Powercranks, Anyone?

[M_A_Martin]

I wandered into my favorite bike store today and happened upon a pair of powercranks. I took a little spin on them just to see what they were all about. (Recovering knee plus powercranks were a bad BAD idea...oops)

http://powercranks.com/hometext.html

It seemed to be extremely similar to one legged pedalling...only doing it with both legs at once. I'm a pat my head and rub my belly grade school dropout, so I wasn't so successful on them.

Anyone out there in Serotta land train with those things? What do you think of them?

[dgauthier]

I haven't used these, but they sound fascinating.

Have you ever heard of those "break-away" golf clubs that force a golfer to develop a smooth swing? The clubs have a spring loaded hinge in the shaft that stays rigid under light flexing loads. If a golfer has a rough swing, the rigidity limit of the hinge is exceeded, and the club folds in half. A smooth swing won't exceed the limit of the hinge, and the club stays intact, allowing the golfer to hit the ball.

These cranks sound like that. How do they work? From what I could glean from the web site, it appears that the cranks will only stay rigid and opposed only if one applies very similar forces to both cranks. If one leg applies much more force than the other, the cranks will break free from each other and spin independently. Is that basically it?

[M_A_Martin]

I couldn't speak to whether or not if you kept equal force on them they would stay like "normal" cranks...

I do know that if you don't have some sort of system both of your feet wind up at the bottom of the pedal stroke at the same time. Definately not smooth. :rolleyes:

They did a really good marketing job on the web site. Sound fascinating. Are frustrating. Funny.

[Marco]

If you look on the old phorum archives there is a discussion of Power Cranks. BigMac seems to be the biggest user and most knowledgable about them.

[D-Squared]

I've been interested in them for some time but haven't run into a pair to test yet. From what I've seen on their site it is very similar to one-legged drills and if you aren't keeping torque on the crank the clutches will disengage and the pedal will drop to the bottom. The concept being that you are forcing more muscles to get into the act of rotating the cranks around. They also say it will have cross over benefits for running as well. It would certainly help strengthen the hamstrings which I seem to be having problems with or so says my PT.

I'd go back and give them another try. The website says it takes a while to get to where you can ride with them. I think they have a 60-day trial period but I'm don't want to order them without first trying them.

D2

[Too Tall]

You are right on the money. It IS just like doing one legged drills. (long pause). So why would you do hours and hours of one legged drills when you get ALL the neurologic benefit from just a few drills twice a week? Call me nuts.

A teammate of mine has these and says it is hard to go back to his "normal" bike. Transition takes a ride or two.

============

100% Bananna free.

[Kevin]

Ginger,

Pez Cycling News did a detailed review of the Power Cranks. Here is the link:

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=1171

Kevin

[mef]

I purchased these about a month ago and feel they have already made a difference in my muscular endurance. They were not that difficult to get used to ( I did a one hour spin on my trainer the first time I used them) and they will surely improve your pedal stroke. I can really feel that I'm using my hip flexors correctly for the first time. I've also noticed that these muscles have increased slightly in size... even in this short period of time. It's much easier to turn these cranks using bigger gears so you should be careful and go easy for awhile and not hurt your knees. I will perform my first LTH test of the season next week so I should be able track my progress using my power meter. I'm confident they will be an excellent long-term training tool.

[Drewski711]

I bought a pair of powercranks for my bike about 2 months ago and finally got them installed about 1 month ago. So far, they seem to be helping. I've been using them on my bike on the trainer so far. If you are looking at building up Lance type cadence, it might be tough as when you first use them you tend to get in a big gear and grind it out. I have a 105 triple on my bike and the big cog is much easier than the little cog. I agree about the "new muscles". My hip flexors are already much stronger...