Originally Posted by mlh122
I've searched a bit and can't find anything on this. I'm considering going clipless and I was wondering where your feet take the most force on clipless pedals. Most of them I see have the cleats on the ball of the foot which would make me think that the muscles in your ankle absorb a lot of the pushing/pulling force. I have a bum ankle so on my platform pedals I pretty much pedal on my heel, or a bit forward of it, but way back from the ball in any case. So is the cleat location adjustable? or is my entire understanding of it just wrong??
The muscle distribution is probably about the same as when you are using flats. The only difference is that you will use the muscles on the front of your shin more.
If your ankles hurt you so much that you cannot cycle with the ball on the pedal, I would suggest either road riding or swimming until those tendons and muscles are ready to go.
More advice ... here is a simple ankle strengthening excercise that fixed my chronically bad, perpetually spraining ankles. Do a ankle rotation. But instead of just spinning it around, use your hand to provide resistance all the way around. Do it in both directions. This will strengthen and stretch all at the same time.