EFFICIENT PEDAL STROKE

How to Ride Faster with Less Effort

BY PERFORMANCE COACH STEVE DAVIS

Pic Credit: Troy Doolittle (Pintrest)

Pedalling a bike must be the easiest technique you can practice in triathlon. However, to make sure you are pedalling efficiently, you do need to isolate and practice this technique. Taking the time to make sure your foot is moving through the pedal stroke correctly will give you more power for less effort and will also help you run faster off the bike.

A correctly fitted bike and well positioned cleats are the first step to the most efficient pedal stroke. This will ensure that you have the correct alignment through the hip, knee and ankle through the pedal stroke. Also correct cleat position will ensure you have the best contact with the pedal for maximum power transfer.

The next step is to do isolated single leg drills and spinning drills to make sure that you are moving your foot and ankle through each of the 4 phases of the pedal stroke most efficiently:

PHASE 1 (RED)
This is the most powerful phase of the stroke, allowing you to utilise all of your large leg muscles and gravity. As you come over the top of the stroke, you should drop your heel slightly so that it is parallel to the ground, or even have the heel slightly lower than the toes. This will allow you to engage the correct muscle groups that will provide you the greatest power output.

PAHSE 2 (PURPLE)
This is a transition phase into the upward pull phase. It is here that I tell athletes they should feel like they have just stepped in some dog poo, and they have to try and scrape it off the bottom of their shoe. The toes should start to point downward through this phase, and it is this ‘ankling’ motion that keeps the power on through this phase.

PHASE 3 (BLUE)
As you come out of the poo scraping, your goal is to allow the opposite foot to take over and engage the powerful phase, so really, you are just looking to get this foot out of the way and hinder the upward motion of the crank as little as possible. The best way to do this is to pull upward through your heel. The slower your cadence, such as climbing hills, the more pull force you will have through this phase.

PHASE 4 (GREEN)
Coming into the green phase of the circle, you need to be more focussed on the opposite foot having already engaged the downward power. A lot of newer riders will wait until ‘3 o’clock’ to start pushing downward. In fact, the downward powerful phase needs to be engaged as soon as you come past ’12 o’clock’. The green phase should be used to think about starting to engage the big power muscles. I tell athletes to think about their knee driving up towards the handle bars and then thrusting forward while keeping the hip stable and the sit bones set on the saddle.

If you are able to regularly break down the pedal stroke into these 4 phases, you will find you ride with greater efficiency and more smoothly by utilising the correct muscles at the correct time.

For more information, or to find when and where you can get some face to face, or online coached technique sessions, please contact Performance Coach Steve: https://www.daveyblackfitness.com/contact-us/