"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Too much guad use - saddle too low or high?

I've noticed an overuse of my quads when riding on flat roads or the trainer/rollers. My saddle is pretty far back, enough that my knees are a good 1-2cm behind the pedal spindle. Could this be a saddle height problem?

Eventually I'll have time in my schedule for a fitting, but for now any thoughts would be appreciated.

Seat further back should elicit more hamstring/glute usage.....

but oddly it doesn't

Quads are for extending your lower leg. It seems to make sense that your saddle being so far back
is making your legs work pretty hard at the top of your pedal stroke when you are moving your foot forward. Try moving the saddle forward.

Get pics with your leg at the top of the pedal stroke, at 90 degrees forward, and at the bottom of the pedal stroke of your current setup

Get pics with your leg at the top of the pedal stroke, at 90 degrees forward, and at the bottom of the pedal stroke of your current setup

k, that'll have to wait till tonight though. On the vertical, should the camera be level with my shoulders, hips, knees, BB?

if it's too low, you'll know.

if it's too low, you'll know.

will Jack Sparrow let me know?

Knee area, but set back a bit so it shows you on the bike as well

will Jack Sparrow let me know?

That be Captain Jack to you matey! Aaargh!

That be Captain Jack to you matey!

Actually he was promoted to Admiral after his heroic performance last week.

Actually he was promoted to Admiral after his heroic performance last week.

Aargh!

I've noticed an overuse of my quads when riding on flat roads or the trainer/rollers. My saddle is pretty far back, enough that my knees are a good 1-2cm behind the pedal spindle. Could this be a saddle height problem?

Eventually I'll have time in my schedule for a fitting, but for now any thoughts would be appreciated.

wtf is a quad?

Captain Jack will get you high tonight. 'nuff said.

wtf is a quad?

http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/img/newquadricep.gif

Try lowering it a little. My seat was too high when I developed ITB, and it turned out it was from working my guads and not my gluts. I dropped the saddle a good 3-4cm (I was way too high) and my gluts started burning while the knee started healing.

wtf is a quad?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriceps

The quadriceps femoris (quadriceps, quadriceps extensor, guads or quads) includes the four prevailing muscles on the front of the thigh. It is the great extensor muscle of the knee, forming a large fleshy mass which covers the front and sides of the femur.

^^ you sly fox

edit: oh, wow, you didn't add "guads". That reference has been there for quite some time now.

^^ you sly fox

edit: oh, wow, you didn't add "guads". That reference has been there for quite some time now.
Yeah, I don't know who added it, but someone made a post about it last Summer to see if anyone on here would fess up.

Quads tend to be used more when you're not bent over, i.e. sitting more upright. This is related, I think, to walking.

Glutes/hamstrings are heavily recruited when you have an acute angle between your torso and your upper leg. Their main job is to help you walk/run uphill or keep you from toppling forward when carrying something heavy. On a bike they provide power when your body leans forward a lot. This is part of the reason why you automatically hunch over when climbing a steep/hard hill - your body tries to recruit those very powerful muscles.

Although moving the seat back helps make the torso/leg angle more acute, if you adjust yourself to sit upright, it doesn't help that much.

You can experiment by putting your hand on your glutes, upper hamstring, and quads, letting you feel when the muscle fires and how strongly it fires. Pedal a big gear on a trainer and vary how low you hold your torso. You'll find that a lower torso causes a much more powerful glute contraction.

cdr

Good insight as always, CDR.

I'd say move it forward and up. That may seem counterintuitive, but you're a pretty fast spinner. From personal experience, I was able to give my dominant quads a little bit of a break and work on hamstring strength by moving the saddle to KOPS and then up as high as I could while protecting the backs of my knees.

Have you ever felt the need to scoot forward on the saddle for hard efforts, especially climbing? (harder efforts seated, of course)

When I was riding flats exclusively for a while this summer, I raised the saddle even more to get a more balanced pedal stroke, because I wasn't dropping my heels as much on that terrain.

Have you ever felt the need to scoot forward on the saddle for hard efforts, especially climbing? (harder efforts seated, of course)

I did some longer (>1mi) climbs on Monday and was very comfortable in terms of saddle fore/aft. Didn't feel like my body wanted to scoot forward or backward. During my attack/break at Tradezone, I was chugging at about 140-150% FTP tucked down pretty low and my butt actually wanted to move back a little more.

Gotcha. Based on your last statement, I'd say raise it up first. If that feels like too much reach, then go forward a bit too.

How are you determining that you are using too much quad and not enough glute? Percieved exertion?

