Fitness questions and answers for August 8, 2007

Form & Fitness Q & A

Got a question about fitness, training, recovery from injury or a related subject? Drop us a line at fitness@cyclingnews.com. Please include as much information about yourself as possible, including your age, sex, and type of racing or riding. Due to the volume of questions we receive, we regret that we are unable to answer them all.

Carrie Cheadle, MA (www.carriecheadle.com) is a Sports Psychology consultant who has dedicated her career to helping athletes of all ages and abilities perform to their potential. Carrie specialises in working with cyclists, in disciplines ranging from track racing to mountain biking. She holds a bachelors degree in Psychology from Sonoma State University as well as a masters degree in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University.

Jon Heidemann (www.peaktopeaktraining.com) is a USAC Elite Certified cycling coach with a BA in Health Sciences from the University of Wyoming. The 2001 Masters National Road Champion has competed at the Elite level nationally and internationally for over 14 years. As co-owner of Peak to Peak Training Systems, Jon has helped athletes of all ages earn over 84 podium medals at National & World Championship events during the past 8 years.

Kelby Bethards, MD received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University (1994) before obtaining an M.D. from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 2000. Has been a racing cyclist 'on and off' for 20 years, and when time allows, he races Cat 3 and 35+. He is a team physician for two local Ft Collins, CO, teams, and currently works Family Practice in multiple settings: rural, urgent care, inpatient and the like.

Fiona Lockhart (www.trainright.com) is a USA Cycling Expert Coach, and holds certifications from USA Weightlifting (Sports Performance Coach), the National Strength and Conditioning Association (Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach), and the National Academy for Sports Nutrition (Primary Sports Nutritionist). She is the Sports Science Editor for Carmichael Training Systems, and has been working in the strength and conditioning and endurance sports fields for over 10 years; she's also a competitive mountain biker.

David Fleckenstein, MPT (www.physiopt.com) is a physical therapist practicing in Boise, ID. His clients have included World and U.S. champions, Olympic athletes and numerous professional athletes. He received his B.S. in Biology/Genetics from Penn State and his Master's degree in Physical Therapy from Emory University. He specializes in manual medicine treatment and specific retraining of spine and joint stabilization musculature. He is a former Cat I road racer and Expert mountain biker.

Pamela Hinton has a bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology and a doctoral degree in Nutritional Sciences, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She did postdoctoral training at Cornell University and is now an assistant professor of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia where she studies the effects of iron deficiency on adaptations to endurance training and the consequences of exercise-associated changes in menstrual function on bone health.

Steve Owens (www.coloradopremiertraining.com) is a USA Cycling certified coach, exercise physiologist and owner of Colorado Premier Training. Steve has worked with both the United States Olympic Committee and Guatemalan Olympic Committee as an Exercise Physiologist. He holds a B.S. in Exercise & Sports Science and currently works with multiple national champions, professionals and World Cup level cyclists.

Richard Stern (www.cyclecoach.com) is Head Coach of Richard Stern Training, a Level 3 Coach with the Association of British Cycling Coaches, a Sports Scientist, and a writer. He has been professionally coaching cyclists and triathletes since 1998 at all levels from professional to recreational. He is a leading expert in coaching with power output and all power meters. Richard has been a competitive cyclist for 20 years

Andy Bloomer (www.cyclecoach.com) is an Associate Coach and sport scientist with Richard Stern Training. He is a member of the Association of British Cycling Coaches (ABCC) and a member of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES). In his role as Exercise Physiologist at Staffordshire University Sports Performance Centre, he has conducted physiological testing and offered training and coaching advice to athletes from all sports for the past 4 years. Andy has been a competitive cyclist for many years.

Michael Smartt (www.wholeathlete.com) is an Associate Coach with Whole Athlete™. He holds a Masters degree in exercise physiology, is a USA Cycling Level I (Elite) Coach and is certified by the NSCA (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist). Michael has more than 10 years competitive experience, primarily on the road, but also in cross and mountain biking. He is currently focused on coaching road cyclists from Jr. to elite levels, but also advises triathletes and Paralympians. Michael is a strong advocate of training with power and has over 5 years experience with the use and analysis of power meters. Michael also spent the 2007 season as the Team Coach for the Value Act Capital Women's Cycling Team.

The femoral fracture left me with significant scarring and a leg which is between 9 - 12mm shorter than the right, and additionally, my foot is rotated about 10 - 15 degrees outwards. I have recently taken up cycling again, and as a result of some Left knee pain, sought some treatment at a physio. This turned out to be an issue with my cl-lateral ligament, which strapping solved quite well. But during this process, I became concerned that I have never been positioned on my bike properly, and sought out some expert advice.

I was setup by a local bike shop in Adelaide, who when given all of the data, positioned me with "traditional methods", and I am more than happy with the results. I was too high, seat was too far back, and my cleats needed to be adjusted to take into account my foot angularity. I also began to consult a local chiropractor who is an avid cyclist and also has a similar issue (short leg), and we are investigating further optimizing my positioning. Initial x-rays showed the effect of my short leg on my posture, but also showed up an even more serious issue in that my back is "too straight"!

My overall question relates to the optimising of positioning with regards to my shorter leg. There seems to be two sets of opinions on how best to solve this. The simple one (and chiropractor supported) is to add spacers to the affected cleat to account for the leg length. The "traditional bike fit" argues against this idea in that adding stack height to the pedal reduces the power input, and thereby exaggerating the effect of the weaker leg.

