day". Someone actually did a doctoral thesis trying to find the data. It just wasn't there. The "data" was just pulled out of the air.
But the topic interests me, so I'll see if I can track down the hard data.