How are you determining that you are using too much quad and not enough glute? Percieved exertion?

extreme and early-onset cramping, plus excessive soreness (compared to the rest of my legs/body) the next day.

extreme and early-onset cramping, plus excessive soreness (compared to the rest of my legs/body) the next day.

Cycling has always made my quads more sore than any other part of my legs, although I wouldn't call it extreme or early-onset. I thought this was more or less normal.

Your extreme and early-onset cramping could be more of a nutrition or electrolyte issue. You may want to experiment with some endurolyte caps as well as looking at your positioning.

Cycling has always made my quads more sore than any other part of my legs, although I wouldn't call it extreme or early-onset. I thought this was more or less normal.

Your extreme and early-onset cramping could be more of a nutrition or electrolyte issue. You may want to experiment with some endurolyte caps as well as looking at your positioning.

My nutrition is fine, nothing else hurts except for that little knot of muscle above my knees.

When was the last time your quads felt okay? What has changed since then?

If the problem/pain is bad, go see a specialist.

Excessive quad use could be due to
- high seat
- seat back too far
- long crank arm
- even change in cleat position
edit:
- pushing higher gears also

All these things effect knee problems also. If you don't correct it, next could be knee problems.

When was the last time your quads felt okay? What has changed since then?

If the problem/pain is bad, go see a specialist.

Excessive quad use could be due to
- high seat
- seat back too far
- long crank arm
- even change in cleat position

All these things effect knee problems also. If you don't correct it, next could be knee problems.

It's not pain, it really is just muscle soreness/tightness/cramping. My quads and calves have always felt a bit overworked, and my hamstrings/backsides have always felt underworked.

High seat: Maybe. We'll see when I snap some pics/video tonight.
Seat back too far: Again, possible.
Long crank: 170mm, i don't think that's the problem.
Cleat position: hasn't changed since my last fitting.

I was just thinking that if during an attack you want to scoot off the back of the saddle, then you are looking to stretch your legs out more. In other words, you can't get the power you need in a neutral position, possibly because you can't really push all the way down (cranks too short or saddle too low)--you don't get enough knee extension. It may not feel too far back generally because of how low it is. But, if you're protecting your knees from the impact of getting to the bottom of the pedal stroke too soon, you're likely to feel it in the muscles just around the knee. If the saddle is too high, I think you'd feel it behind the knee or nearer the tops of the quads. Also, having the saddle too far back could overload the base of the quads if you've got too much leg extension forward as opposed to downward.

I don't know if any of that follows any rules of thumb, but I'm basing that on personal observation when I was working with my saddle position not too long ago (got a new saddle and had to change things). My quads have always seemed to take up extra slack from chronically underdeveloped hamstrings, so maybe our biomechanics are similar. The way I work, when my saddle is farther back, I wind up using my quads and hip flexors more to lift on the upstroke and calves more on the downstroke than when my knee is over the pedal axle. I get better use of hams and glutes on flat roads when the saddle isn't very far back.

Still, I feel pretty confident in saying that if you're looking for a way to get more leverage on the pedals and to apply more downward force, and if you're doing that by scooting backward on your saddle which is already 1-2cm behind KOPS, I'd start with raising it up. From there, see how it feels. You may want to keep raising it while moving it forward.

BD, this sounds like me too. I get more soreness in my inner (medial) quads than anywhere else (in the Vastus Medialis). I have moved a few thing around lately, but i started developing this problem by riding the fixed gear too much and pushing huge gears often. I've lowered my saddle a bit and pushed it forward a bit. Too soon to tell if this will help. I'm still riding the FG a lot, so this may be an issue.

I continue to ice it and massage it after long, hard rides and lots of stretching, and i think that this has helped it from getting as bad as yours is (i dont cramp at all, just lots of localized soreness). I am convinced that it has to do with a weakness in my abs, adductors and tightness/weakness in my IT band complex.
I'm going to begin more stretching/strengthening of this area and work on getting some more work for my transverse abdominis. Sadly for both of us, merely changing saddle position may not work (but it may help).


Do you have pain/soreness in the IT band area??

When on the geared bike, I use a cadence of 90-100 RPM and do a lot of focused "pulling" of the pedals to try and keep all muscles working evenly, this seems to help.

I'll keep you updated as to what works, or doesnt work, but it sounds like you and I have got the same thing going on. But ice, stretching and massage rarely hurt.
Good luck and keep us posted.


-L

Another anecdote that might be helpful: last year I began to feel like I was working my quads too much and stretching too much at the bottom of the pedal stroke. I lowered the saddle a hair, and all of a sudden I felt like I was flying. The difference was that my hamstrings were coming into play, and I had this entire large muscle group that I had barely been using before contributing a lot more to the work and taking some of the load off of my quads (which also became more efficient when they weren't spending so much time fully contracted).

