Seat hight

[GucciPucci]

This thread helped more then I'd expected! Just reading the first two posts answered a lot of questions. But just to... clarify..

My seat height, as long as it's a reasonable height, doesn't affect my power and can actually improve it. Different heights at different times can prove to be helpful with klm/h and mph?

I ask this because when I first got my bike before getting clips, etc. I had my seat heighter then I do now. I guess it was because it caused a small discomfort in my groin, one which I still get. Does this can mean that I can move my seat up higher again and see what it does?

 

[shannons dad]

This thread helped more then I'd expected! Just reading the first two posts answered a lot of questions. But just to... clarify..

My seat height, as long as it's a reasonable height, doesn't affect my power and can actually improve it. Different heights at different times can prove to be helpful with klm/h and mph?

I ask this because when I first got my bike before getting clips, etc. I had my seat heighter then I do now. I guess it was because it caused a small discomfort in my groin, one which I still get. Does this can mean that I can move my seat up higher again and see what it does?

I find that if it's too low, my legs get tired dead fast, if it's too high, my ass and nether regions hurt, and when it's just right, I don't notice any difference in power, no matter which way my toes are pointing. I just pedal in as much a natural direction as they want to point. If your groin hurts, you might want to try lowering the nose of your saddle via the micro-adjust bolt. That'll raise the back of your saddle though and you might need to adjust the height again.

 

[Insight Driver]

I will paint a somewhat "middle ground," approach. Basically there is a window or more accurately a box in which your butt can sit in relation to the ball of your foot on the pedal spindle. Too high will tend to cause pain in the front of the knee with long distance riding. Pain is bad. Too low will cause rear of knee pain in long distance riding. Pain is bad. Other parts of the box are foward and backward position. The bottom line is that there is an optimum leg angle at full extension, any more, bad, too much less, lousy efficiency and bad for the knees.

My desired seat height and fore-aft position varies with how strong I feel and how far I'm riding and on what terrain I'm riding. Seat position is also different if I want to sprint or if I am riding on long uphill grades in the seat.

In long rides I go through a variety of pedal techniques. I do the piston-pump where I use my large muscles to push down hard on the down-stroke, letting intertia carry the cranks through the dead zone. I do the spin where I imagine my legs are turning cranks. This uses all of my leg muscles but I notice my spin must be in a narrow range of cadence. I pay attention to my foot position, also, sometimes allowing them to be lazy, other times making a point of keeping them flat or "toe down." By the way, no matter how I, "toe," it I don't feel a desire to change my saddle height.

One other thing about saddle. Sometimes when I want it higher and actually move it, I also need to tilt it down more. Changing height without adjusting tilt can cause me crotch-located pain.

Now, about seat height in general I see lots of folks who are obviously too low. This seems to be found mostly among newer riders. And for those of us who have been professionally fitted, the initial impression I had was that my seat was too high, but that feeling went away as I developed leg strength.

Now, as a final disclaimer, what works for me may not work for someone else. We have different upper to lower leg ratios. We have differences in walking muscle strength and riding muscle strength. We have differences in ankle strength. We even have differences more fundamental like our ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscles. Higher feels right for some, lower for others. Physics says there is a maximum and minum seat height, outside of which, extended riding can cause knee damage. The more you ride, the smarter you can get.

 

[badhat]

yeah just to clarify, now that the smoke has cleared, i really wasnt advocating a ridiculous over extention style seat boost.

its a slight tweak, and if you do it right, essentially you arent going to affect knee extention at all, your stroke will be mechanically quite similar, but with the toe pointing downwards at a slight angle (say 35 or 40 degrees downward) i've just found that i'm able to enlist my calf and other muscles and distribute the work a little bit.

obviously i could accomplish the same effct with a more traditional position, but i've found that if i raise the seat (and i'm talking like a quarter to a half inch, tops) that i've been able to make the more rounded muscular effort more second nature.

obviously everyones different, and i really didnt mean to suggest that this was a magic way to get faster, but rather, its a posture that i've found helps me maintain rounder pedal strokes.

if you're hyperextending your knees or rocking your hips in the saddle or otherwise experiencing nerve or joint pain, then obviously somethings not working.

 

[huhenio]

I will paint a somewhat "middle ground," approach. Basically there is a window or more accurately a box in which your butt can sit in relation to the ball of your foot on the pedal spindle. Too high will tend to cause pain in the front of the knee with long distance riding. Pain is bad. Too low will cause rear of knee pain in long distance riding. Pain is bad. Other parts of the box are foward and backward position. The bottom line is that there is an optimum leg angle at full extension, any more, bad, too much less, lousy efficiency and bad for the knees.

My desired seat height and fore-aft position varies with how strong I feel and how far I'm riding and on what terrain I'm riding. Seat position is also different if I want to sprint or if I am riding on long uphill grades in the seat.

In long rides I go through a variety of pedal techniques. I do the piston-pump where I use my large muscles to push down hard on the down-stroke, letting intertia carry the cranks through the dead zone. I do the spin where I imagine my legs are turning cranks. This uses all of my leg muscles but I notice my spin must be in a narrow range of cadence. I pay attention to my foot position, also, sometimes allowing them to be lazy, other times making a point of keeping them flat or "toe down." By the way, no matter how I, "toe," it I don't feel a desire to change my saddle height.

One other thing about saddle. Sometimes when I want it higher and actually move it, I also need to tilt it down more. Changing height without adjusting tilt can cause me crotch-located pain.

Now, about seat height in general I see lots of folks who are obviously too low. This seems to be found mostly among newer riders. And for those of us who have been professionally fitted, the initial impression I had was that my seat was too high, but that feeling went away as I developed leg strength.

Now, as a final disclaimer, what works for me may not work for someone else. We have different upper to lower leg ratios. We have differences in walking muscle strength and riding muscle strength. We have differences in ankle strength. We even have differences more fundamental like our ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscles. Higher feels right for some, lower for others. Physics says there is a maximum and minum seat height, outside of which, extended riding can cause knee damage. The more you ride, the smarter you can get.

x2

I keel changing my seat height a few milimiters up or down every time I ride.

 

[VeganRider]

Sorry, but that is the biggest pile of horseshit I've ever heard. If the saddle is so high up that you have to point your toes down to prevent your hips rocking, it is too high and you can cause permanent damage to the knee joint. If you want to increase your overall speed, train harder and better, eat better and go out on calmer days.

Bill.

You beat me to it, you sure have that right. Can't imagine ridding that way.