I measured your knee angle from a screenshot and found that your saddle height was set slightly too low. You’re currently at 34.5 degrees knee flexion. This setup will shift you towards greater quad recruitment and cause the restriction at the top of the pedal stroke. Try raising the saddle a few mm to reach closer to 32 degrees. This should also alleviate the quad dominant pedaling technique.
The major thing I noticed was that your pelvis favors a posterior tilt which compromises your lumbar spine. From what I could see, it appears that the nose of your saddle is forcing this posterior tilt. The spine is most vulnerable when it’s flexed and rotated (unless you have scoliosis). A saddle that’s too high and nose up sets the lumbar spine perfectly for this position. Since the saddle height is almost at the optimal position, the only major variable to check is saddle tilt. Tilt the nose down one degree at a time until you can comfortably get the lumbar spine in neutral.
Remember that tilting the nose down will indirectly raise your saddle height, so once the height is corrected, record this measurement then experiment with tilt. With regards to fine tuning saddle tilt on SMP saddles, the trick is to place the angle finder on the flat section of the saddle (the middle between the two extreme curves). If you have a smart phone, download a leveler app to do measure the tilt. If you decide to use your phone, be sure to calibrate the phone on a truly flat surface (calibrating the phone on an actual bubble level is a reliable way to do this).
If you’re still having issues with quad dominant pedaling after correcting the height and tilt, the fore/ aft will need to be examined. After straightening the screenshot, I drew a plumb line to check your fore/aft position. Right now, you have the fore/aft set to intersect with the pedal spindle. If you’re still having issues with relaxing the quads, you still have a little bit of room to push the saddle back. If optimizing the saddle position fails to correct the quad dominant technique, then it’s definitely a problem with the crank arm length. Hope this helps!
Vincent Vergara
Eat.Sleep.Train Smart - Personal Training & Coaching
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I am on my winter bike now… the frame is 1cm bigger longer, smaller head tube… I have the saddle more forward, I can rotate my pelvis better if its steep, like Time trial position… I have alot of drop too, although I still feel I need to rotate more still…
Im going to do the same on the race bike when I sort it out before the season starts, going to use a 17 degree angle, remove all spacers, put saddle forward and ride like a TT postion… to rotate pelvis more anteriorly…
What do you think about Steep vs slack and what favors pelvis position?