Is this (http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=2008/letters02-20#4) you?

Either you or someone with the same problem just got a couple brief tips from Cycling News.

That's not me, but it seems to fall in line with what some posters here have said.

Apologies for not having the pics as promised but my brother in law was in a very bad car wreck last night; CT scan shows he has a growth on his spine. He's back in the ER now awaiting an MRI and possible surgery. It might be some time before I get to take pictures of me on a trainer.

Ok, here are the pics:

http://home.gwu.edu/~bdcheung/pos/posnull.jpg

http://home.gwu.edu/~bdcheung/pos/pos0.jpg

http://home.gwu.edu/~bdcheung/pos/pos90.jpg

http://home.gwu.edu/~bdcheung/pos/pos180.jpg

The angle I measured in that last image, between my upper and lower leg, is ~20*

Lower your saddle
I'll not explain

I wish I was that slim.

You definitely have an acute angle between your leg and torso.

Your saddle might be a bit high but I think my seat is a bit high too, so I can't say anything one way or another. I do know that my power goes up with a lower seat but my short term speed goes up with a higher seat. ("higher" and "lower" involves about 5 mm in a 672 mm seat-BB distance).

cdr

Yah, your saddle looks a bit high.

What would be really helpful for you is to take a video, or have a really experienced set of eyes, watch your hips from behind as you pedal. If your hips are rocking at all, lowering the saddle is a must.

Try lowering 2mm at a time, though, nothing dramatic and after ALL rides and in this order: stretch! (guads and Hips/IT band in particular), self massage with legs elevated and then ICE them guads! Until you find out the real problem, this should keep things feeling copasetic.

keep us posted.

oh, from my end, lowering the saddle and pushing it foward a bit has been feeling good. I'll keep you updated.

-L

I just noticed the rings. Did you change them recently? I haven't been paying that close attention.

cdr

*edit* also I hope you ride the trainer somewhere else, based on how much rug your tire is displacing

^^^^^
A, he's been using the rings for quite a while.

I've been on the rings for a while. Trainer is always in the garage, but I moved it into the basement for the photo.

I'll try lowering the saddle a bit.

CDR - you said I have an acute angle between my leg and torso. Is that good/bad?

I'll try and capture some video.

ok on rings, didn't know. I dunno if they have an effect on quad use, that's why I ask.

Acute angle is good, recruits the back of your leg (glutes especially). Upright uses quads.

I just rode on the trainer and looked at what I thought is my aggressively high saddle position. It's lower than yours (relatively speaking).

I realized when I came back up that I check leg extension when the pedal is as far from the seat as possible. Not at the bottom of the stroke, slightly before it. Based on that your seat may be a bit high.

btw hope your bro is doing okay.

cdr

Brother is fine, though the guy who hit him died, sadly.

good thread. My quads are always tight/ sore about 30min after a hard ride, but nothing else feels like it was used. I try to drink a glass of chocolate milk within 10min of getting off the bike. I think ill go lower my saddle a smidge.

During my long term fitting process (over the last 4 weeks or so), my saddle has crept back approximately 10-12mm (from my original fitting spot) while keeping the seat post at the same heigth. Moving the saddle back has the same effect as raising the seat post. I've noticed that the further back I go with the saddle (to a point of course) the more I feel my glutes and hamstrings v.s. my quads while pushing hard. I seem to be faster too and climb better in the saddle. I tend to prefer to push a bigger gear than most and my normal cadence average per ride is around 87 rpm. I used to get so sore after every ride that the next day I'd have to take off (or do a super low intensity active recovery ride). Either my fitness (because of my slowly increasing volume over the last 5-6 weeks) or moving the seat back and tweaking my position on the bike has pretty much taken the quad pain away which makes it easier for me to go hard on successive days (instead of having to do active recovery after a high intensity ride, I can actually ride hard again the next day). It's probably a combination of all of the above. I did notice after my first couple of rides with my current saddle position, my glutes and hamstrings have been sore, which I've never noticed before. I do ride standing quite a bit too, so that seems to balance things out a bit (standing for long periods makes my quads burn). When I mean long periods, I mean up to 5 minutes at a time. ;)

My vote is still for moving it forward first, but I'll agree your leg does look pretty straight at the bottom of the pedal stroke.

I'm glad we aren't using the argyle for the racing kit this year. Seems that everyone and their brother went with argyle this fall.

I moved the seat forward and down, all problems solved!