What Do You Stand to Gain by Improving Your Bike Fit and Pedalling Technique? Part II

Created On: 30 May 2010

Part II: Pedalling efficiency and optimum bike position

In the first part of this article I talked about the reasons why having your bike set up correctly and optimising your position can help maximise your cycling performance. In this second part I am going to expand upon that and explain the relationship between your position on the bike and your pedalling efficiency.

Your position on your bike and your riding technique are intrinsically linked, by that I mean that if you change one and it can affect the other. Adjusting your position can lead to improvements in your pedalling efficiency, or changing your position might mean that you have to work on your pedalling technique in order to get the most from the new position. Another scenario might be that in order to develop and achieve your best pedalling efficiency you have to settle for quite an upright position on the bike. As your technique improves you will probably find that you can make further adjustments to optimise your position, more on that later.

This is how it might work out for someone who is relatively new to competitive cycling or triathlon; if your current pedalling style is inefficient this will influence (or compromise) your optimum bike position in order to get the most from the way that you pedal right now. Once their bike position has been optimised your range of motion might improve and you should find it easier begin to recruit more muscle groups to contribute to your pedalling technique, this in turn will lead to improvements in your pedalling efficiency.

Similarly your coach or your bike fitter can offer you guidance on drills and techniques to improve your pedalling efficiency, and over time your technique will improve and you will start to learn how to recruit more muscle groups as you pedal.

In both cases when the pedalling technique has improved - what was your optimum position on the bike might not be your optimum position any more, the slight positional compromises that you had to make in the first instance might not be necessary any more. Therein lays the potential for further performance improvement by taking another look at your bike position, to get the most from your improved technique.

Here is the crunch, and I will start by saying this is not a marketing ruse on behalf of all the professional bike fitters out there. Once you start working on your bike position you will begin to realise that it is something that you need to review from time to time, it is a great example of a virtuous cycle of improvement through further refinement and adjustments over time.

Improvements in your riding technique and pedalling efficiency are not the only reasons to review and refine your position - consider this, if your training goals include improving your flexibility and reducing body fat and you have made progress in either or both areas then should also take another look at whether there is scope for further optimisation of your position.

So what do we mean by pedalling efficiency and why does it matter?

When we talk about pedalling efficiency we are looking for a smooth, continuous pedalling action, with even pressure applied to the pedals throughout each revolution of the cranks. One hundred percent pedalling efficiency would require that the torque applied through both pedals remains constant through 360 degrees of rotation. As you can probably imagine it is impossible for us to achieve perfect pedalling efficiency.

So, given that we can't pedal perfectly let's consider the more likely scenarios of what is happening when we are inefficient. In this respect we are all a little bit different, because of the way we have learnt to ride, the way our muscles have developed over the years, whether or not we have come from a running back  ground, or how much time we have spent riding in an incorrect position on our bikes. As previously mentioned you may also have anatomical imbalances or old injuries that result in a slightly dysfunctional or asymmetrical pedalling technique.

Basically, inefficient pedalling occurs when you are applying more torque or force through the pedals during part of each rotation of the cranks. This is usually somewhere between when each pedal crank is slightly forward of its highest upright position through to a point when each crank has passed its forward most horizontal position. To grasp this concept imagine how you would pedal if you didn't have toe straps or clip on pedals, you would tend to stamp down on the pedals through the forward most segment of each rotation of the cranks.

If you are applying more force through the pedals during the forward arc of each crank rotation does it make sense that certain muscles in the legs are engaged in doing that work, while the other muscles are relatively relaxed?

Well that is what is happening when we tend to stamp down on the pedals, the quadriceps tend to dominate this action and depending on muscular development and how your bike is set up your glutes may or may not also make a contribution. You can probably relate to this if you usually find that it is the front of your legs and/or your buttocks that ache after you have been riding hard.

But we have already established that if we are going to pedal efficiently we need to apply force all the way around each pedal revolution, not just through that forward quadrant (marked as 1 in the diagram).

In order to apply force through each of the other quadrants of the circle you have to engage different muscles of the legs, if you experiment with this concept on your turbo trainer and work against a reasonable resistance you will feel that this is the case. You feel your hamstrings, your calves, your hip flexors and your shins starting to ache, depending on how well you are able to perform the task.

Another factor that affects your pedalling efficiency is your cadence, or the rate at which you turn over the pedals measured in revolutions per minute (rpm). There is no single answer for everyone on the subject of what cadence is best, in fact in much the same way as your position on the bike might change as your muscles adapt and your technique improves your most efficient cadence may change over time. A good dynamic bike fitting session should help you identify your optimum cadence - and a good coach will recommend that in training you work at different cadences to help you develop your pedalling efficiency. Generally pedalling a harder gear at a low cadence can help your feel for the pedalling action and how to apply a fairly even force around the whole rotation of the cranks, whereas using an easier gear at a much higher cadence will help you develop a smooth continuous pedalling technique and reduce the tendency to stamp down on the pedals.

