Ankling

Ankling - some people do it and some people don't. I've seen some coaches and studies that say it works (i.e. more efficient, better for injury prevention and whatnot), but then others say it's not more efficient than pedaling with a fixed foot position, toes down, or heels down (or any other way you can pedal).

Anyone know of new research that's been done with this, or have some new ideas on it?

Thanks!

I'm not even sure what it is, but I've been told I do it!

Hopefully I'll get corrected if I'm wrong, but I think it's a style of pedaling where your toes are pointed down at the top of the pedal stroke and then pointed up at the bottom of the stroke. So throughout the pedal revolution, your ankle goes from plantar flexion to dorsiflexion and back again.

I've read some articles that say it's more efficient and safer, and then others that say it's not. I wonder if there's much research out there on it. Have you tried it at all? Well, guess not if you're not sure what it is, huh? lol.

Learn to ride with no hands and then use your arms to assist your pedaling by pushing down on your knees.

This works best if you do massive amounts of weightlifting during the winter and don't ride at all.

Riiiiiiight.

Um, OK by that description (the serious one), I don't ankle. My toes aren't pointing up at the bottom. Only when I'm back in saddle on a tough climb, and only when kind of looking for a way to take the heat off my quads (by doing that scraping mud off your shoe spin).

Gotcha. So do you have any idea as to how you would ankle if you were going to do it? Maybe someone else can chime in too and let us know how to do it properly.
Thanks!

I don't think there's any research on 'ankling'... perhaps, ryan could do a pub-med search and report back to us?

ric

__________________
http://www.cyclecoach.com

not much luck in there...only one article that i could find:

Effect of variation in seat tube angle at different seat heights on submaximal cycling performance in man.
J Sports Sci. 1997 Aug;15(4):395-402.

I don't have access to the full text, but from the abstract it looks like ankling itself wasn'ts specifically investigated. They just found that there was an "improvement in cycling efficiency observed at steeper seat tube angles was produced in part by the resultant altered ankling pattern of the cyclist."

Doesn't look like there's any specific research on it, although I see a lot of web sites and testimonials out on the internet about how it makes you more efficient. Maybe it works.

Heard a lot more about ankling 25 years ago; seemed to be standard advice then. If I've got it right, it's just pressing your toes down at the bottom of the stroke to get through the dead spot. I do this for seating climbing sometimes, to keep the cadence ticking over when it's starting to lag. Works the calves and save the quads when looking for fresh muscle to recruit.

There is a discussion and chart in Serious Cycling (Burke) which plots the observed ankle angles for seven elite pursuit riders at 100 rpm, 400 W output.

Dan

Dan

I'm afraid you got it reversed. It's were your feet are basically flat at the top but you sort of "scrape the mud from you shoes" at the bottom. i.e. toes start pointing down at the bottom.

It works for me, but it takes some time to adpat if your not a natural, so start with short intervals perhaps like 2x5min per training or so and increase it from there. (you might experiende some discomfort in calf and hamstrings at first)

Happy cycling,

Grouse

Thanks Grouse. I was also wondering what exactly the benefits of it would be. There seem to be mixed signals out there where some people still do it today, but then others say that it was done 25 years ago and it's now a thing of the past. Not that I'm planning on doing it, but just for example...why do you do it?

First of all because i feel it makes me a little bit faster. Must admit though that when i'm tired after a long ride the ankling doesn't go very automated anymore . Some ppl have it natural, i'm one of those who had to learn it. Secondly I also know some pretty good amateur cyclers(like top level amateurs and soem have been pro for a time) who swear by it.

Grouse

Let's see if I can clarify this a bit.

The rationale of ankling is to use more of the 360 degree pedal radius for moving the bike forward.

When your pedal is in its highest position, ankling allows you to begin pushing down earlier. And ankling allows you to keep pushing a bit longer when the pedal is in the down position.

It works. An easy way to prove it to yourself is to ride on flat ground at constant speed without ankling, then start ankling. Your speed will increase slightly for the same output--maybe 1/2 to 1 mph.

So how to ankle? It's harder to explain than to do; but basically what you do is shove your heel down when your foot is at the top of the pedal stroke. (as opposed to allowing your foot to take a constant arc--which will mean that your heel will be higher than your toes on the downward part of the pedal stroke.

When I say "your heel will be higher than your toes on the downward part of the pedal stroke" above, that is when you are NOT ankling.

When you are ankling, your heel will be about the same heighth as your toe on the downward part of the pedal stroke.