I've fallen [into my pedals] and I can't get up...

[thwart]

Originally Posted by brownhound

Or try this: http://edsasslercoaching.com/the-program/the-concept/

In particular, the "Dynamic Position" video. I watched them all but I think that's the visual.

I watched with my four year old. As he said it "oh, so you don't use your muscle to push down but use gravity to pull down."

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh yeah.

[jr59]

Originally Posted by Ti Designs

I get ridiculed a lot about how I teach pedal stroke, in particular how I tell people to fall into their pedals. Much of the mocking comes from the safety of the internet, but I get a fair bit of it at work. Most of the "a man walks into a bar" jokes have been rewritten as "Ed falls into a pedal" jokes - things like that. It's a simple case of those who think pedaling a bike is natural vs those who don't, and have figured out a way to teach a skill set.

I hear Galileo had the same issue, only NASA came along a few centuries too late, so he could never really crush anyone in an argument. All I needed was for someone to ridicule how I teach pedal stroke while on a ride. On Thursday I got my wish. It was aggressive ridiculing at first, asking if I was falling into my pedals every minute. Going up the first hill he decided to make the point of how falling into the pedals doesn't work by dropping me. Then something wonderful happened, he shut up. He shifted down in an effort to spin up the hill, I rode up next to him, falling into my pedals as I always do while climbing. He couldn't talk because he was breathing too hard, I wasn't putting in much effort. He was the perfect example of what goes wrong in the pedal stroke, I was a pretty good example of how it should work. I really didn't have to say much, after a few hills all mocking stopped. For some reason I had "Help me now I'm falling" by the Kinks in my head for the rest of the ride...

"falling into the pedals" is just a teaching method I use to get around a skill set that is already mapped. You spend your life walking and standing, your body uses the quads for that. As soon as you try to push down, you probably activate the quads, which on a bike are pushing in the wrong direction. I tell people to fall into the pedals because it brings it back to the static skill set used for sitting. In sitting nobody uses their quads, the glutes hold up the body weight. It's just my trick to teach using the right muscle group. You would think it should be easy to use the quads, so there's no need for such silly methods, but in working with hundreds of people I've found maybe 5% can make that happen. Of the rest, maybe 5% would ever listen to me, which leaves 90% of the cycling population to mock me and my ideas about falling into the pedals.

Here's the thing, it's a teaching method. It's my way of tricking the body into using a muscle for part of the pedal stroke. Once mapped, I can use that muscle as hard as I want. When I ride I don't just fall into the pedals, I power the bike using the largest muscle group I have, and I do it efficiently. If you can't do that, ridiculing me on the bike for my teaching method could be a mistake...

Wait, didn't this happen in Fl? Where clearly you were the far better cyclist?

Or did this happen on the ride with the guy who MUST have been doping?

hmmm......

[CunegoFan]

Originally Posted by mg2ride

let's get back to the ridiculing.

If I understand you OP correctly, since you dropped someone on a climb you teaching method has been verified?

If he had not been able to drop him then it would have been proof the other guy was on drugs.

I have a suspicion that the amount of ridiculing is directly proportional to the amount of boasting.

[etu]

Originally Posted by bobswire

I too would appreciate a visual video. I'm an old dog but willing to learn new trick if it would help me climb. The older I gotten I've become a more efficient cyclist (in how I use my body) while not losing too much time in the process getting from point A to B. I'm not a competitive rider other than to myself but anything that helps me get to point B more efficiently is welcomed.

Bob,
PM me if you want to go a short ride. The hill up to legion of honor might be a good spot. I spent a few hours with Ed this spring and learned the "falling into pedals" technique and it's made a real significant change in my riding. I haven't measured my times on climbs so I can't objectively say I am going faster, but it FEELS a lot better. When I am going hard on climbs now, it's no longer my legs, but my heart and lungs that are the limiters.

[weisan]

Let the KING show you how...

[Steve in SLO]

I have to hand it to Ed: I am a 35 year cyclist, and after watching his falling on the pedals video, I Incorporated it into my pedal stroke and found that extra little bit but I had been missing. I don't think about it all the time, but when I do it always seems to give me that little extra especially going uphill.

[Tickdoc]

ok, I have the general idea. What I see with the falling forward technique is what I do naturally when I am wearing out at the end of a long climb. I think it is an adjustment that happens as your body needs a switch naturally.

I don't ride like that all of the time though. Would I? Should I? I don't know I'll have to play with it.

