It’s just pedalling, right? Turns out, not so much…
Covered in this blog:
- Why pedal efficiency is important
- How to measure pedal efficiency
- Using a power meter
- Without a power meter
- Improving your pedalling efficiency
- How to conduct single legged drills
- Pedalling technique
Why pedal efficiency is important
Despite cycling being one of the kindest sports to our body, there are some pitfalls to avoid. One of them is pedal efficiency. While a lower cadence can cause some issues around our muscles and joints – due to the added force exerted at low cadence – we can also loosely balme our efficiency for certain problems too.
First, if you’ve not had a professional bike fit, now’s the time to get one. Ensure you take all your shoes with you, and ensure the fitter gets your foot:shoe:cleat:pedal setup. If you’ve not done this step, working on your pedalling technique will be more challenging, and possibly a waste of time, if you later change your setup, and have to start working on your technique again, due to a change in position.
Having said that, and asides from injury risk, a common goal of cyclists is to be better on the bike. Be that faster, stronger, more powerful, or more comfortable, I’m sure none of us are sitting on the bike not wanting to be at least fractions better; so working on your pedalling technique might unlock some significant improvements. We can simply become more efficient with the way our body uses the energy it takes to move a bicycle.
How to measure pedal efficiency
There are two ways to measure and improve your cycling pedalling technique and efficiency. The first is objective, will provide you with lots of data, and be a very accurate way of quantifying and seeing improvements. The only downside is there is more cost involved, the need for a deeper understanding of data, and the want to get a little geeky with it!
The second method is primarily subjective, and will seemingly show improvements in your cycling pedalling efficiency and technique, but will lack the data to back that up. Either way, you should see some improvements, so it just depends on if you want to spend any money, and if you like looking at data.
Using a power meter
With the cost of power meters more affordable than ever, you can start to measure and monitor your pedalling efficiency with far greater ease than ever half a decade ago. Provided you pick the right power meter (dual sided will be necessary) and analytical software, you’ll be able to visualise every pedal stroke and dissect it in a manner that was limited to universities and Wattbike owners not that long ago.
The first benefit, to using a power meter to measure this, is you can see the power balance between both legs. Ideally, we want a balance with less than 5% deviation, for example, you might see RL 45.5% and LL 54.5%. Anywhere between this and 50:50 is considered normal. This identifies imbalances and can be really useful to increase your power balance. If you’ve suffered with an injury, you might consider this as a cost effective way of returning to an even balance pedalling technique.
Once you’re ready, conduct a test with you pedalling normally. Upload the data to your analytical software, and you should have something that looks like this:
Essentially, you are looking at your pedal rotation, with the left side being left leg and the right side being right leg. The point in the middle is where one leg stops and the other takes over. In real time, it would look like you were drawing a figure 8.
The picture above actually shows poor pedalling efficiency and technique. There is a lot of power lost between the transition points, and it is incredibly inefficient. The picture below shows good technique. Notice how there is far less power lost at the transition point.
Without a power meter
If you don’t have a power meter, I suggest conducting some single legged drills. These simple drills will show you exactly where in the pedal rotation you are struggling. They are also great for improving those weaknesses, so I recommend that everyone revisits this at some point during their yearly training cycle. More on single legged drills can be found below.
Improving your pedalling efficiency
Thankfully, it’s not too difficult to improve your cycling pedalling efficiency, and this can be done pretty much any time, during any training session, or any ride.
How to conduct single legged drills
One of the best ways to improve your pedalling efficiency is to conduct some single legged drills. These simple intervals will help you identify some weaknesses in your pedal rotation and improve overall efficiency and technique. Here’s how to conduct single legged drills on the bike:
- 20 minute progressive warm-up
- Unclip your foot from one pedal and pedal with the other leg for ~30 seconds
- Swap legs and repeat with the other leg
- Repeat until you are too tired
- 10 minute cool down
These drills are great for improving your pedalling efficiency, so remember to bookmark this page to save the drills.
Pedalling technique
Thanking Wattbike for the below graphic which shows the most efficient pedalling technique. Adding that dropping the ankle at the top of the pedal stroke, i.e. just before you apply force, will help you with this method.
Summary
I recommend that you start practising this on your indoor trainer, then take it out onto the road. Don’t forget to throw in some single legged drills, and you’ll be pedalling efficiently in no time.
