The Ankling Myth: Why More Movement Doesn't Mean More Power
Every so often, an old cycling technique gets rediscovered and presented as though we've uncovered some forgotten secret to producing power.
Lately, I've been seeing renewed enthusiasm for ankling: deliberately changing ankle position through the bottom of the pedal stroke, supposedly to create a more powerful transition into the next revolution. The explanation usually comes with a video of an accomplished cyclist pedaling smoothly, perhaps accompanied by an arrow illustrating how the foot moves around the bottom of the crank's rotation.
The implication is that the best cyclists have learned to extract additional power from this movement, and that the rest of us should be doing the same.
There's a fundamental problem with that interpretation. The movement of the ankle tells us remarkably little about the direction of force applied to the pedal, and even less about whether deliberately exaggerating that movement would improve a rider's performance.
We've spent decades studying pedal forces, muscular recruitment, and the relationship between pedaling technique and efficiency. While there are still important questions to investigate, the evidence doesn't support the idea that consciously manipulating the ankle through the bottom of the stroke is some overlooked source of propulsive power.
To understand why, we need to distinguish between muscular effort, force applied to the pedal, and the portion of that force that actually turns the crank.
The Crank Doesn't Care How Hard You're Working
One of the most persistent misconceptions in cycling biomechanics is that greater muscular effort necessarily translates into greater power at the crank. It doesn't. In fact, science has continuously led us to understand that effectiveness and efficiency both suffer.
The crank responds to torque, which depends on both the magnitude and direction of the force applied to the pedal. Force applied perpendicular to the crank arm produces torque, while force directed along the length of the crank arm contributes nothing directly to its rotation.
Imagine the crank positioned vertically, with the pedal at the bottom of its rotation. If you push straight down, you're applying force largely along the crank arm. You may be generating substantial force through your leg, but very little of it contributes to turning the crank at that instant. Now imagine applying a force directed backward, approximately perpendicular to the crank. That force has the potential to produce positive crank torque as the pedal moves through the bottom of its circular path.
The distinction isn't whether the rider is pushing hard. It's whether the applied force has a useful tangential component. This is why researchers distinguish between tangential and radial pedal forces. Tangential force contributes to crank torque, either positively or negatively depending on its direction. Radial force acts along the crank arm and does not directly contribute to torque about the bottom bracket. This isn’t black or white, it’s always some percentage of tangential and radial (with a split-second exception).
That doesn't automatically make radial force a mistake. The human body isn't a mechanism designed to apply perfectly tangential forces, and the muscular actions that produce useful torque also generate forces in other directions. Nevertheless, understanding the distinction is essential before we begin attributing performance benefits to particular ankle movements.
A rider can recruit additional musculature, create substantial pedal forces, and make an elaborate movement with the foot without necessarily increasing the useful work delivered to the crank. Movement isn't power. Muscular activity isn't power. Even pedal force isn't necessarily power.
What matters mechanically is how that force contributes to crank torque over time.
The Bottom of the Pedal Stroke Is Not a Hidden Power Source
The bottom of the pedal stroke has always attracted attention from cycling coaches and fitting systems. It's easy to see why. The crank is transitioning from the primary downstroke into the recovery phase, and the foot must change direction as it follows the pedal's circular path.
That transition looks like an opportunity to do something.
For decades, riders have been instructed to scrape mud from the bottom of their shoes, pull backward through the bottom of the stroke, or deliberately change ankle orientation to maintain a more continuous application of force. There’s a famous, two-time doper turned coach pedaling this stuff on the regular. It’s sad to see people buying into it. These instructions share an appealing premise: if we can eliminate the apparent dead spots in the pedal stroke, perhaps we can produce power more continuously…like the pros. Except the pros don’t actually do this…I digress.
The body doesn't operate like a perfectly controlled electric motor. Human muscles have different force-producing capabilities, contraction velocities, activation characteristics, and mechanical advantages throughout the pedal stroke. The coordination required to produce maximal force in one region isn't necessarily appropriate in another.
