Comment on allowing cadence to drop in the attempt to get more power

This is from a discussion on cadence dropping in the search for more power as our legs get tired during intervals. Its very typical to see people go to a lower cadence thing that will help but my experience is that it doesn't. That's interesting you say that, for some reason i "feel" like i get more power at lower RPMs and pushing a higher gear, but my legs aren't really built to do that. There's some sort of psychological thing where i feel i can't pedal faster and still hold power. What's a good way to train that? I do think we all have that optimum cadence that works for power and allow us to not fatigue too quickly. The power intervals are typically at higher rpm's as would most of our races. I think we get into a competitive atmosphere we tend to fall back to what feels good, in this case fast and powerful. I do know some riders who do well with rpm's in the 80's. I'm also not convinced that they're pushing their HR as high as they could as they're relying on muscle to get them there. personally I've experimented at Cleves and I know my power is better at 95-105 than it is below 95. I do know that I have trouble holding that same power and cadence in my training. I tend to fall back to a lower cadence and grind out the power. Maybe that system works to get the rams/power I need at the time trials? Kind of like lifting weights (slow, big weights) makes you a better sprinter. You're building muscle and then applying that in a faster rep in competition.