On todays ride I focused on my feet and how they function on the pedal
without any support save their own structure. Observations of my experience:
- The foot is dynamic, with multiple mechanisms interacting to form a
complex machine wondrously engineered.
- Focusing on one mechanism of the foot to the exclusion of the others
and to the exclusion of the work being accomplished by the foot fails to
give an accurate understanding of what is happening, why, and how.
- My understanding of the foot's anatomy of mechanisms (though I'm no
authority):
- Metatarsal splay of forefoot disipates energy on landing when
running or jumping. Takes more than body weight and push-off force to
activate splay.
- Heel: base of the column that is the lower leg. Very solid
vertically.
- Windlass Mechanism of the inside mid-foot, which contains an arch
(that is actually not an arch but a coil or spring) of varying curvature
and can store/return energy or, with heel raised, flatten and link with
the
outer mid-foot's cantilevered bridge to increase the foot's ability to
transfer force into the forefoot. The windlass mechanism absorbs and
stores
energy at landing, returning it at push off.
- Cantilevered bridge of the outside mid-foot, which allows for the
transfer of force between forefoot and heel. This allows for push-off
when
running or jumping or pushing down on a pedal without loss of force into
the windlass mechanism.
- There comes a point in pushing off/down/or lifting when the force
applied activates the foot splay mechanism. At this point, energy needs to
stop traveling through the forefoot and instead focus on the heel. Below
that threshold, forefoot pedaling is efficient and strong, above that
threshold mid-foot or heel pedaling is required.
- Is there an advantage to forefoot pedaling below that threshold? I
suspect so, though I'm unsure why other than the motion of pushing off is
precisely the motion of pedaling except at high levels of force.
- The weaker the foot, the less able it is to join the mid-foot as a
cantilevered bridge, leading to an experience of lost energy before the
foot splay threshold.
- Does the windlass mechanism stay an arch when doing heavy lifting? I
doubt it. The "arch" has no load bearing column above it and isn't really
an arch at all, but a coil/spring. If it functioned as an arch does, it
would be directly below the heel, would it not? No. Something else is going
on in weight lifting.
- Mid-foot pedaling for high force pedaling has us standing on the heel
and/or the outside mid-foot cantilevered bridge and allows for significant
forces in pedaling, forces above the toe splay threshold.
With abandon,
Patrick
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW
Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
