Tangent Trainer

 
The manufacturers have yet to establish any hard data on the actual power gains you can get by training these muscles, but their initial tests show that up to 8 to 10%, maybe even 20%, may be possible. Not to be sniffed at. Indeed in the olden days we were all taught to pedal in circles, in search of that fabled ‘souplesse’ that the pros spin along with. Experienced riders who start young have this in abundance thanks to years of muscle memory adaptation, whilst the rest of us may only ever experience it for brief periods during our cycling ‘careers’, traditionally developed with a training diet of high mileage and the prudent use of a fixed wheel.
 
Tangent reckon they can provide an alternative to all that and that using this device at least twice a week for 15 to 20 minutes as a minimum, to ‘encourage the forced muscle memory and technique to become natural’ is a good start. They go on to say ‘When first using the Tangent Trainers, start slowly concentrating on correct technique with a comfortable resistance on the turbo trainer.’ Well as this is a review and we need to test them out, I completely ignored their advice and jumped straight into an hour of hard labour over a section of Vuelta stage on the Bkool trainer. Having already built up a decent amount of data on the Bkool online turbo trainer system, it would allow me to compare the effects of the Tangent Trainer against my ‘normal’ training.
 
Tangent stress that the pedal trainers are designed purely for use as a training aid on a turbo trainer and are not intended for use on the road.
 

 
Having thought about it we had a few aims to establish straight away with this device:
1) which muscles is it actually working?
2) will use really make training harder on the turbo?
3) will Tangent training result in an increase in overall power with regular use?
 
Although this is the Preview and not the full Review, we can deal with (1) and (2) straightaway, after only a couple of trial sessions.
 
So 1) which muscles is it working? DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness) is something you may have come across, usually after weight training. It’s muscle pain after the shock of subjecting less well adapted muscles to something new. After using the Tangent Trainer it was obvious, thanks to DOMS, that the main muscle group trained by Tangent was the hamstring muscles; they ached the next day and were even worse two days later. Now the hamstrings are not small muscles and if you can bring them more into play during your pedal stroke, alongside your quads and glutes, then that has to be beneficial. The other thing you notice and can genuinely feel is the hamstrings involvement in the downstroke, which is enhanced through lack of ability to press down into the pedal normally.
 
As for 2) will it make training harder on the turbo? Well, I have used two comparative turbo sessions (30 uphill kilometers of a Vuelta stage) to show the effect it has on your ability to pedal. The first graph shows the last time I did this session and the second shows what happened to my power, speed and cadence when employing the Tangent Trainer.
 

 

 
If you must you can click on the images twice to get a larger view but in summary:
– Overall time to complete the uphill 15.2 miles was 45 minutes in the first session but rose to 55 minutes in the Tangent session, as I simply couldn’t go as fast.
– Average cadence dropped from 88 to 84 rpm, showing I was unable to spin as quickly.
– Average heart rate dropped from 168 to 150 bpm, as I wasn’t working as hard.
– Average power output fell from 259.7 to 188.4 watts, as I couldn’t push down as much as normal.
– Speed fell from 20 to 16.6 mph, as a result of all this.
 
So on the face of it I was not working as hard, but one thing that is not recorded here is perceived effort. The Tangent Trainer makes the workout feel a lot harder as it lasts longer, you have to concentrate more, working on technique, and have to employ your core musculature more than normally in support of getting the pedals round. With the Tangent Trainer fitted you cannot push down; it is impossible, as all you achieve is extending the length of your crank and not generating any additional force. To gain power and speed you have to concentrate on spinning as you would riding a fixed wheel, ‘pulling back’ with your feet in order to be smooth. This explains the fall in heart rate despite feeling like I am working harder; you simply cannot generate more power but are still working hard at being smooth by perfecting an unfamiliar technique.
 
Continued overleaf…
 
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