Assaf Farran
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Scott,
It seems everything is relative (no pun indented. Well… maybe a little bit).
I wasn’t trying to sprint when initially trying the right configuration for ME.
I had indeed seen your video beforehand, and while I noted the captions ‘note how Scott can speak easily and is not limited by breathing…’, I did struggle balancing this with ‘go hard’ which was the other directive for the workout. I most certainly did run out of breath.
Someone looking at me from the side, would have probably thought I’m not moving particularly fast, but it was still too fast for me (considering weight/slope/capacity). Relativity 😉
The upside of this meandering experiment is that I’m learning to have better self-awareness and developing my intuitions about not only effort and intensities but also about recovery – going too hard has really wore me out in ways that made it clear I have to very patient with recovery (I’m 49 and don’t have a long athletic history).
It also helped drive home just how hard it is to monitor yourself and how much I could benefit from having a coach. I hope to act on this very soon and with some luck maybe even get to work with you ?
As for the Physics discussion, first just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, when I say stair master I mean an escalator type machine, not the one where your feet stay on the same two ‘steps’.
If indeed there was a misunderstanding about the type of machine used, then the following is not relevant.
But if we are both talking about escalators, then given such a machine, I believe that at the scale we’re talking about (mechanical forces) the principal that governs is the Galilean relativity principal (aka Galilean invariance) which states that:
… inertial frames exist, and that the same laws of physics apply in all inertial frames of reference, regardless of one frame’s straight-line, constant-speed motion relative to another.
Another way of putting it is that all inertial frames are created equal. We can say whether one inertial frame is in motion or at rest relative to another, but there is no privileged “rest frame”.
There is no experiment that comes out any different in laboratories in different inertial frames, so there is no experiment that could tell us which inertial frame is really, truly at rest.
This includes the force of gravity, which is why for example if you were to drop a ball from the same height, it would take the exact same time to hit the floor whether you do this on the surface of the earth, or inside an elevator rushing down (assuming constant-speed), or an elevator rushing up.
A useful way to frame the escalator scenario, is to imagine a static normal staircase (walls, ceiling and all) enclosed inside a giant elevator.
The elevator is descending and a person is climbing the staircase inside it.
Not only are the mechanical forces involved the same as if the elevator was at “rest” on the ground, but (according to the principal above), you cannot even design an experiment that could tell the two scenarios apart.
So, going back to our escalator, as long as you are not interacting with something outside the inertial frame (such as holding onto the handrails) there is no mechanical difference with the staircase in the elevator scenario, or with a staircase on the ground.
The escalator stair you are pushing off is indeed moving ‘down’ relative to the room the machine is in, but it is not moving at all relative to you and so the effort you need to raise your leg to the next step above is the same as if it was still.
I am not a physicist by any means, but that is how I understand it.
In any case, given that mountains do not include escalators (thank god) we can treat the distinction as anecdotal rather than meaningful.
Whatever gets the job done 😉
Thank you kindly for your attention
Asi
Scott,
It seems that everything is relative (no pun indented. Well… maybe a little bit).
I certainly wasn’t trying to sprint when initially trying the right configuration for ME. I had indeed seen your video before hand, and while I noted the captions ‘Scott can speak easily and is not limited by breathing…’, I did get lost for a good while trying to accommodate this together with ‘go hard’ which was the other directive for the workout. I most certainly did run out of breath.
Someone watching me from the side would have probably thought I’m not moving particularly fast, but it was still too fast for me (considering weight/slope/capacity).
The upside of this meandering experimentation is that I’m learning to have better self-awareness and developing my intuitions about not only effort and intensities but also about recovery – going too hard has really wore me out in ways that made it clear I have to very patient with recovery (I’m 49 and don’t have a long athletic history). It is also helping to drive home the fact that I would benefit a lot from having a coach. I intend to act on that very soon, Hopefully even with you.
As for the Physics discussion, first just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, when I say stair master, I mean an escalator type machine, not the one where your feet stay on the same two ‘steps’.
If indeed there was a misunderstanding about the type of machine used, then the following is not relevant.
However, if we were both talking about escalators, then given such a machine, I believe that in the scale we’re talking about (mechanical forces) the principal that governs is the Galilean relativity principal (aka Galilean invariance) which states that inertial frames exist, and that the same laws of physics apply in all inertial frames of reference, regardless of one frame’s straight-line, constant-speed motion relative to another.
