Posted: March 19, 2006

Multisport: Fine Tuning the Cycling Upstroke

© 2003 by Ken Mierke

The racing season is beginning and cyclists are making plans for hard training to make themselves strong enough to race well this year. What is the biggest thing you can do to improve your results this year? More mileage? Longer lactate threshold sets? More climbing or sprinting? You might be surprised that athletes of every level improve more by focusing on economy than any other factor. The race doesn’t necessarily go to the strongest, but to the most efficient.

Many athletes, even advanced ones, should significantly alter technique to perform more efficiently. Fitness Concepts has performed over 6,700 VO2 Max tests (www.fitness-concepts.com). This test tells how strong an athlete is (VO2 Max) and determines the optimal training intensities (aerobic threshold and lactate threshold), but it also directly measures economy – the amount of energy expended to produce a watt. We have found that 84% of the time, riders had a higher LT wattage more because of economy than because of output. In other words if one cyclist had a lactate threshold wattage that was 10% higher than another, most of the time he/she used less than 5% more energy to do so.

Certainly cyclists need to train hard and smart to make themselves stronger, but there are limits to this. You only have so many hours available to train, your legs can only recover from a certain amount of volume and intensity, and you can’t change your DNA. A serious cyclist (at any level, cat 5 up) who has been training hard for several years will be very high up on his diminishing returns curve for fitness. At this point, it isn’t possible to create huge increases in VO2 Max and lactate threshold energy expenditure.

Cyclists tend to think that beginners need to work hard on pedal stroke mechanics, but “I know how to pedal”. I believe just the opposite. A beginner can improve just by adding an hour a week to his training. The higher the athlete’s level, the more he/she need to look to important details. Michael Jordan knew how to shoot a free throw, yet the greatest player of all time stayed after practice, when the rookies had gone home, to shoot 300 free throws. Perfecting the skill of efficient pedaling is just as important for a cyclist. Lance Armstrong has won the Tour de France six times, and each time he comes back with a different pedal stroke. If Lance’s pedal stroke isn’t good enough yet, yours and mine certainly aren’t.

Last year I coached a category 1 cyclist last year who had won 10 races the year before. This athlete was extraordinarily talented and hard working. When I put him on a bike with Powercranks (training crankarms with a built- in clutch that force the right and left legs to work independently), he couldn’t pedal for 2 minutes without severe fatigue in his hip flexors. This was an incredibly strong rider who created immense power on the downstroke but created negative power on the upstroke. He was strong enough to waste energy even at the cat 1 level, but when he raced the pros – other riders as gifted as he was – it showed.

Another category 1 rider I began coaching last fall improved her pedal stroke economy by 13.4 percent over the winter. She used Powercranks, did an enormous amount of pedal stroke drills, and included heavy strength training in her routines. This athlete’s wattage actually increased from October to January, both at lactate threshold (+25 watts) and at max (+20 watts) fitness declining about 5%. A cat 1 cyclist could never get 13.4 percent stronger, but this one could get that much more efficient. Details about this rider’s test are below. Take this seriously! Improving your pedal stroke economy is the single greatest area of potential improvement for almost every cyclist.

Very few cyclists pedal correctly on the upstroke, the period of the pedal stroke during which the pedal is rising. Most cyclists relax during this period of the pedal stroke, allowing the right leg’s downstroke to lift the weight of the left leg, foot, and shoe. The two legs fight each other and the upstroke- leg essentially creates negative power – sucking away power created by the opposite leg’s down-stroke. Obviously, this reduces the power that propels the bike, slowing the rider.

The world’s most efficient cyclists unload the pedal on the upstroke. During steady-state riding they don’t actually create power by pulling up, but they avoid creating negative power so that 100% of the other leg’s downstroke goes to propulsion. The muscles that should unload on the upstroke are the hip- flexors, which are located on the front of the upper thigh and hip. These muscles generally have very little natural endurance and fatigue quickly, so most cyclists just don’t use them enough.

The movement of the upstroke is a combination of hip flexion and knee flexion, so the hip flexors and the hamstrings could both contribute, but using the hip flexors for this phase of the stroke is much more efficient. The hamstring muscles which flex the knee also act as hip extensors, and do so very actively on the downstroke. The hamstrings contract to flex the knee during the backstroke - the only muscle firing powerfully during this phase. Therefore, if a rider uses knee flexion to accomplish the upstroke, the hamstring muscles are firing throughout the 360 degree pedal stroke without any time to recover. The hip flexors, on the other hand, are active only on the upstroke. Efficient riders rest their hamstrings on the upstroke and emphasize the hip flexors.

Thinking of lifting the knee and not the foot, shoe, or pedal on the upstroke is a key. Another is having them think of the upstroke as a diagonally forward/upward movement instead of a directly upward movement. I tell my athletes to drive their knee up toward the handlebar. While efficient cyclists don’t actually pull up on the upstroke during steady-state riding, they do create power during the upstroke during periods of extremely high torque, such as initiating a sprint, climbing a super steep grade, or accelerating on a climb after upshifting. The hip flexor muscles are extremely powerful, despite their lack of natural endurance.

There are a number of methods of developing the upstroke:
· Single Leg Drills: Pedaling with one leg clipped out of the pedal. Begin with 30 second to one minute intervals and build to long, steady periods in very light gears at moderate to high cadence.
· Tempo Tension: Pedaling at 50-60 rpm in a gear that will bring heart rate to the middle of zone 3. Concentrate on keeping the down-stroke moderately light and driving the knees up toward the handlebar. Think of the upstroke as diagonally forward and concentrate on lifting the knee, not the foot or pedal.
· Hip Flexor Strength Training: Many abdominal exercises effectively strengthen the hip flexors and low pulley machines or stretch cords can also be used. Perform some weight training for these muscles with relatively heavy weights and low duration sets to truly build their strength.
· Powercranks: Off-season is the perfect time to begin using Powercranks. Powercranks are crankarms designed for training which enable the crank to drive the spindle, but have a clutch built in that keeps the spindle from driving the crank. This forces each leg to perform the upstroke correctly since the clutch prevents the opposite leg’s down-stroke from doing the work. Ultrafit coaches and clients can get Powercranks at a significant discount.

Incorporate specific work on the upstroke phase of your pedal stroke work into your workouts and you will race better this year. You’ll use less quad every pedal stroke, which will make a huge difference in the decisive moments late in a race.

Test results from a category 1 cyclist, October 2005 and January 2005

October January Change
Aerobic Threshold VO2 (L of O2) 2.07 2.23 + 7.7%
Aerobic Threshold Wattage 150 170 + 13.3%
Aerobic Threshold Econ. (W/L) 72.46 76.23 + 5.2%
Lactate Threshold VO2 (L of O2) 2.88 2.88 0
Lactate Threshold Wattage 205 230 + 12.2%
Lactate Threshold Economy 71.18 79.86 + 12.2%
Peak VO2 (L) 3.63 3.45 - 5.2%
Peak Wattage 260 280 + 7.7%
Peak Wattage Economy (W/L) 71.63 81.16 + 13.3%

Ken Mierke, head coach of Fitness Concepts (www.Fitness-Concepts.com) is Director of Training for Joe Friel’s Ultrafit and author of Training for Time Trials (due out 2006) and Training for Triathlon Running. Ken can be contacted at CoachKen@erols.com.

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