How to pedal – by Graeme Obree
Posted December 01, 2011
After a career that saw him twice break the world hour record and wear the rainbow jersey of world pursuit champion, Graeme Obree has decided to share the training secrets that lifted him to the pinnacle of his sport. Representing 45 years of experience in cycling and human athletic pursuit and 17 years in the writing, “The Obree Way” is due to be published on 10th December and will go straight to the top of any serious cyclist’s Christmas list.
We at Daily Cycle are privileged to have been given a preview of this amazing training manual and in an exclusive extract we gave you his breathing technique last week, and we can now exclusively reveal the pedalling technique that powered Graeme to success.
Pedalling
Quite often the divide that separates equally talented opponents is not who can produce the most amount of energy, but who can waste the least. The entire quest in looking at the pedalling action and re-training our technique is to have the largest proportion of our precious energy as possible go into producing movement.
The majority of cyclists learn to ride a bike as children and don’t think about the detail of the pedal action at any point. It is essential that the entrenched habitual pedalling signals from the brain have to be untrained while a new set of impulses are learned. Just like the breathing technique, this is similar to trying to teach someone to play a musical instrument correctly who has been playing it wrongly all their life. That person is you, and if you open your mind to learn a more complex sequence of muscle stimuli that will produce more movement, less heat and less muscle strain, then you open yourself up to the possibility of a considerable improvement in performance.
The Physics of Pedalling
The first thing you need to know is the basic physics involved in the transfer of energy. Almost everything in cycling can be explained by physiology and physics and it is important to get a handle on the basic principles. The governing factor on how fast you can go is not strength or how much force can be brought down on the pedals – it is the energy. When I tell you later on to pedal with less force it is not necessary that you understand the physics but that you believe it. None the less here is the physics of it.
The pedal is the object being moved in a circular direction. The amount of energy transferred to it is simply the amount of force applied to it multiplied by the distance travelled. It is slightly more complicated than that because it is the force pushing the pedal forward that counts. What this means is that a smaller force applied to the pedal in a forward motion for a greater distance travelled can produce more energy than a large force for a shorter distance. In other words a rider with weaker muscles in terms of absolute strength can produce more power and more speed than a stronger rider if he uses more of the pedalling circle more effectively. By ‘effectively’ I mean by applying a force as near to the forward motion as possible.
Getting the Equipment right
The first step in putting this into action is having the right equipment and pedal adjustment. Shoes are probably the most important part of your equipment and the only piece of equipment professional riders carry with them as hand luggage and for good reason. The placement of the plate is vitally important and should be set so that the centre of the pedal is below the ball of the foot. It is also a good policy to get a pedal system that offers the least amount of stack height – this is the distance between the centre of the pedal and the sole of the shoe.
Shoes
As far as shoes go it is worth paying a little extra to get a pair with carbon fibre soles. Not only are they lighter and less flexible but the sole is thinner which also effectively reduces the stack height. The importance of shoes cannot be overstated since all your energy must be transferred through them to the pedals. How shoes fit is a very personal thing and I would advise trying lots of pairs at different outlets to be sure of perfect fit since different manufacturers work to different templates.
Crank Arms
The next link in the order of importance is the crank arms and it is important that they are not too long. I am 1m 80cm and use 170mm cranks. You can do a pro-rata calculation but if you are shorter than this but have longer cranks then it is likely that you need to go shorter to take advantage of the technique I am about to explain.
Saddle Position
Lastly the saddle position has to be looked at to find the best place in both height and how far back it is. This will be a whole new way of pedalling so it may require a whole new saddle position! There has been a trend in general towards having saddles further and further forward. This is not a good trend, especially if you do sportives and longer road events. Aside from the efficiency factor there is general comfort and balance of the body’s mass to gain from trying to get your saddle further back. A forward saddle causes a lot of weight to fall on the arms and shoulders. If you suffer from a stiff neck during or after riding then there is a good chance that this is a major contributor.
Experiment with your saddle position and do not be afraid to take it back by quite a chunk- my own bike has a saddle tip more than 10cm behind the bracket. If you do then you also have to lower height. A good rule of thumb is to lower one part for every four parts moved back. As you go through the process of learning the riding style to follow you may naturally find yourself sitting further back on the saddle and if so then move it accordingly.
Basic Principles
The basic principles of using the full pedal cycle are relatively simple. The difficult part is learning to use it on the bike all the time without having to think deeply about every single pedal stroke. At the start you will have to use that just to replace your old pedalling habit with a better one. If you master this, then you will never go back to the old way.