Another way of putting it is that all inertial frames are created equal. We can say whether one inertial frame is in motion or at rest relative to another, but there is no privileged “rest frame.”
There is no experiment that comes out any different in laboratories in different inertial frames, so there is no experiment that could tell us which inertial frame is really, truly at “rest”.
This includes the force of gravity, which is why for example if you were to drop a ball from the same height, it would take the exact same time to hit the floor if you are on the surface of the earth, or inside an elevator rushing down (assuming constant-speed), or an elevator rushing up.
A useful way to look at the stair problem, is to imagine a real staircase (walls and ceiling and all) enclosed in a giant elevator.
The elevator is descending and a person is climbing the staircase inside it.
Like with the ball, not only are the mechanical forces involved the same as if the elevator was at rest on the ground, but (according to the principal above), you cannot even design an experiment that could tell the two apart.
So, going back to the escalator, as long as you are not interacting with something outside the inertial frame (such as holding onto the handrails), then we’re dealing the exact same forces as with the staircase in the elevator scenario – or with a staircase on the ground.
The escalator stair you are pushing off is indeed moving ‘down’ relative to the room the machine is in, but it is not moving at all relative to you and so the effort you need to raise your leg to the next step above is the same as if it was “still”.
I am not a physicist by any means, but that is how I understand it.
In any case, given that mountains do not include escalators (thank god), we can treat the distinction as anecdotal rather than meaningful.
Whatever gets the job done …
Thank you kindly
Scott,
It seems everything is relative (no pun indented. Well… maybe a little bit).
I wasn’t trying to sprint when initially trying the right configuration for ME.
I had indeed seen your video beforehand, and while I noted the captions ‘note how Scott can speak easily and is not limited by breathing…’, I did struggle balancing this with ‘go hard’ which was the other directive for the workout. I most certainly did run out of breath.
Someone looking at me from the side, would have probably thought I’m not moving particularly fast, but it was still too fast for me (considering weight/slope/capacity). Relativity 😉
The upside of this meandering experiment is that I’m learning to have better self-awareness and developing my intuitions about not only effort and intensities but also about recovery – going too hard has really wore me out in ways that made it clear I have to very patient with recovery (I’m 49 and don’t have a long athletic history).
It also helped drive home just how hard it is to monitor yourself and how much I could benefit from having a coach. I hope to act on this very soon and with some luck maybe even get to work with you ?
As for the Physics discussion, first just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, when I say stair master I mean an escalator type machine, not the one where your feet stay on the same two ‘steps’.
If indeed there was a misunderstanding about the type of machine used, then the following is not relevant.
But if we are both talking about escalators, then given such a machine, I believe that at the scale we’re talking about (mechanical forces) the principal that governs is the Galilean relativity principal (aka Galilean invariance) which states that:
… inertial frames exist, and that the same laws of physics apply in all inertial frames of reference, regardless of one frame’s straight-line, constant-speed motion relative to another.
Another way of putting it is that all inertial frames are created equal. We can say whether one inertial frame is in motion or at rest relative to another, but there is no privileged “rest frame”.
There is no experiment that comes out any different in laboratories in different inertial frames, so there is no experiment that could tell us which inertial frame is really, truly at rest.
This includes the force of gravity, which is why for example if you were to drop a ball from the same height, it would take the exact same time to hit the floor whether you do this on the surface of the earth, or inside an elevator rushing down (assuming constant-speed), or an elevator rushing up.
A useful way to frame the escalator scenario, is to imagine a static normal staircase (walls, ceiling and all) enclosed inside a giant elevator.
The elevator is descending and a person is climbing the staircase inside it.
Not only are the mechanical forces involved the same as if the elevator was at “rest” on the ground, but (according to the principal above), you cannot even design an experiment that could tell the two scenarios apart.
So, going back to our escalator, as long as you are not interacting with something outside the inertial frame (such as holding onto the handrails) there is no mechanical difference with the staircase in the elevator scenario, or with a staircase on the ground.
The escalator stair you are pushing off is indeed moving ‘down’ relative to the room the machine is in, but it is not moving at all relative to you and so the effort you need to raise your leg to the next step above is the same as if it was still.
