PEDALING: WHERE SHOULD YOU APPLY FORCE – DOWNSTROKE, UPSTROKE OR BOTH?

There are different recommendations offered and almost all are based on the same facts. It is how these facts are interpreted that makes a difference. You could be riding like Lance Armstrong or simply spinning your wheels based on conclusion you make.

It is a known and an accepted fact that somewhere between 12noon-6pm (if you look at the position of the pedals as a face of a clock) is a “power” part, but some say to follow all the way through the 360 degrees of the circle, and others say to pull the pedal through and back up to 12noon.

From the Pose Method point of view the force should be applied to a limited part of the downstroke only. In Pose Cycling, it is taught to apply force between 1-4pm.

To understand the reasoning behind this advice perform a little test. Grab your bike by the stem and lift it up just enough to allow the front wheel to freely rotate. Start the wheel rotating by lightly taping it as if you were checking your front breaks. You’ll notice that it takes very little pressure from your hand to start the wheel turning and that your hand only stays in contact with the tire surface for a short moment, roughly from 1 to 3 o’clock. After a few seconds you will notice that you fall into a rhythm and you can keep the wheel rotating at the same speed by applying the same amount of pressure every couple of seconds. Now check this out. Continue the rotation by striking the wheel with the same frequency to maintain the rhythm but this time apply more force each time you tap the wheel. Your cadence doesn’t change and you don’t stay in contact with the tire surface for a greater percentage of the rotation, but the forward speed of the wheel increases dramatically.

Now, try the opposite – keep your hand in contact with the wheel longer while doing everything else the same. You will see that once your hand reaches and goes beyond 4 o’clock it will become increasingly difficult to not only speed up but to even maintain the speed you already had. You will feel that your hand acts more like a break pass 4 o’clock and that you work harder while getting worse results.

Applying force throughout the entire pedal stroke not only doesn’t increase speed, it actually is a waste of energy.

Efficient pedaling demands that you direct your force at exactly the right time and – equally important – that you remove that force at exactly the right time. Do this and you will become a much more efficient cyclist.

Article by Dr. Nicholas Romanov
Composed by L. Romanov