Now let's think about why it would be a good idea to recruit the other muscles of the legs to take a share of the workload. To help illustrate the point let's say that you are pedalling along at 17 mph on a continuous, flat straight road with no wind. Let's assume that you start off pedalling somewhat inefficiently and you are stamping down on the pedals - your quads and glutes are doing all the work. Eventually those muscles start to ache and you find it harder to sustain your 17 mph. If you continue to ride and you start to concentrate on your technique so that you engage the other muscles in your legs to apply force through quadrants 2, 3 and 4 you will begin to notice that your quads and glutes don't ache so much, you should also observe that you can hold the same speed quite easily. If you can really spin the pedals smoothly you may even realise that in actual fact you can hold the same speed and it begins to feel effortless. Now would be a good time to ring an alarm bell - if you lose concentration there is a danger that your cycling autopilot will respond to that feeling of effortless pedalling by thinking "come on, I should be working harder than this" and you will revert to stamping on the pedals again.

Splitting the pedalling revolutions into four quadrants will help you to perform drills and focus on the different muscles that you can engage to do the work, but ultimately you do want to progress beyond pedalling in four quadrants to a smooth continuous pedalling action. There are a few things you can monitor while you are pedalling that might help you achieve that;

• for some people it helps to think about how their pedalling action feels, striving to avoid ever actually pushing down hard on the pedals
• similarly you can concentrate on trying to keep your feet floating just above the pedals
• if the background noise permits you can listen to the sound of your chain for feedback on whether you are pedalling smoothly, if it's a nice continuous pattern its good, if it is more of an on-off pattern that means you pedalling inefficiently

I realise that at this point you may still be wondering what pedalling more efficiently is actually going to do for you. This is the deal;

• if you are spreading the workload across more muscle mass then each individual muscle will take longer to fatigue
• a smooth rhythmic pedalling action will have a greater component of momentum. If you think about a very extreme exaggeration of a stamping pedalling action i.e. push down on one pedal and then allow the bike to slow down, then press down on the other pedal and do the same thing again you will find that you require additional force to overcome the inertia. Albeit to a lesser extent, you are still using extra effort to overcome some inertia when you are stamping the pedals at 90 rpm
• if you can pedal efficiently and maintain the same speed and be less fatigued it stands to reason that you could work the combined muscle mass of your legs harder and the net outcome would be that you will go faster
• by pedalling efficiently you are recruiting more of the muscles in your legs to do the work - you are restoring muscular balance and your legs will not feel as sore when you transition to the run

Putting it into practice

You may be able to relate to these concepts quite readily if you are the kind of person who can read a book to learn how to do something new, but more often than not you will make best progress if you work with a coach who can provide you with impartial feedback on how well you are pedalling and whether you would benefit from adjusting your position on the bike.

As a triathlon coach I choose to use a CompuTrainer with SpinScan software to analyse my triathletes' position on the bike and their pedalling technique. This equipment allows me to look at performance parameters such as; speed, cadence, power output and heart rate as well as graphical and numerical indicators of pedalling efficiency and left-right balance of the work load.

Using an overhead projector I am able to share all this information with the triathlete through out the session and coach them to use the visual and kinaesthetic feedback to help them learn about their pedalling technique - what works and what doesn't. It is a very effective process and it yields very positive results in quite a short space of time. It has proven to be particularly effective when the session is repeated on a regular basis to gauge improvement.

Because the triathlete needs to be able to pedal efficiently without relying on graphical feedback I encourage them to really concentrate on the kinaesthetic feedback and concentrate on how it feels when the visual feedback indicates that they are pedalling efficiently, so that they can strive for those same muscular sensations when they are practicing on the turbo trainer or riding out on the open roads.

To conclude this series of articles let me summarise; first of all have a basic bike fitting session or use a proven series of anatomical measurements to make sure you are or will be riding a frame size that can be optimised for you.

When you are confident you have the right sized bike, you can have a professional bike fitting session to optimise your position on your bike.

You can then work with a coach to develop your pedalling technique and periodically review your position on the bike to take advantage of muscular adaptations, increased range of motion or flexibility, improvements in technique and let's not forget changes of physique.

About the Author: Steve Casson

Steve Casson is a British Triathlon Federation Level 3 Coach and a GB Age Group Triathlete. At the beginning of 2009 Steve set up a triathlon performance coaching studio in Northampton to fulfil a vision of providing a range of 1-2-1 technical coaching sessions and performance testing services to complement his interactive coaching support package.

During 2009 Cassonz Performance Coaching helped a wide range of triathletes from Novices to Age Group World Championship medallists achieve their goals.

Find out more at www.cassonz.com/

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