I have odd muscle balances in my legs, and I think all the cycling I am doing may be exacerbating this. I am doing exercises to diminish the imbalances, however, they still remain.
My main issue is that cycling has given me killer calves - so big in fact they almost touch my bottle cages. However, I don’t ankle - in fact I make an effort not to overuse my calves when cycling, as I need they for the run. But when I go hard, I find my calves flex when I pedal.
In contrast, I have pretty average legs for a triathlete - pretty skinny in fact. It’s just my calves are big! I am worried that I am overusing them when I cycle and thus am damaging my run off the bike. Note that I am concious of my ankle angle when I cycle and it is not in the “ankling” position.
Are there ways to avoid this? How can I reduce the effort from my ankles and increase that from my quads/etc?
bringing your cleats back towards your heel by a few mm/cm will reduce the load on your calves (shorten the lever arm and you stress the muscle less).
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Cyling would not give you only killer calves but also quads!!!
I think you answered your own question by saying you have odd muscle balance in your legs and I think that is the main culprit and not the bicycling.
ive actually been wondering the same thing. my calves have been getting really sore/stiff during biking so that when I am running, they are noticeably tight. if I bring my cleats back, will that reduce the amount of force/power of my pedal?
I have odd muscle balances in my legs, and I think all the cycling I am doing may be exacerbating this. I am doing exercises to diminish the imbalances, however, they still remain.
My main issue is that cycling has given me killer calves - so big in fact they almost touch my bottle cages. However, I don’t ankle - in fact I make an effort not to overuse my calves when cycling, as I need they for the run. But when I go hard, I find my calves flex when I pedal.
In contrast, I have pretty average legs for a triathlete - pretty skinny in fact. It’s just my calves are big! I am worried that I am overusing them when I cycle and thus am damaging my run off the bike. Note that I am concious of my ankle angle when I cycle and it is not in the “ankling” position.
Are there ways to avoid this? How can I reduce the effort from my ankles and increase that from my quads/etc?
Can you clarify waht you mean when you say that you calves flex. When the calves stretch, the foot flexes upward. When the calves contract, the foot extends downward.
Have you tried Powercranks? It would be interesting to see if you noticed a difference.
I think it’s just genetic predisposition. You know those “Elite” (brand) bottle cages with the buttons on the sides? I can’t use those 'cuz they wear sores in my calves. People really freak out over the size of my calves.
There’s nothing wrong with my pedaling dynamics. That’s just the way my body has responded and the way I’m genetically inclined. (My mother has rather large calves.) I’m 51 years old and I’m hanging with the Cat. 1 and 2 riders on our weeknight World Championships, so I don’t think the calves are holding me back (though I can feel the wind against them when I’m time trialing!).
I’m not a runner, though I did some running when I was much younger. In your case, If you’re concerned about your calves, I’d be more inclined to think there’s something in your run mechanics that’s doing it. You might need to worry about that, but don’t worry about it relative to your cycling.
You might want to try moving your cleats back towards your heel as another poster suggested – though not necessarily because it will do anything about your calf size. I’ve done that this year and seem to have found some extra power as a result. I use Speedplays, and they don’t allow you to move them too far back. I’ve gone as far back as they’ll go.
This was actually discussed in a recent issue of either Triathlete or Inside Tri. The idea was for tri we would be better served to ride with cleats much farther back to save calf for the run.
Sorry I tried to reply earlier but it didn’t come through!
Ace1317 - good idea about the cleats. I’ll try this and see if it makes a difference.
Dreadnougth - I’m not sure what you mean? Generally, if you point toes down during the push phase of the cycling action (ankle higher than foot), you’ll use your calves more, right? I don’t do this, but still if I am really going hard I can feel my calves working automatically to assist my legs, which is something I want to avoid to save them for the run.
Psycholist - that’s a fair point. But still, you could expect that lots of bike-running might give you big quads (like cyclists) and small calves (like distance runners), given the stresses needed. I am also interested in reducing the effort from my calves when cycling as more weight (in muscle) in my calves slows me down more than muscle further up my thigh, purely in efficiency terms. I don’t know how to do that though!
I move my cleats back a little have a turbo tomorrow and we’ll see …
Okay folks, I did the turbo - a nice hard one too.
I moved my cleats from their previous neutral position to being right back - as near to my heel as possible. Is such a big change unwise? (probably!).
It helped definitely. My thighs hurt more, and my calves less (though I did use my calves more when I started struggling). I still can’t engage my butt muscles as much as I would like. Also, I still have to see how I run off the new cleat position. I figure it can only be better but time will tell.