I disagree with his ROM limitations as a static thing. Stretches to maintain good ROM eliminate that problem and allow you to gain more aerodynamic resting position. That is something I worked on when being fit for my bike. I feel pretty flexible for my age, but it comes from daily stretching and resistance stretching to increase my flexibility in general.

BTW Did anyone notice the "flat earth history" video that popped up after the first video? The picture of the turtle with the elephants on it's back and the flat earth on top was more than I could resist.

https://youtu.be/U55UDzNCSAE

What a world we live in.



Lastly, I do like his choice of bike ;~)

[Coalfield]

If Eddy did it..... I want to hear about it.
god knows my pedal stroke is always wanting to be smoother, powerful.

[etu]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

ok, I have the general idea. What I see with the falling forward technique is what I do naturally when I am wearing out at the end of a long climb. I think it is an adjustment that happens as your body needs a switch naturally.

I don't ride like that all of the time though. Would I? Should I? I don't know I'll have to play with it.

Do it earlier rather than later when you're tired. It is intuitive and not intuitive at the same. You do have to push a slightly bigger gear. One thing I noticed is that I feel like I am using so much more of my core as evidenced a sore (in a good way) upper back muscles on the following day.

[mg2ride]

Originally Posted by CunegoFan

I have a suspicion that the amount of ridiculing is directly proportional to the amount of boasting.

If we are to follow that model we need to step it up a bit. We are way behind

[Ti Designs]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I disagree with his ROM limitations as a static thing. Stretches to maintain good ROM eliminate that problem and allow you to gain more aerodynamic resting position. That is something I worked on when being fit for my bike. I feel pretty flexible for my age, but it comes from daily stretching and resistance stretching to increase my flexibility in general.

I never said that ROM was static. I change handlebar position a number of times a year, going from my less flexible early season form to my more flexible in-season form. What the video was going over was the test for range of motion, which is the limit of how much angle at the hip you can handle. It also has a lot to do with getting body weight into the pedal, as less range of motion can limit getting the center of gravity right over the pedal.

[dnc]

Originally Posted by Ti Designs

I never said that ROM was static. I change handlebar position a number of times a year, going from my less flexible early season form to my more flexible in-season form. What the video was going over was the test for range of motion, which is the limit of how much angle at the hip you can handle. It also has a lot to do with getting body weight into the pedal, as less range of motion can limit getting the center of gravity right over the pedal.

Can your technique be used when using aero bars in a TT ?

[Ti Designs]

Originally Posted by jr59

Wait, didn't this happen in Fl? Where clearly you were the far better cyclist?

Or did this happen on the ride with the guy who MUST have been doping?

hmmm......

The perfect example of not understanding a technique. Falling into the pedals is my way of tricking the body into using the glutes. Glutes are the widest muscle group you've got, but not very long. The result is lots of torque, not that much speed. By comparison, quads are almost three times as long with a lever system (the knee) that moves the foot far faster. Lots of speed, not so much torque. Climbing hills requires torque, speed on the flats requires leg speed. Take a look at the comparison - same rider, using quads on a time trial, glutes to get up a hill:

http://edsasslercoaching.com/what-go.../someone-said/


Both the ride with doper boy and the ride in Florida were flat speed rides. In Florida what I found were lots of people who know how to use their quads really well. I have good flat speed for where I live, in Florida I'm average at best. We went over one overpass, they all climbed it out of the saddle... Doper boy was really fast, but had no cardio response to his efforts. At 30 MPH he wasn't breathing very hard at all, mile after mile.

[Ti Designs]

Originally Posted by dnc

Can your technique be used when using aero bars in a TT ?

Yeh, but it's not easy. This is why I teach my triathletes pedal stroke on road bikes before switching over to aero bars. Aero bars should get in the way of dropping the body weight into the pedals. If they learn the technique on a road bike to the point where the glutes are the mapped muscle, lowering the arm pads a bit can allow the same thing to work on aero bars.

When coaching triathletes, part of my job is to make the running coach look like a genius. The upper attachment of the glutes pulls on the lumbar spine. Over use that and you're not getting off the bike and running very fast. In the last two miles of the bike leg of a triathlon, my athletes will shift to lower and lower gears and bring up the cadence - shifting to the quads. The time lost by doing this is more than made up in the first run split.

[numbskull]

This video from an earlier thread demonstrates the technique while climbing pretty well (I think) beginning at around 42 seconds after he has spent his quads out of the saddle and needs to continue to push the pace. Notice also how later in the clip ,when he hits the 20% section, his quads have had a chance to recover and he can again use them to power up a short steeper section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnX4uaDYyIU