I am not a physicist by any means, but that is how I understand it.
In any case, given that mountains do not include escalators (thank god) we can treat the distinction as anecdotal rather than meaningful.
Whatever gets the job done 😉
Thank you kindly for your attention
Asi
Here’s an update on my experience over the past couple of weeks:
I think I’ve made good progress with figuring out the right configuration for these workouts.
The key for me was to change my focus from my legs (are they burning yet?) to the goal of trying to cover the maximum vert with a heavy weight at a pace I can sustain for at least 40 mins.
What threw me off initially was the expectation that my legs should be ‘limiting my speed’ quite literally and quickly, but it turned out that even when carrying almost 50% of my BW, I ran of of breath long before I ran out of legs. This was also because looking for the burn, I was going way too fast for what I’d be able to sustain. I was redlining.
Once the focus became ‘max vert with really heavy pack’ I started to play around with weight/speed combinations and ended up with a 35% BW backpack + 1 KG ankle weights (quite surprising how much of a difference the ankle weights make!) and then picking a speed I could sustain for the first 10 mins and once these minutes were up … just keep going until I really couldn’t anymore and then reduce the speed but keep going. (videos of climbers with huge bags hauling sleds up Denali seems to be a perfect entertainment for these workouts. I dislike the gym but at least the stair master has a screen with youtube ;-))
Occasionally, I’ve had to stop once to recover my breath about 25 or 30 minutes in, but only very briefly – under a minute.
I’ve yet to go over 40 minutes and may need some more tuning of the speed to keep energy for lasting longer. I guess it takes time to learn how to ‘go as hard as you can for x’ when there are many variables.
I can see (slow) progress in these sessions, but I feel like a lot of progress has happened in the long (3 or 4 hour) weighted and non-weighted hikes as a result of these higher intensity ME sessions.
Scott:
First of all, thank you for the guidance.
Secondly regarding the stair master, I know this is an old discussion with many voices but I do believe that physics say there is no material difference between climbing static or moving stairs. As long as your frame of reference is static, the stairs on the machine do not fall away from you anymore than the earth is rotating away from you. Its the same effect as running inside a moving train. Same mechanical effort regardless of which direction you run
That said, everything changes once you put your hands on the bars or hold on to anything that is not moving with the stairs. In this case, you do start to see differences in the force required. Same would apply to a treadmill etc.
Just:
I also found it quite surprising to note the impact taking on weight has on my sustainable pace. Comparing my weighted and non-weighted hikes (same hill, same duration) I can see that for the same target HR (AeT), taking on 15% BW means I have to slow down by about 20-25% (depends on duration – min 2hrs).
The fact there is an impact seems totally reasonable but what surprised me was just how much slower I have to go – as well as the difference between weight on the back and weight on the feet. I’m using 1 kg ankle weights in training (As a proxy for heavy boot + crampon) and it makes quite a notable difference. A lot more than an extra 2kg in the backpack.
Finally, having done almost all of my work fasted (my schedule favors early morning sessions) I found that the ME workouts (as well as the longer weighted hikes) really do need you to be fueled up properly if you want to make the most out of it. Otherwise I both run out juice early (in a very literal sense) and take a lot longer to recover. The first time I did this fasted I had to bail on all the rest of the proper work for the rest of that week and just do recovery sessions.
I’ll add some more notes here when/if I have any new insights or relevant experiences.
Scott, thank you for the response and the tips.
It may indeed be that I’ve been running on an incorrect expectation of what this should feel like in the legs (compared to what I know really hard leg work feels like in the gym).
To clarify a bit further, I did not persist with a 50% of bw load as that felt too heavy on shoulders and neck, so more like 35% of bw + ankle weights.
I also wasn’t paying any attention to the HR – until the moment I realized I am really struggling to intuitively find the ‘highest pace I can sustain’ and wanted to have some non-subjective reference to ‘how hard I’m going’ that I can use to compare the different attempts to find the recipe.
In any case, I take your points and will try to approach the next ME sessions with a goal of just seeing how much vertical I can cover with this weight at a pace I can hold for the duration – without such a focus on ‘how are my legs feeling’ – and then pay attention to progression between sessions as you suggest.
I’ll try and update this thread in a week or two with my experience just in case it ends up being useful to someone else.
Thanks again ! Much appreciated
