Digging up dirt

Up until this Tuesday, I'd been using the wrong muscles.

I had gone through several seat adjustments on my bike and nothing ever felt quite right. One adjustment gave me pain in the front of my knee, another adjustment gave pain in the back of my knee and the most recent made me feel like Quasimodo. And, all in all, I never felt like I was getting that much power out of my legs. I got another adjustment over this past weekend. Then I went out for a 26 mile ride on Tuesday evening after work. WOW. What a difference! My legs felt so much more powerful and I was able to keep a better cadence and better consistent pace. I just plain felt stronger.

Over the course of the Tahoe training season, I had heard several times that you want to imagine yourself scraping mud off of the ground when you are peddling. Did I take this advice? I guess not. I either wasn't aware that I wasn't doing that or I just didn't listen. Either way, I was doing it all wrong. When I was getting my bike adjusted this last time, while I was peddling on the trainer, the mechanic brought it to my attention that I was pointing my toes down while I peddled. He, too, told me that I should scrape mud. It was advice that I'd heard of course, but I didn't realize that I wasn't putting that advice into motion. He told me "You're using all the wrong muscles that way." See, if you peddle with your toes pointed downward you are using all of the small muscles in your leg. Instead, you should keep you foot parallel to the ground and imaging yourself scrape mud off of the ground with your cleat. This form will ensure you are using the big muscles in your legs, the ones that you can really leverage power from.

My husband always says there are four steps to proper form. This can be applied to any sport, really. 1) You are doing it wrong, 2) You realize you are doing it wrong, 3) You correct it and are aware that you are correcting it, 4) You do it correctly without thinking. Tuesday was my step 2. Moving onto step 3....just scraping mud, peddling faster and digging deeper.

P.S.

Today I stumbled upon a site that gives a nice explanation on cycling form and bike fit. If you ride and feel that you may not quite have the right fit, I recommend checking it out.

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