[QUOTE]Originally posted by Maelstrom


Ok...it sounds like you have a muscular imbalance from your hams to your quads. Do you know what you strength ratio is between the two. For example if you can max leg extend 100pnds what can you leg curl (using your own weights obviously). It should be a minimum of 1:1 strenght wise. It is better to have stronger hams than quads for athletic performance (sprinters for example have 1:1.25 (quad to ham) ratio. This reduces injury risk and has a noticable increase in leg power (notice I never use strength...strength is almost useless if you can't reproduce that strength in sport...hence power)
The imbalance is quite severe you know.. I never was comfortable with SPD-clipless and only used them for about 1-2 years.. and used flat pedals and cage pedals until about 6 wks ago...
For curiosity I give you 2 numbers.. the 2nd last and last workout.. there is 16 days of cycle-touring in Portugal in between (actually just 8 days) and lots of short not too steep but still difficult hills in between.. it did improve my leg power!

I'll give you my numbers.. pathetic!! I didn't mention just the leg press for nothing!
2nd last workout on Oct 30, last one on Nov 26. First BFL-style, 2nd new workout .. am still tweaking this one..

Leg press :
12x90kg, 10x100kg, 8x110kg, 6x120 kg, 12x110 kg.
10x100 kg , 6x120kg, 6x130kg, 5x150kg , 4x160kg..

Leg extension:
Oct 30:just 12x50 kg (in BFL style you do this one to almost failure imm after leg press)
Nov 26: 6x45, 6x50m 4x55, 4x60kg

Romanian DL:
Oct 30: 12x12kg, 10x15 kg, 8x20 kg, 6x25 kg , 12x20 kg.
Nov 26: 10x15kg, 6x20kg, 6x25kg, 5x27,5 kg, 4x30kg, 6x32,5kg.. when I was warmed up.. things started moving better.

Seated leg curl:
Oct 30 : 12x45 kg (one set to almost failure imm after DL)
Nov 26: 10x35, 6x45, 5x50, 4x50 ..
I had thought to reach, but no luck..

I should say that it is like: 55 kg for leg extension and 50 kg for leg curl.. with trouble... balance is 1,10:1 (quad:hams)