The first point of the stroke is when the cranks are straight up and down (top dead centre).This is the most neglected part of the stroke and conventional thinking is that you have to wait until your legs have bowled past to 30 or 40 degrees before applying a proper standing force on the pedal. This is where we must learn to use the most neglected muscle in cycling, the vastus medial - the muscle you kick a football with. You have to start at the top by kicking that football. On the back stroke leading up to this point you should have allowed your ankle to have dropped so that your foot is at an acute angle to your shin (hence the need for free movement)
This is not an explosive kick but because your ankle is dropped you roll onto where you would normally put the force down and use the available movement in the ankle to employ the calf muscles as well as the muscles in the thigh to drive the pedal stroke downwards. This enables you to use the entire half circle of the downward stroke. At the start you will need to do this in slow motion to get to grips with it but if you think L-O-N-G (as in the stroke)it will keep you focussed on distance of stroke rather than force during the long down-stroke don’t try to put one burst of strength at the middle point. This is about using just a little less force than a stomping style but delivering it evenly over a long stroke. Because the peak force is less than before there is the advantage that fatigue is also less, even though more power is being outputted.
The Pedal Stroke
There are two distinct halves to this stroke and the second is the upstroke where you pull the ankle back to a dipped position ready for the next kick forward. Perfect timing can make such a difference to the fluidity and power of this stroke action. Ideally, the second leg is kicking its football just as the first leg has finished its long stroke and is moving for the up- stroke. A slight lateral rocking style helps this technique to work and if you achieve good timing then you will find this incredibly useful on a long climb.
I should point out here that a lot of riders have developed a bad habit of dropping their shoulders with every pedal stroke which leads to an ungainly upper body movement. Most people will have seen cyclists who have developed this habit and ride with an erratic, over compensating upper torso and shoulder movement. When I was much younger I did this as well but overcame it by putting that action into my pedals at the exact moment that my shoulder would have dropped and found an instant benefit. It is one of those cases of engrained habit that can be hard to break – but it can be done. It has to be since this long stroke just will not work with shoulder drop syndrome. Keeping your head always in the same line holds everything in rhythm while you use a rocking style. As you get better at this you may find that you want to put the saddle even further back to get behind the pedals and that you can kick forward before the crank is even vertical.
You might want to practice this on the Turbo on slow-mo. Here is the run through again.
- Start with you heel dropped with the cranks vertical
- Kick that football and follow through with calf and thigh muscles
- Think L-O-N-G stroke
- Kick with opposite leg just as you go to pull for the upstroke
- Slightly rock onto each pedal
Out of the saddle
Out of the saddle effort is a different matter since it is more difficult to control the kick stroke (when the crank is vertical). It is possible to use it to some degree but nowhere near to the effect of the in saddle effort and when you eventually (yes – eventually you can do this) perfect the in saddle technique you will find yourself using the out-of –saddle effort less often simply because on a long climb it is less efficient and on the flat it is less aerodynamic.
There are times when an out-of-saddle effort is required like a change of pace or on a very steep part of a climb. The most common fault on such an effort is applying the downward force too late in the stroke. It is essential to step on the pedal as soon as it reaches the sweet spot which is when the crank gets to about 45 degrees past vertical. If you can master the kick on the out-of-saddle effort then follow through, that’s great, but it is not an easy skill to master.
Timing and control
Catching the crank at the sweet spot is the most important thing but control of the upper body is also essential. A lot of energy can be lost by using the arms to pull and heave on the bar - that serves no purpose other than to twist the front end of the bike. Anticipating what size of gear you will need in advance will help reduce this but there are always times when we get caught out. On such occasions it is a good idea to have your arms as straight as possible to reduce muscle strain and allow yourself as straight a spine as your bike position will allow, but not locked totally straight as that is dangerous.
It is also important not to bounce up and down since this also wastes energy and spoils the smooth flow of your pedal action. You can practice this by putting noisy things like coins in your back pockets and ride out-of-the-saddle in a way that they don’t rattle. Concentrate on dual timing with one leg kicking down just as the other is pulling up while being conscious about engaging the calf muscles in the process. There is always a temptation to allow the shoulders to bounce up and down and to pull the handlebars in a spasm with each down-stroke. Learn not to do this. Let the legs do the work!
Further Information
- Main photo is the official front cover for The Obree Way.
- Second photo is via Ergo Ergo Ergo
- The Obree Way is due to be released on December 10th 2011 and is published by Maximise Sport.
- Check out Graeme’s website for more: www.obree.com
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Your Thoughts
So what do you think about this technique? Are you interested in buying the book? Do you think these techniques will help improve your performance? Let us know…
