Improving Your Leg Strength With One-Legged Pedaling

There may be time that cyclists are confined to theBasically what you want to do is leave both feet on
indoors and forced to ride on a trainer. It can be difficultthe pedals but then choose one leg to do the pushing,
to stay motivated and even more difficult to find newjust let the opposite leg travel along for the ride. A
workouts that spice up your training. One drill manycommon way to do this drill is by riding for one minute
people often overlook or fail to attach muchwith your left leg, one minute with your right leg, and
importance to is one legged pedaling. As you will see,then one minute with both legs trying to keep the
not only is this drill great for adding spice to drearysame motion going as you were using in the one
winter months, but it also improves form and efficiencylegged reps. If you continue to repeat this over time
so you are killing two birds with one stone.you will notice that your legs spin in a more circular
When you pedal with two legs one leg is alwaysmotion, which is much more efficient, and both legs
pushing down, and for the vast majority of cyclists thebegin to apply an equal amount of pressure the whole
opposite leg is doing next to nothing. Once you reachway around.
the top of the circle the other leg takes over and itsDo not be alarmed if in the beginning you have
opposite gets a break. This is very inefficient as itdifficulties, it is likely that you have been pedaling
causes you to sway side to side and utilizesimproperly for a long time and your muscles are
unnecessary energy. Perhaps over a short race youprobably well adapted to it. In short time though you will
can get away with this kind of poor technique but forget the hang of it and I guarantee that pedaling in a
any of the longer you will be forced to correct thishigher gear and or at higher RPMs will take much less
error if you want to seriously compete. The best wayeffort and will feel a heck of a lot better.
to improve this element is through one legged pedaling.