What is biking cadence

In one study, racers spinning at 50 pedal strokes per minute used up far more of their stored muscle sugar glycogen than they used up while spinning at revolutions per minute to generate the same amount of power Eur J Appl Physiol, Aug ;92 Their bodies consumed the same amount of oxygen and had the same heart and breathing rates, total rate of power production and blood lactate levels.

Interestingly, the extra loss of muscle sugar pedaling at 50 revolutions per minute occurred only in fast-twitch muscle cells that govern strength and speed. Over 30 minutes, the fast-twitch muscle fibers lost 50 percent of their glycogen sugar at 50 rpm and only 33 percent at rpm. That means that your muscles weaken far more at 50 RPM than at RPM because you are putting so much pressure on your pedals.

Muscles use primarily fat and sugar as their energy sources during exercise. You have an almost unlimited amount of fat that can last for days, but you have only enough sugar in your muscles and liver to last for about 50 minutes of intense exercise.

This explains why athletes in events lasting more than 50 minutes should take a sugar source during competition to do their best. If you are beginner, spend several weeks learning to become comfortable on your bike and ride at any cadence that is comfortable for you. However, as you become more accustomed to your bike and want to learn to ride more efficiently, try to pedal at a faster cadence in which you are still comfortable and feel adequate pressure on your pedals.

Your cadence depends on your leg strength. Beginners may have to start at a cadence lower than 50 if they feel uncomfortable pedaling faster. The key to improving your exercise health benefits is to ride regularly so that you can improve your fitness level and leg strength. Gradually work up to a cadence of 70 or more. The best way to learn how to ride a bike efficiently is to try to keep your cadence between 80 and 90 pedal strokes per minute.

However, you may not be able to do this yet. Most experienced bicycle riders do best when they chose gears low enough to allow them to pedal at this cadence. You will learn to anticipate increased resistance on your pedals. You do not wait for your cadence to speed up or slow down. Eventually when you feel that the pressure on your pedals is going to slow you down to a cadence below 80, you will lower your gears. When you feel that your cadence is going to go faster than 90, you will raise your gear ratio.

As you improve, try to keep your cadence between 80 and 90 for at least some of your ride. If you want to go faster, you may have to lower your gears so that you temporarily increase your cadence above 90, then go to a higher gear and put more pressure on the pedals to keep your cadence above You can use this technique to pick up the pace when you want to catch up with a rider ahead of you.

Serious riders should be able to hold a cadence between 80 and 90 for most of their rides. Since aging reduces power and strength, older bicycle racers are weaker and will use a lower cadence during races than younger riders Med Sci Sports Exerc, ;42 11 :pp If you want to be able to pedal faster and ride faster, you need to strengthen your legs.

The fastest bicycle racers exert the greatest downstroke power on their pedals. However, most bicycle racers do not lift weights with their legs because it causes their muscles to feel sore and limits the amount of hard riding that they can do. The great thing about cadence is that it's conceptually easy to understand. The metric you see on your bike computer, sports watch, or indoor riding display is the number of times you will spin the cranks in seconds based on your current rate.

No complicated math or esoteric physiological data is involved. Where cadence gets a little tricky is determining your ideal target.

The general consensus among cyclists and coaches is that higher cadences, which would typically be above 85 RPM Revolutions Per Minute , are preferable. In order to get your legs spinning that quickly, you need to ride in easier gears, often using the smaller chainring up front and a larger sprocket on your rear cassette. Because less tension is in the cranks, riding becomes more of a cardiovascular workout as opposed to a grinding muscular one.

Higher cadences are beneficial for longer endurance rides and races, as opposed to short sprint distances. So one option is to keep things simple by riding in the 85 - RPM range while maintaining the same speed and power output you would hold at lower cadences.

But what if you want to get even more specific and exact? Cycling is a sport that's loaded with variables. Courses have varying terrain, and your cadence will tend to be higher in the flats and lower when you climb.

Athletes vary quite a bit. More muscular riders may find that they perform better using lower cadences, even at endurance-length distances. Lean riders often find that they perform better using higher cadences, opting for a more aerobic efforts. However, these are not hard rules. Despite your body type, you may find that you prefer mashing over spinning, or vice versa. Practice, practice, practice! In order for the smooth, fluid movement to be produced requires complete synchronization of many different systems to communicate harmoniously with one another.

You can think of it as an orchestra where many different instruments play simultaneously to produce a cohesive piece of music. This does not happen by luck, but by neuromuscular coordination. At first, the sound is a bit clumsy and incohesive, but over time and through practice it becomes one succinct sound.

When your body performs high cadence work, your body communicates contraction and relaxation of the muscles involved out of sync and rhythm. This increase in neuromuscular communication is due to co-contraction. Co-contraction involves the two sets of muscles that surround a joint, flexors and extensors, and their simultaneous activation trying to shorten.

An example of co-contraction would be flexing your bicep elbow flexor and tricep elbow extensor at the same time. Both muscles are contracting, but the lower arm is not moving.

We can relate this to a cycling pedal stroke. When pedaling a complete revolution, your muscles are not working independently. Leg muscles including the quads vastus lateralis and medialis, rectus femoris , and hamstrings biceps femoris long and short head , semitendinosus, and semimembranosus are all working together to produce smooth movement. If they worked independently, your motion would be very stiff and jerky.

As the quadriceps lengthen and produce force into the pedals, your hamstrings shorten and produce a pulling movement against this force. If you can improve your neuromuscular coordination on the bike, then you can ride harder…. Incorporating cadence builds, cadence drills, and high cadence holds frequently in training can and will improve your neuromuscular coordination. This increase in coordination will improve your power across all ranges, not just the top end.

No one ever rode faster by riding less efficiently. Looking to incorporate some cadence drills into your own training?