Pedalling circles and why you shouldn't!

What’s the perfect pedalling technique? There’s lots of talk about pedalling circles or maximising the 'peanut', courtesy of Wattbike but there’s some good news for those who find this challenging…

Pedalling circles is not the best way!

Look created clip in bindings for Skiing initially before taking this technology over to cycling, now bettered (in my personal opinion) by manufacturers such as Shimano, Look and Time. Their initial product was produced to improve the interface between foot and pedal, helping to keep rider connected to bike for improved comfort (by using a stiffer shoe) and performance (becoming 'one' with the bike).

I’m not sure where the myth of scraping through at the bottom of the pedal stroke, regardless of who came up with this, it should be ignored.

Trying to ‘scrape through’ at the bottom of the pedal stroke changes the way you produce power and alters the 'natural' muscle activity when pedalling.

The image to the left shows the activation of muscles from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock. We can see the numbers of active muscles when we push on the pedals including glutes, hamstrings, quads, adductors (not shown in image) vs the number of active muscles we pull or 'scrape' from 6 o'clock back to 12.

When you scrape and pull, you overload your hip flexors, hamstrings and calf muscles, asking them to work in inefficient positions resulting in greater fatigue and shortening. This can have an impact on overall riding posture and affect riding efficiency.

The act of scraping is also counter-intuitive as when we try to push on to the crank/pedal, we want this interface to be a rigid contact point. By pulling on the crank, due to the fixed nature of your crank arm/chainset, you’re pulling away the object that the opposite leg is trying to push on lowering the ability to produce force/torque. It's much easier to produce force against a still/slow moving object than it is one moving faster.

So how should you pedal?

The correct way to pedal is to simply push on the pedals in a piston like pushing action. When the pedals are at around 1pm on a clock face, the opposing at 7 o’clock, drive on to the pedal with the 1o’clock leg, continuing to push through to 5/6 o’clock. This will maximise force production from your quads, glutes, adductors and hamstrings and as a consequence, drive the opposite pedal back up to the 11/12 o’clock position ready for the other leg to repeat the same piston like, pushing motion.

Nothing more to it, just push on those pedals!

So when could pulling be effective?

The only time pulling on the pedals can be helpful is when riding off road, when gravelling or mountain biking, there’s some instances where you just need a little more ‘oomph’ to get out of a dip or help you ‘hop’ a root or small log.

When it comes to cadence and crank lengths, I thought I’d produce another post on this one which is available here.

Did you know all of our Professional Bike Fit Services include coaching on pedalling technique, posture and much more to help you ride comfortably and efficiently.

If you have any questions about the above post, please don’t hesitate to Contact Us. We love to talk about anything bike related.

Keep riding and keep smiling!

Chris