Functional Stability continued

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I have more reasons ( in lbs.) to workout.

Just a follow up from my earlier post on functional stability.

The more I work on force production, the more sensitive I've become at sensing inefficiency. As I was riding this morning, I stood to climb a steep pitch. I could tell that I would step on one pedal and ride it to the bottom, then I would step on the other pedal and ride it to the bottom. I felt it. It was bad.

If you remember, I wrote about one of the guys on our softball team in an earlier post. He could throw the ball from the outfield fence to home plate on one bounce. It was awesome to watch. All of his strength came from his legs, up through his trunk as he threw the ball.

As I was half way up the pitch, I could tell that I wasn't apply force to the pedals at the top or bottom of the stoke. Then it clicked, "I wasn't using the center of stability(my pelvic and trunk muscles) at all."

I tightened up the trunk and began to generate the pedalling force with greater emphasis on the hip flexors and gluts as well as quads and hamstrings. It was a total change in technique. With that simple change, I was applying force throughout the pedal stroke.

It's going to take some practice to become stronger but some hill repeats with emphasis on technique will smooth out the process.