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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Guess the fix

What would you change in this rider's position?  Can you pick out the main things that need to be done?

 

I'll post a follow up (what we did for him) and include a video of the "after".
Meanwhile, lemme see what you come up with.

4 comments:

  1. Let's see if I get this right. His saddle is too high and his leg is overextending. He is over-reaching to the handlebars. His lower back is about 45 degrees while his upper back is about 20 degrees with locked arms.

    You likely lowered and moved his saddle forward. This may help with over-reaching but you may have raised his handlebar.

    Now this makes me want to video myself on a trainer.

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  2. Good job so far.....I did lower his saddle, and bring it forward, but his bar height stayed the same for now.

    Another monkey wrench to throw into things: you're right, his right leg is over-extending (by a lot -- it comes to within 18 degrees of full extension; the straightest I've ever recorded) but the left leg isn't over-extending (it remains bent at least 31 degrees thru the stroke)

    How do we reconcile that???

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  3. That's a big difference between the legs! I've been told that the best thing to do is optimize for the shorter leg, and then let the heel drop on the longer leg to compensate. But I don't know, do you recommend shoe shims, or different length cranks?

    Also, I'd rotate the bars back to crook the wrists less, but that's just my own preference. Is it normal for the shoulders to twist back and fourth so much during seated pedaling?

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  4. Alex
    You're right, it is a huge difference in the knee extension -- one of the biggest I've measured in the decade+ that I've been doing this. Shimming the cleats for leg length is the best cost-effective first step -- two caveats 1. you don't need to shim the full amount, generally a fraction of it will be enough, and 2. occasionally there won't be an obviously longer leg during the PT assessment, but you'll still benefit from a shimming. Weird, huh? When this client comes back in for his follow up, I'll post another video and a full description of what we did.

    ReplyDelete