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Bodywork: Fitness Revolution
Why cycling might just be your best hope for getting in shape
By Kathryn Kukula
FITNESS REVOLUTION | FITTING SUGGESTIONS | TYLER'S TIPS | MOTIVATION
| A Few Fitting Suggestions for Every Cyclist |
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Even if you have an everyman's body that can accept a suit right off the rack, chances are your bicycle doesn't truly fit. New or old, the frame may be the correct size, but making that bike fit your body precisely is a vastly different matter. Probably not something you've lost much sleep over, but positioning is important, so much
so that Andrew L. Pruitt, an athletic trainer and founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, has devoted some 20 years to turning this arcane pursuit into cold, hard science. "Anything less than the perfect position can cause knee pain and back pain, give you saddle sores, and slow you down," says Pruitt, who's actually sent
clients back for a new steed. Better bike shops can fine-tune your position with a Fit Kit, the Bicycle Fitting System, or some such contraption. Or you can see the guru himself for his full $400 computer-imaging Dynamic Cycling Gait Analysis. If neither method's an option, try the following at home.
Saddle position. First, set the height, which is a loose function of your leg length (measure against a wall, from stocking feet to your crotch). Adjust the seatpost so the distance from the bottom bracket to the top of your saddle — which should be level — measures 90 to 96 percent of
your leg length. Then make sure that at the bottom of each stroke your knees create a 25- to 35-degree angle. Now check the fore-and-aft position, which dramatically affects power. Immediately after a ride, when you're settled in the saddle, position the cranks horizontally and have someone drop a plumb line from your forward kneecap
to your foot. You want the kneecap lined up with the tip of the crank.
Foot position. Pruitt recommends clipless pedals that let your foot rotate, or "float," between four and eight degrees. "There are people who can ride with fixed cleats," says Pruitt, "but not many." For feet that measure a men's nine or women's 11, set your cleats so that the ball of your foot sits
squarely over the pedal spindle; for bigger feet, scootch the cleat back; for anything smaller, move it slightly forward. As for angle, you want equal float on either side of your foot's neutral position. To find this, sit on the edge of a table, cock your ankles at 90 degrees, and let your legs dangle. "They might turn out or in,
but that's how they want to be on the pedal," says Pruitt.
Upper-body position. "A bad reach is what turns most people off to cycling," Pruitt says. "It can make your crotch and hands go to sleep." It's also the most individual aspect of positioning. Hold the bars (atop the brake lever hoods on a road bike), and see that your elbows are bent about 15 degrees
and that the bars obscure your view of the front hub. At this point reach becomes a function of stem length and angle, so if you can't hit these parameters it may need replacing. Assuming your hamstrings are flexible and your lower back strong, your torso should be angled at about 50 degrees for road touring, 30 degrees for racing,
in between for fitness riding. But Pruitt tempers these rules by noting that you have to be comfortable. "The most common mistake is people trying to make their bike position look like someone else's," he says. "The bike has to reflect your body, not vice versa." — Eric Hagerman
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When we think about trying to keep fit in ways that are, well, enjoyable, we're cheered by the example of a little-known yet nauseatingly accomplished athlete named Woody Cox. Cox lined up at split end for the University of Nebraska's national championship football teams in 1970 and '71. He teamed up with Ted Turner on
Captain Outrageous's yachting ventures. He even struck out on the water alone, racing in the always challenging 20-foot catamaran Tornado class and winning four world championships. Here and there the five-foot-eight, 178-pound YMCA manager from Bellevue, Washington, also squeezed in 12 Honolulu Marathons and some 60 triathlons. So how, you may ask, is this
encouraging? Well, the answer lies in Cox's recent sea change: Over the last few years, he's traded in all these disparate pursuits to focus on just one, the sport that best satisfies his craving for a good fitness base and a good thrill: cycling. "I enjoy the entire aesthetic," he explains. "I like the speed, the action, the mechanics of it."
Indeed, cycling is one of the few sports that can serve as both training tool and leisure activity. It all revolves around a wonderfully simple and rewarding action: the pedal stroke. The largest muscles of the body take turns, like a bucket brigade, passing the effort and then resting. Pushing into a hard gear is not so different from lifting weights
— except there's scenery. The quadriceps and gluteus maximus take the load first, powering over the top of the stroke. Then the hamstring flexes the knee and extends the hip, pulling the pedal across the bottom of the stroke. Throughout, the calf's gastrocnemius and soleus muscles hold the ankle semirigid, ensuring that energy isn't squandered before
reaching the pedal. The upstroke provides a needed break (aside from the hips and a few fibers of muscle on the front of the shin). Meanwhile, in the upper body, the abdominal and lower back muscles are working isometrically to hold the position. And those standing pedal strokes bring the whole body roaring to life.
The beauty of all this is that the bike's gears maximize your effort. Balanced on the saddle, you can use the landscape to help generate momentum and add just enough effort to keep your speed, or stack up precisely meted out increments of effort until you simply can't breathe any harder. Or you can ease off and let your momentum do the work while you
grab a recovery breath, enabling you to tease your aerobic limits once again. "Generally cyclists can go above their anaerobic threshold more often," says Dean Golich, sports physiologist for the GT professional mountain bike team, "because they have a way to recover without stopping the exercise completely."
For Cox, the midlife switch to a one-track fitness regimen paid off in an unlikely way: Last year, at age 46, he set a new world record in the 3,000-meter time trial. Alas, we can't all be Woody Coxes — but we can, like him, use cycling as a cornerstone of our fitness program. In that vein, we've assembled the essential elements for a successful
cycling season, from a scientific approach to fitting your bike to a seven-week training regimen to a list of superb organized group rides where you can work on your own evolving résumé.
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