I’ve just bought myself clip-in pedals and shoes and would like to learn how to spin. Apart from the cadence, can anyone describe the actual motion I should be trying to emulate, or provide a link to a site with more information. Google seems to turn up mainly Spinning (as in aerobics type class) information.
BTW, my bike is an MTB but I presume the action is the same?
are you talking about spinning on the bike you already own? trying to simulate the actions of a spin class? or are you talking about just riding on a trainer @ high cadence?
www.spinning.com is pretty good for the info about classes
Try to have your toes slightly pointed down thru the entire cycle. At the bottom (a ‘dead spot’), imagine you are scraping mud off your shoe. Really feel that pulling feeling. I don’t really know how to describe the top, but I’d say you should move ‘across’ it, not up and down.
Try to find any cycling video of any big race. Those guys know how to spin.
The feeling at the top is supposed to be like you’re knee is reaching for your aero/handlebars.
Simply thining circles helps to.
But if you really want to know, pedal with 1 leg for a few minutes. Whoooee!
Nope, I’m talking about learning to cycle efficiently, applying power through all/most of the pedal stroke.
I think it’s a snippet from an old dance track, though it could have been sampled from the Sneaker Pimps. Not too sure unfortunately.
Yep, that’s what a roadie friend of mine said. Rather than an up/down motion, it should almost be like shuffling your shoes.
Oh, so it should mimic my off-the-bike running style??? I can handle that.
As mentioned the “scrape the mud off” on the bottom of the stroke and you may add “roll the barrel” on the top, same motion as the lumber-jack types in the log roll competition.
One other way is to think not so much of a round circle but an elliptical circle with the two “points” at about 1:00 and 7:00. This enables you to get through the two dead spots on task.
Third way on the trainer is by sound. The smoother the stroke the fewer the harmonics.
As a cyclist I’ve been taught to spin circles, scrape the mud, etc, for the last, geez, 18 years or so. However, in the last couple of years I have been teaching indoor cycling classes. In fact, my wife is a master trainer (trains the other trainers). They emphasize pushing at 3 o’clock and unweighting on the back side.
At first I found this tough to buy into, after all, with all my experience I knew a lot more than these step instructors and personal trainers. But I’m sort of warming up to the theory.
Part of it is that it is easier to hold the rhythm of the music if you push on the beat, which helps you hold the right cadence, and that make the intervals and cadence changes easier to follow. Okay so far…
The other side of it is they want to work as much muscle mass as possible. The upstroke is really only working a very small amount of muscle. On the other hand, the hamstrings, glutes, soleous, and quads are all engaged on the downstroke. If you spin a smooth circle, same torque all the way around, it means you are working those small muscle groups a lot harder than you are working the big quads and glutes. Maybe if you ride as much as a pro you can get to where the muscle groups are in balance all the way around. But if you don’t ride that much, you should be able to develop your power and get strong a lot faster by developing the quads and other large muscles, and just unweighting the pedal on the back stroke (which feels like pulling up anyway).
Another key that helps this make sense is that the cadences are 60-90 rpm, never 100 or above. I coach them to stay smooth and not bounce, but falling off the bike or wobbling all over the road is not really an issue.
So, I’ve thought some about it as I ride and noticed that as I try to “spin” up a hill, it’s my hamstrings that are feeling the pain before my quads and glutes. If I let myself push like crazy on the downstroke and forget about spinning, I feel a lot more powerful.
I’ve got a power meter on order, so maybe I can do some heartrate/power experiments, but I predict my heartrate would be lower just as it is generally accepted that you can trade off higher heartrate for earlier muscle fatigue. I don’t know any way to really test this because you would really have to train both ways for an extended time to see which provided the better long term gains.
These trainers have been quoting Lance and Chris Carmichael as promoting the same theory (rougly) in various books. I haven’t seen anything directly from either of them on it.
What to you think?
Nice. I’m impressed. Mr. Tibbs’ Street Cred = 10.
I think there is a price to be paid in the method you describe (nueromuscular fatigue) as there is with higher and presumably more efficient spin rates (CV fatigue). Which account you want to write checks out of depends on number of factors. My bias is that most IM failure is due to neuromuscular fatigue and not CV. The other side of me says its not an either-or, its both, but with the nm fatigue usually the most influential in ultras. Training requires working both ends of the continum. But I have no credentials to back any of this up.
Sneaker Pimps - “Spin, Spin Sugar” (Armand’s Dark Mix) (1996 I think)
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What helped me the most was forced one-legged riding on the trainer (broken leg w/cast on the other leg). You might want to do some one-legged drills.
Thanks Cathy. I crashed my MTB at the weekend. Luckily nothing is broken but my ribs are very bruised so I’m off the bike for a while. One legged drills seem to be the way to go, so I’ll try them out when I get back on the bike.
If you spin a smooth circle, same torque all the way around, it means you are working those small muscle groups a lot harder than you are working the big quads and glutes.
I can’t believe that even while spinning, each leg is applying the same torque all the way around the circle. There’s just no way for the hip flexors to complete with the quads and hamstrings. As I understand it, an even pedal stroke helps smooth out the dead spots at 6 and 12 o’clock, but the vast majority or the power comes from the downstroke.
Am I off base here?
I think in practice you are right. I’ve heard people using powercranks for a while talk about spin scan number on the computrainer around 90%, so (not having any experience with a computrainer) I presume that to mean a nearly even torque around the circle. But it may be that you have to sacrifice power on the downstroke to get that high of number.
As far as 6 and 12 as dead spots, it depends on whether you look at one leg or both together. According to the muscle recruitment diagrams I have, the quads (rectus femorus, soon followed by the vastii) begin to engage around 10 oclock. Rectus femorus is out of the picture by 2, while the glutes, soleus, gastrocnemius (the last two are calf muscles), and hamstrings all engage in that order on the downstroke. The “dead spot” for a single leg would be from about 7 to 10 where the gastrocnemius is the only muscle engaged until about 9, and it is a smaller muscle relative to quads. Of course it doesn’t feel “dead” because this is prime time for the opposite leg. If you take both legs together, the fewest muscles are engaged around 5 and 11, but they are hamstrings and quads so they are pretty big guns.
So to talk about an even torque all the way around, while it may be obtainable I question whether it is the most powerful (not an expert opinion). I sort of think along the same lines when I read the powercrank ads…if my hip flexors were the weak link in my running or cycling power, why aren’t they getting tired without power cranks?
FWIW, the diagrams and descriptions of what spinning feels like never helped me to really get it. The “overnight breakthrough” came when I bought rollers and was forced to learn to ride them or else fall and get hurt. After a single 40 minute ride on them, my spinning efficiency improved so much that I went from being unable to able to keep up with the local biker hammerfest ride. Rollers are awesome and provide immediate feedback better than anything else. If a friend owns rollers, consider borrowing them. The initial panic of figuring them out will be very quickly rewarded in handling and pedaling skill.
I agree with clm and the other poster that one-legged pedaling also helps a ton. It builds strength through the whole stroke. If you don’t have a trainer, try doing it on a gentle uphill slope for as long as possible. If you have a trainer, then buy the Spinervals “Recovery and Technique” video. It focuses on one-legged and super-spin drills that really help with full cycle pedaling.
The PhD in pedaling comes from PowerCranks. Consider them if cost is no object. But you’ll get 80% of the basics from rollers and/or one-legged and super-spin drills on a trainer.