Is there some new research that shows that it is virtually impossible to pull through the upstroke? I’m hearing talk that what we should really be promoting ‘unweighting’ the pedal through the upstroke. I am still doing single leg drills to improve my upstroke. Is this antiquated philosophy and training?
Thanks, Amelia
I don’t think so. The only way to really unweight the pedal is to lift your leg. This requires an active contraction of muscles. Single leg drills help build those muscles.
Is there some new research that shows that it is virtually impossible to pull through the upstroke? I’m hearing talk that what we should really be promoting ‘unweighting’ the pedal through the upstroke. I am still doing single leg drills to improve my upstroke. Is this antiquated philosophy and training?
Thanks, Amelia
Amelia, believe me, it IS possible to pull up on the upstroke. How much you should do this is the source of much debate. Unweighting the rising leg seems to me to be a viable strategy, especially in non-maximum VO2 efforts…but, I am certainly no expert.
My thoughts are that it’s probably more beneficial to unweight on the upstroke to decrease the amount of downstroke power being used to lift the upstroke leg.
It seems that the hip flexors would not be all that well suited to powering a bike, though when the thighs are burning, I often switch to upstroke power to give the quads a rest, even if only for 10 seconds.
It just seems less efficient to use the flexors to me. I have absolutely no data to back up my guess. Just personal observation.
Lehmkuhler
Hip flexor power versus quad power is exactly what my LBS guru said. I guess the point is nearly mute, if you’re just practicing even distribution of power, huh?
just focus on pushing down, hard, smoothly (not choppy) and let your legs do what they do best - push.
Actual pulling up really only happens on steep climbs, usually out of the saddle, or starting from a standing stop, as in TT starts, i.e. low cadence, high-force efforts. For spinning on the flats, trying to actually pull up is probably going to do more to mess up your pedaling than anything else
Lots of differing opinions and research out there about pedal style and efficiency, I think it can help a bit to use the flexors to unweight rather than use the quads to push the opposing leg up, but some folks that have a lot more credentials than I will likely disagree.
They have done reserch on top time trialists and what they found was that they were the ones that consistantly applied the most force at 3:00 oclock - period. They also found there was minimal “lifting” of the recovery leg. What was really happening was that these top time trialists where managing to get the recovery leg out of the way, the fastest and most effectivly so the on-leg could apply the most power. It also gave the off leg a microsecond or so of recovery.
Fleck
Fleck, that’s the research I was looking for. Does it have direct correlation to triathlon? Should I be changing the way I train and coach as a result of this?
Someone was going to bring this up so it might as well be me. Powercranks absolutely force you to unweight the upstroke leg. Once I had tried them, I was amazed at how lazy my normal stroke was. However, at high cadences of perhaps 85 and up, I can’t accomplish a pure independent unweighting without that leg taking ride from the downstroke leg. I see the “spin” as a smooth interplay of rest and force.
With all due respect, let me try and get this right - you are a coach and you are looking for coaching advice on Slowtwitch? Happy to help out.
The quick answer is that triathlon is essentially time-trialing, so anything that makes a triathlete a better time trialer will be beneficial. Pedaling a bike is remarkably straight forward. The key bit of advice that I was given years ago by a top coach was that to get the pedal basics down right, apply max force needed for the pace required and then feel like you are scraping mud off the sole of your shoe. Then, think about getting your leg out of the way on the up stroke as I mentioned. It should fall into place after several thousand miles of riding. In the end you don’t really think about this - it just happens.
Fleck
They have done reserch on top time trialists and what they found was that they were the ones that consistantly applied the most force at 3:00 oclock - period.
Fleck or anyone: So what does this do to the theory of having a flat-ish SpinScan on CompuTrainer?
Triathlon is time trialing?
Last I checked you dont run after a time trial.
Not sure. Perhaps some one who is more technical and knowledgable than I can chime in on this because I have no idea. I came of age, back when there were no computrainers, spin-scanners, HRM’s, GPS’s computors and other technical training stuff. You learned by listening to the top coaches and then sitting on the wheel of top cyclists and triathletes for hundreds and hundreds of miles!
Fleck
Come now he said “essentially”, surely you see some resemblanse to a bicycle TT and a bicycle leg in a tri.
Styrrell
"Triathlon is time trialing? "
Yes, individually timed, non drafting - meets the criteria
The bike split of a triathlon IS a time trial, just not as crazy of a pace as a road TT
I came of age, back when there were no computrainers, spin-scanners, HRM’s, GPS’s computors and other technical training stuff.
Did the dinosaurs chase you and try to bite your tires?
Great point. Indeed, you do have to run afterwards.
So what is a bike leg in a triathlon then( I always pose this question in the great drafting debates as well)? Is it a time trial? Well no not exactly, because you are actually racing head to head out on the course and as you pointed out you then have to run afterwards. Is it a bike race? Well no not exactly, because, you must race under more or less individual time trial rules ie you are not allowed to draft. However, strategic placing during the bike to set up for the run is important. The reality is that triathlon cycling is a weird hybrid of time-trialing and road racing with a few of it’s own idyocyncracies thrown in. This situation is further confused in the context of racing, because few people actually ride like this in training - most either ride solo or in a group situation. I know of exactly no person or group that goes out and rides 40k or 100 miles single file with exactly 10m between each cyclist. This leads to a great number of problems in big triathlons because no one has had to ride in that particular type of situation.
How you ride the bike will also be very indivudualistic based on your strengths, your place in the race and how the race unfolds on the day. For example. I was always a very strong runner off the bike. So if I reached the last 1/4 of the bike ride and it was clear, that I could not get away from, the guys I was riding with I would likley back off and wait to make a move on the run. This very often proved to be a VERY effective strategy. However, if I was in the lead and feeling good with 10 miles to go in the bike and was clear, I may really go for it, in the last bit of the bike to build up the break even more.
It’s not an easy question to answer.
Fleck
Is there some new research that shows that it is virtually impossible to pull through the upstroke? I’m hearing talk that what we should really be promoting ‘unweighting’ the pedal through the upstroke. I am still doing single leg drills to improve my upstroke. Is this antiquated philosophy and training?
Thanks, Amelia
People really don’t think very clearly when it comes to this subject. We all pull up on the backstroke all the time and we all get a lot of work out of it, it is just a matter of degree. Why do we pull up, because we all unweight the pedal on the backstroke some. If the typical weight of the tight, lower leg and foot is 25 lbs, if you have less than 25 lbs pusing on your pedals on the backstroke you are pulling up. Most probably pull up with 20 lbs or so, leaving about 5 lbs of back pressure.
While that pullin up is not applying power directly, it is putting potential energy into the leg, which one gets back on the downstroke, where the weight of the leg is added to the force of the muscles. So that 40 lbs you are “pushing down” is really only 20 lbs of pushing and 25 lbs of leg weight (according to my simplistic example).
So, it is not a matter of should one pull up, we all do. It is a matter of to what degree. Most pull up but incompletely unweight the pedal on the upstroke. For a slightly greater effort one could completely unweight. It is clear to me that there is an advantage to completely unweighting on the upstroke. It is not clear there is an advantage to applying additional force or power to the pedal on the upstroke.