What are the pro’s and con’s of moving my seat forward/sitting on the nose of the saddle? If I go to far forward what are the drawbacks? loss of power? loss of handling ability? The farther forward you sit are you utilizing more glutes?
If the bike is properly designed for the seat angle you choose, there is no real handling disadvantage to being more forward. But if the bike is not designed for it, then typically being more forward will worsen handling.
Biomechanically, there is no advantage or disadvantage to a slack or a steep seat angle per se. However, there are biomechanical disadvantages to having your hip angle too far ‘open’ or too far 'closed. There seems to be a sweet spot for effective power generaton somewhere between the two extremes, but I don’t know of any decent research that has tried to quantify it. But via anecdotal info, it appears the hip angle sweet spot is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 degrees.
Further confounding all of this, on bikes, is torso angle, which of course is typically inter-related with hip angle. Torso position has a huge effect on aero drag. And torso position relative to the direction gravity also affects cardiac function.
torso position relative to the direction gravity also affects cardiac function.
That’s something I never considered.
Quote: “And torso position relative to the direction gravity also affects cardiac function.”
Can you please explain this a little more. I’ve never heard or thought of this.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the citation handy, but I remember reading a study years ago (I think it was NASA-funded) where the researchers had subjects on ergometers where the main variable was the orientation of the subjects’ torsos relative to gravity. Due to change in venous return (and maybe other factors as well, it’s been a few years since I read the study), just changes in torso/body orientation had a significant effect on cardiac output.
I found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1751358/pdf/v037p00441.pdf about untrained cyclists stating that upright may be less costly than aero…
but I don’t think that’s the citation you’re looking for
A steeper position may be strain your neck, assuming that you like to see where you are going.