What I don't understand is why you are paying this coach to help you improve, but would rather listen to the advise of some complete strangers on the Internet. i suggest you fire him. You are wasting your money.

Exactly. If you want to go as fast as you can for 15 seconds, use all the muscles you have. It's going to produce a lot of power. It's not efficient for any sustained period because producing power by usising your upper body and rocking the bike comes at a high energy cost. Try riding like this for any prolonged period and you'll crap out.

In other words, the best way to produce 1500 watts for 10 seconds, is not necessarily the best way to produce 350 watts for an hour, because the technique that gives you the 1500 watts isn't sustainable for the hour.

it comes from keeping the upper body loose, which is the proper technique for seated climbing. Try riding with your hands resting on the tops of the bar instead of gripping them and you will see that without using your arms to stabilize you will sway slightly. The effect should not be very pronounced or you need to work on your core more...

i know a guy who tries to keep his bike vertical when he sprints and hes rear wheel slides left and right between pedal strokes. rocking back and forth while sprinting seems the most biomechanically effecient.

This thread is too long for the subject. I stopped reading around post 18.

Pro sprinters do intentionally swing the bike. They are increasing pedal force by pulling the bars away from the pedal during the downstroke. It's like how you would tear carpet once a rip has started, using a foot and a hand.

It's just plain more powerful to swing the bike if you do it right. Here's a video I added a while back, with Robbie illustrating the technique. Notice how he pulls away with each pedal stroke.

WR, I think what the op was asking, was why isn't rocking the hips outside of sprinting good if rocking the bike while sprinting is, and why is it bad if he feels more powerful...

Am I understanding this right?

1. rocking the bike does help generate more speed, but it is less efficent.
2. It is less efficent for two reasons,
A. your using additional arm muscles to generate the back and forth movement. which means your wasting energy, because this back and forth movement has no down force. and it is the down force that propels the bike.
B. the side to side motion generates ALOT of friction on the tires. this i because you are riding the bike on an angle. If you dont beleve me try holding your bike sideways for a few seconds the next time you ride, and see if you dont eithier start slowing down, or even here the tires rubbing against the ground. This friction creates alot of drag, thus reducing your overall gain even further.
3. Personally, I have been able to sprint at very high speeds, without rocking my bike. I still use alot of arms to keep the bike stable while standing. but I am concentrating all my power too my legs.


I am still pretty new to road bikes so can someone please correct me if I am wrong.

You're probably not accelerating as fast as pro sprinters. This means you are not pushing down as hard with your feet and likewise not pulling up as hard on the handlebars. If you weigh 150 lbs and you stand on the pedals in a sprint without using your arms you can only apply 150 lbs to a pedal. If you pull up hard on the same side handlebar you can apply considerably more force but a consequence of pulling up on the bar is that the bike will tilt to the side.

The bike moving from side to side is not inefficient. The primary source of inefficiency is if you let your center of gravity bounce up and down. This ends up in useless work but it is a reasonable sacrifice for short bursts of power.

Curious what your idea of sprinting at a high speed is, especially since you are new to this?

Regarding your points above, it is incorrect that using your arm muscles is wasting energy because the motion is going into force at the pedals; by pulling up on the bars you can generate more force on the pedal than you would otherwise be able to with just your legs. It is also incorrect that the bike being at an angle is generating extra friction on the tires, at least not a substatial amount. When you are doing that the bike will slow down probably because you are no longer pedaling, or no longer pedaling with as much force. If you had a power meter and you held your power constant I think you would find that your speed would not be substantially different (I'm not claiming necessarily that it would make no difference).

Edit: I don't mean that the side to side movement is not wasting any energy, I just mean that it is not an entirely wasted movement, as it is used to allow the legs to drive the pedals with more force than otherwise possible.

fail.

I see.

Yes, it is. Stand next to your bike and shake it side to side for 15 minutes. Compare how tired you are with how much faster you're moving.

This minor inefficiency is worth it, because it allows you to increase pedal force and essentially pedal with your arms and legs at the same time.

I thought they did that to shift their weight from side to side and allow for higher power transfer...

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I've been giving this thread a lot of thought and did some experiementation on my ride to work this morning...

I agree with this, but I would offer than for an attack you want maximum power for at least a brief moment and would use the whole body to get a clean separation and then settle into a more sustainable rhythm still focusing on a higher power output at the expense of some efficiency for another short period of time (but longer than the initial acceleration) until a decent gap is established. After that point, efficiency becomes the most important thing because you have to basically outlast everyone and you cannot afford to waste any energy.

I used to rock my hips a lot and people much more experienced than myself would constantly tell me that I needed to lower my saddle. I tried lowering it but it was not comfortable and I still rocked, and they still told me I needed to lower it. So I put it back up and instead worked on my pedal stroke. I now have a smooth(er) stroke and the same people have told me that it's good that I finally dropped my saddle, even though it is still at the same place as before

There are a few things that I did that really helped. First, is just to be aware of it. Second, I was stuck in my little ring for a while due to some FD issues (it worked but was unreliable, and would often not shift). That forced me to spin fast to keep up. 30mph+ in the little ring. You cannot rock your hips at that cadence, it just doesn't work. Finally, riding with no hands helps, because it makes you acutely aware of your pedal stroke and any bouncing caused by rocking your hips will make the bike swerve all over the road. Even more so, climbing with no hands really makes you focus on it because you have to put a lot of power through the pedals but you still have to be smooth.

It's been a while since I'd been "cured" of that particular affliction, so this is where my experiments this morning came into play. I found that I could put out more power (i.e. speed) at the same cadence by shifting to a higher gear and rocking my hips as the OP describes. In effect, mashing down the pedals, using my entire body through my hips to put my weight down on the pedal. However, I could put out more power/speed at a lower HR by increasing the cadence, and maintaining an even pedal stroke without rocking.

OP, you can chose to listen to everyone here and your coach, or you can believe that you are still correct. Your call

I even got rid of seat and post, to resist the teptation of riding like a sissy

Exactly.

Thanks! I'm working on trying to eliminate at least some of the rocking. I'll give your tips a try. I especially like the idea of trying to climb no-handed.