Pedaling form/technique and postureNow that we’ve got you really sitting on your saddle, and resting on a bar that’s positioned well, let’s turn our attention to pushing those pedals. Notice we don’t say pulling! Riders often ask if they are pulling up properly on the pedals, and our recommendation is to forget about it, unless you’re in an all-out standing sprint! If we think of the pedal stroke as a clock face - your foot furthest forward at 3:00, bottom at 6:00, back at 9:00, and top at 12:00 - your attention and energy is best directed from 11:30 to 3:30, that top-front quadrant. Each leg is doing the biggest share of its work from 12:00-6:00, give or take, and the 3:00 to 6:00 front-bottom quadrant, the pushing down phase, tends to be fairly intuitive and natural anyway. So the big area of opportunity we see in riders is in the tangential forward push right around 12:00 - as if your heel and arch are pressing forward and down toward the front hub of your bike. It’s hard to do this if your weight isn’t fully resting on your saddle, so you can see why we get to this point after talking about saddle support! For your feet and legs not to resist or impede one another, sufficient saddle support is absolutely critical, allowing your feet to “chase each other” through that “forward and down from 12:00” moment. Try it out and watch your cadence and speed go up for the same relative effort level! Your technique on the pedals can also significantly affect muscle recruitment balance between glutes, quads, and hamstrings. We like to imagine pedaling from the knees, not the feet - the knee is the hammer, the foot is the nail - and letting everything from the knee on down be very relaxed and neutral. Try to squish your foot with your knee, and this focus on the upper leg, i.e. hip extension, will pay huge dividends in power from the glutes!
Chad
enduranceWERX 949 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd BSMT South | NY, NY 10026 2083 Albany Post Rd #4 | Montrose, NY 10548 info@endurancewerx.com | www.endurancewerx.com tel: 646-201-9521 (NYC) | 914-737-4903 (Westchester) mob: 203-300-4373 Schedule an appointment HERE
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