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>Cycling is not a natural movement; the human body did not evolve for it. Incidentally, the seated desk posture, which resembles the cycling posture, is now known as the ‘fear pose’ and has been linked to a rise in depression over the past few decades. It’s a semi-foetal ‘freeze’ position which the body goes into instinctively when a perceived threat to our survival is deemed as overwhelming. And the cycling posture has the additional strain of aerobic or anaerobic demand piled on top.
>Even with a good quality bike set-up correctly, this is the typical position of the body when cycling: Forward torso lean, neck extension and rotation, back extension, anterior shoulder flexion including biceps and wrist flexor and pectoralis. Flexion and extension of rectus femoris, gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, biceps femoris, semitendinosus, hip flexor, quadriceps, hamstring, vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, medial gastrocnemius and soleus (calf). All of this is going on while performing cardiovascular activity, balance, orientation, and other tasks.
>In terms of movement and where the force is on the body, the pedal stroke involves the hip joint, knee joints, and ankle joints. The primarily concentric muscle movement is for forward force drive. There is upwards and downward drive from the knee, cyclical foot and ankle motion, and hip flexion from a static position. The force load goes directly into the feet. Hence my painful foot muscles! The ankle, knee and hip muscles and joints are all moving at different speeds and rates of force, dependent on the closeness to the crank. Not only does the knee joint move up-and-down cyclically, but it also performs a slight lateral movement outwards-and-inwards to the side as well, sending uneven angle forces through the joint. So, the angle of gyration means all joints involved are moving at completely different levels of acceleration and angles of force, causing the energy distribution in the body to be all out of sync.
