Ever wonder why the pros are so fast? One of the many reasons – genetics aside – is that they pedal differently than you and me.
But we can all learn the same techniques, and the winter, or off-season, is the perfect time to improve your stroke so that you’re ready to put your improved form to work in the new season. You can practice the drills listed below either on an indoor trainer or on a low-traffic road outdoors, so why not invest some of the slow season in gaining a few “free watts?”
What’s Different About a Pro’s Stroke?
World Tour Pros start applying power to their pedal stroke much earlier in the stroke than the rest of us. They also “power off” much later than the rest of us. They don’t “stab” at the pedals like we do. Instead, they push a high power through the pedals for as long as they can.
As illustrated in the graphic below, pros will start their pedal stroke around 1:30 and finish around 5:30. This equates to starting the pedal stroke at 45° and finishing at 165°, which is a full 33% of the total pedaling circle. Most cyclists I have analyzed in my coaching start applying power at around 3:00 and end around 4:30, which nets only 45°, or 12.5% of the total pedaling circle.
What does this mean? It means that pros are pushing hard on their pedals for 120° of crank arc, a full 33% of the total pedaling circle. The rest of us only use about 45° of crank arc to generate power, or 12.5% of the full circle. So the pros’ “power stroke” is nearly 3 times greater than what we recreational roadies do. This does not even take into consideration that pros also pull up hard on the upstroke.
So, How Can I Pedal Like a Pro?
There are a number of drills that the rest of us can do to help improve our stroke, but to me none deliver the bang for the buck that one-legged drills do.
Using one leg at a time makes it far easier to concentrate on the singular goal of pedaling the whole 120° of the circle from 1:30 to 5:30 on every stroke.
Start by concentrating and pedaling for 2-3 minutes – one leg at a time. Ramp up this drill to a full 5 minutes. During this initial phase, you are building muscle memory. (It’s not as easy as it sounds, if you’ve never done it before! At first, you’ll be pedaling the proverbial squares. But with time you’ll adapt and improve.)
Once you can easily pedal with one leg, go back to pedaling 2-legged. At first you will need to concentrate even more, but you will eventually “feel it” kick in. If you have a power meter, you should be able to see a higher number once you start pedaling smoothly for the entire 120°.
The Nuts and Bolts of the One-Legged Drill
When training outdoors, unclip one foot from the pedal and pedal with the other foot. Switch by clipping in the foot/leg you were resting and unclipping the foot/leg that was doing the work. Continue switching back and forth. Remember, concentrate on applying power all the way from 1:30 to 5:30, for 2-3 minutes at a time, building up to 5 minutes at a time.
Doing one-legged drills outdoors requires finding a comfortable position to place your unclipped foot/leg so it’s out of the way. You’ll have to experiment to see what works best for you. A couple of options are to place your unclipped foot/leg:
- Option 1: Directly up and to the rear of the rotating pedal. For me, this is the easiest.
- Option 2: Directly to the side of the rotating pedal. Several others in our training group like this better.
When training indoors, you can simply set up a step stool or milk crate or anything about that height next to your trainer so that you can easily rest your “off leg” on the stool, out of the way of the crankarm and pedal. Having one one “platform” on each side as you switch back and forth makes it easier to stay in the flow of training, vs. having to move the step stool from one side of the bike to the other.
Once you have mastered this, it will be time to concentrate on the back- or up-stroke, where you can gain even more free wattage.
Coach Rick Schultz is an avid cyclist who trains, races and coaches in Southern California. Rick is an engineer by trade, and in addition to being a coach, he’s a bike fitter and prolific product reviewer. He’s the author of Stretching & Core Strengthening for the Cyclist and Bike Fit 101: Your Toolset for a Great Bike Fit in the RBR eBookstore. Check his product reviews website, www.biketestreviews.com, and his coaching site, www.bikefitnesscoaching.com. Click to read Rick’s full bio.
Am I correct that the lower right graphic does not
correlate with the text?
Looks right to me. Crank looks like it is approximately at the 4:30 position.
This topic has been discussed at length in many forums and it’s often stated that according to lots of power crank measurements, neither pros or anybody else pulls up on the upstroke, let alone “pull up hard on the upstroke.” The possible exception to this is when pedaling at a low cadence, most commonly on an uphill section.
So has all that I have read been wrong? Do pros and any other accomplished rider actually pull up hard?
Point 1: For one-leg training, I use a rack that clamps onto my seatpost w/a quick-release skewer. I clip out and pull my leg back behind me and ‘hook’ my foot on the rack (the top of my foot is in contact w/the rack). This takes some weight off of my pelvis on the resting leg side, and makes sustaining effort w/the other working leg so much more comfortable on my butt. I do this mostly on my fat-tire bike, but also put the ‘foot rest’ on my road bike on occasion. The quick-release feature makes it easy to switch between bikes.
Point 2: Regarding ‘pulling up hard’. Just had a high-end fitting by an ex-pro in San Diego. The pros are not putting a lot of effort into the upstroke. I was discouraged from doing this. At another high-end fitting in Chicago years ago, I was told my pedal stroke was ‘too round’, and to mash more. I think current wisdom is: put your real effort into the downstroke, and pull up enough to unweight your leg on the upstroke, no more.
One leg training teaches you neuromuscular patterns to avoid putting weight on the upstroke (so the other leg doesn’t do unnecessary work), and one-leg drills help greatly in smoothing out the pedal stroke. This was a good piece on the pedal stroke, and I think many cyclists will benefit from it. Velo News recently had a very good podcast on this issue of efficient pedaling. Well worth a listen (about 52 min): http://www.velonews.com/2016/12/podcast/fast-talk-ep-9-three-physiologists-walk-studio_426999http://www.velonews.com/2016/12/podcast/fast-talk-ep-9-three-physiologists-walk-studio_426999
Correction to my previous post: the link to the Velo News podcast was incorrect. Use this one instead, it’s titled “Stop Your Legs from Fighting Themselves”
http://www.velonews.com/2016/12/podcast/fast-talk-ep-8-stop-your-legs-from-fighting-themselves_426397
My apologies.
[quote=dennis]Am I correct that the lower right graphic does not
correlate with the text?[/quote]
I agree. If graphic is correct, text is wrong, should be 67 degrees. If 45 deg is correct, either pic is incorrect. (I’m assuming one full stroke, i.e., completing the circle, here, is 180 degrees, even though we know that a circle is 360 degrees. He’s halving it to account for the other foot. Doesn’t make a difference percentage-wise, but I had to turn off my math brain to get it. Doesn’t apply to one-legged cyclists.)
As hard as they can. Your pushing muscles are much larger and there are more of them. Depending on where in the pedal stroke you are, when pulling up you might be only using the hip flexors. I challenge you to doing two weeks of concentrated drills where you are pedaling with both legs but ONLY pulling up. I went from not even doing 35 watts to over 100 watts only pulling up in a couple weeks. Give it a try, I would love to hear back from you on the results.
Just had a high-end fitting by an ex-pro in San Diego
Im near San Diego … who?
You keep a mashin’, I will keep a spinnin’ in a complete pedal stroke and I will be waitin’ for you at the top of the hill 🙂
It isn’t clear to me, based upon your description, if the goal is to have a smooth pedal stroke all the way around. I have done one-legged drills in the past and unless I am pulling up hard on the upstroke I don’t achieve a consistent forward motion on the bike.
Once I managed to tell my mind the picture is depicted looking at the right peddle from the right side the words made sense but up until that point I kept seeig it as the left peddle and the words did not jive.