Why do we place the cleat under the ball of the foot on our cycling shoes? I can find no evidence to support this location. It appears to be simply a result of tradition--cyclists have always done it that way. Last July former pro cyclist and shoe designer Goetz Heine (www.biomac.biz) suggested I try putting my cleats in the arch of my shoes. With some skepticism I tried it. To my amazement my performance improved. In fact, my power-heart rate ratio which I tracked for years improved by 9%. That's a huge change.
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So is there an advantage in placing the cleats farther back? I believe so. Economy - how much effort it takes to ride at a given power output - improves. There may be lots of reasons for this which I won't go into here. Another advantage is that the biggest muscles of your body - the quads and glutes - are used more since the calf - a relatively small muscle - is now less active and no longer serves as a "transmission" for the biggest muscles.