By Elizabeth Towe
As the weather gets warmer, we are drawn to spend more time outside on our bikes or chalking up miles running on the road or trails. How can we make that time more effective? We can look at cadence (rate of leg turnover) and the role that the deep hip flexors play in holding a faster, smoother cadence (no dead spots because of under-utilized muscles) to maximize efficiency and power. Along the way we get the bonus of stabilizing the hip joint, spine and pelvis to decrease the chance of injury.
Exercise:
- Using a tubing loop, theraband or ankle cuff around one ankle, stand on it with the opposite leg and the feet slightly narrower than shoulder-width apart.
- Hold a mid-range squat stance on the anchor leg while you do quick lifts with the opposite leg.
- Bending at the hip, knee and ankle, lift the knee quickly to hip level while also bringing heel toward the back of the hip. Come down and touch the heel lightly, then quickly lift again. The movement is equal parts of the knee moving toward the chest and the heel moving toward the back of the hip.
- We are training speed and endurance over power, so do high-rep timed sets. Use cadence goals to help determine reps and time. For example, for 90 rpm cadence, start with a 30-second set of 45 reps and build to 90 in a minute. Start with light resistance.
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Elizabeth Towe is a runner and a cyclist and the owner of Balanced Movement Studio in Carrboro. She graduated from East Carolina with a degree in exercise and sports science and has been personal training for over 20 years. Her ultimate goal for all of her clients is to help them realize and achieve the optimal quality in their life – and to remember to have fun doing it.