I am a 54 year old 188cm 100kg rider who does not race. I ride 30km every morning with a group and 60km on the weekends. I changed my cleats to the 'arch cleat' position following the instructions set out by Steve Hogg and have had a fantastic result, I will now never return to the 'standard' position. However riding hard causes some discomfort in the very top of both my calves, so my question is: do I need to adjust my seat either up or down to resolve this issue. I amble able to ride up a rise in a bigger gear and if I let go of the drops I am stable. With the cleats in this position I am riding the best that I have ever have.

My question is this: is there any actual scientific merit to my former coach's warnings? Would a tangible decrease in performance be perhaps due to either physical exertion and/or a late night, as opposed to actual hormonal changes? More importantly, can ANYTHING a person does have a short term effect on hormone levels (androgynous or otherwise) noticeable enough to cause a performance drop? Or would the perceived drop be due to a secondary concern (i.e. late night resulting from the sex life, not actually the act itself)?

I am a 6'1', 48 year old, 185 lb., 16 year veteran mountain bike racer who also does well at a few road time trials. I ride roughly 5000 miles a year combining outdoor and indoor training. I ride a new 59cm 2008 LeMond Tete de Course on the road and a 21" 2005 Trek Top Fuel off road. In addition, for my height I have an extremely long inseam; about 36" to the floor when I "really jam the book up there". Thus, my torso is relatively shorter than others my height. My shoe size is a typical 44--44.5.

Throughout my cycling career I have always had trouble positioning my cleat comfortably on my left side. I have always felt a subtle twisting or binding sensation in my lower leg as if the optimal position of my foot on the pedal was being restricted. This sensation has been with me from the start but seems to be growing as I age. It is never so painful that it forces me to stop, but is annoying enough that I know it is restricting my power output. The biomechanics on my right side are near perfect-hip, knee and ankle all rotate in the same plane, toe slightly in, and virtually no wobble in my right knee. On the left, however, it appears as though my knee wants to wobble through the pedal stroke to compensate for the restriction in my foot placement. At first I thought the sensation was due to my foot wanting to be wider; hence I moved my red Look Keo (it was the same with previous Shimano pedals and shoes) cleat to the inside of my Specialized pro carbon shoes to maximize the q factor, but that didn't work. Although it seemed completely counterintuitive, I moved it opposite thereby moving my foot inward. I feel a small amount of relief, but my cleat adjustment is maxed out. In addition, my heel wants to rotate outward even further at the bottom of each peddle stroke but is prevented from doing so by the limits of the float.

Now here's the kicker: when I ride my mountain bike with my Eggbeater pedals, my foot settles in to a toe-out, heel-in position opposite my road bike and the twisting sensation vanishes! Seat height and fore-aft saddle position are identical. The only difference I can discern is a fractionally wider q-factor by a few millimetres on my road bike. When I forcibly duplicate this position on my road bike, my foot will immediately wander back to the previous position and the restrictive sensation returns. My chiropractor tells me I have a tiny leg length discrepancy with my left being fractionally shorter. Can you offer me any guidance as to what to consider next, short of riding Eggbeater pedals on my road bike? I did, in fact, try Crank Brothers Quattro's but really didn't care for them. The cleats squeaked badly and the stack height was noticeably greater. The Looks work well for me, aside from the issues noted above.

The most likely cause of your problem is simple. You are dropping your right hip and/or rotating it forward on each right side pedal downstroke. This challenges the plane of movement of the left leg and what you describe is typical of a moderately severe tendency to this. This scenario is the most common functional asymmetry in cycling and 95% of riders do it at some level, great or small. The other 5% perform the left side dominant version of the same thing. If there was a text book, you have given a 'text book' description of common issues resulting from this.

I don't want to change to mid-foot pedalling; because I have one foot which is fully one size longer than the other, I simply want to be able to push the cleat on one of the shoes further forward than the present positioning of the threaded inserts will allow, despite having routed out the elongated slots in the cleats to their maximum. I'm almost there but not quite! I need another couple of mill. and the only solution is to put in another set of threaded inserts just ahead of those positioned by the manufacturers. So, if you could let me have the Shimano reference again, I'll try to find someone who can supply me.

Curiously enough, despite my feet being odd sizes, I find they are equally comfortable in the shoes which are both a 47 (Sidi Genius). It's just one of the cleat positions which is a tad wrong. Nor is the solution it seems, to buy odd-sized shoes. I've already tried that with 2 different sizes of Time and the positioning on both the 46 and the 47 is identical. I could go on experimenting with shoes from other manufacturers but good cycling shoes aren't that cheap and I don't have a bottomless purse.

You're correct but will likely find that you can't drop the bars to quite the same extent as you will need to drop the seat. A typical seat drop when moving from forefoot cleat position to midfoot cleat position is 30 - 40 mm. A lot depends on what the arch shape of the shoe that you are modifying is like and how much it has to be 'filled' in. You will find that the greater hamstring (and quad) enlistment will limit how far you can drop the seat. If you are reasonably flexible in and around the hips, you should be able to drop your bars 2/3 of the distance that you drop your seat. If you are not reasonably flexible, expect to drop the bars about half of the amount that you drop the seat.