As the crank approaches bottom dead center, the relationship between the lower extremity and the crank changes substantially. The large force contributions associated with the primary downstroke diminish, and the rider transitions toward advancing the leg through the recovery phase.
Deliberately exaggerating ankle movement during that transition doesn't guarantee additional positive torque. It may alter the orientation of the foot and the forces transmitted through the pedal, but whether that change improves propulsion depends on the resulting force vector, not the appearance of the movement.
The ankle is participating in a coordinated mechanical system. Its movement cannot be interpreted independently of the hip, knee, pelvis, and crank.
What the Research Actually Shows About Pulling Up
The idea that skilled cyclists actively produce substantial positive torque throughout the recovery phase has been investigated repeatedly. The general pattern observed during conventional seated cycling is that most positive crank work occurs during the downstroke. During recovery, the rising leg frequently contributes some negative torque, meaning the opposite leg must overcome part of that resistance while producing the power that drives the bicycle.
This doesn't mean cyclists are incapable of producing positive torque during the upstroke. They can, particularly when instructed to pull actively. The more important question is whether doing so improves performance, whether it’s sustainable, or whether or not it’s functionally advantageous.
Research suggests that the answer is considerably less straightforward than the traditional coaching advice implies.
In a 2007 study, Korff and colleagues compared several pedaling techniques, including preferred pedaling, consciously pedaling in circles, emphasizing the downstroke, and actively pulling during the upstroke. Participants who deliberately pulled up improved their measured force effectiveness, but their gross cycling efficiency declined. A separate study involving elite cyclists and non-cyclists found a similar tradeoff. Actively pulling up improved the effectiveness of pedal force during recovery, but reduced net mechanical efficiency while increasing the activity of muscles involved in the maneuver.
These findings are important because they distinguish between making the force pattern look more mechanically effective and improving the physiological economy of producing power.
A rider can increase the proportion of pedal force directed tangentially without becoming more efficient. The additional muscular recruitment required to accomplish that change may cost more metabolically than the mechanical benefit it provides. This is why the old instruction to pull up on the pedals has never been the straightforward performance improvement its advocates suggest.
For many skilled cyclists, the recovery phase is less about creating another powerful propulsion phase and more about managing the rising leg so that it doesn't unnecessarily oppose the work being produced by the descending leg. That's a very different objective from trying to generate equal power throughout the entire crank revolution.
The Ankle Has a Job. It Just Isn't the One Being Advertised.
None of this means the ankle is unimportant in cycling. Quite the opposite. The ankle and foot form the final mechanical connection between the lower extremity and the pedal. The plantarflexors, particularly the gastrocnemius and soleus, contribute to the coordination of the lower extremity, the control of ankle motion, and the transmission of force through the foot-pedal interface.
The gastrocnemius also crosses the knee, which makes its function more complicated than simply pointing the toes. Its contribution depends on the changing relationship between knee and ankle position, muscular activation, and the demands imposed by the rest of the pedal stroke. But this is precisely why prescribing deliberate ankling is problematic. The visible movement of the ankle doesn't tell us how much force the plantarflexors are producing, how much mechanical work they're performing, or whether their activity is contributing positively to crank power.
A muscle can generate force while changing length very little. It can absorb energy while lengthening, contribute to movement while shortening, or act primarily to stabilize a joint and manage the transmission of force from other muscle groups. Those functions are not interchangeable. When someone points to a professional cyclist's ankle movement and declares it the source of a powerful pedal stroke, they're making an enormous interpretive leap. They are inferring muscular function from visible movement, then inferring crank torque from that presumed muscular function. Neither conclusion is established by watching the ankle.
The foot may be moving because of the combined effects of joint geometry, muscular coordination, pedal forces, and the movement of the crank itself. The fact that an accomplished cyclist displays a particular ankle pattern doesn't demonstrate that consciously reproducing it would improve another rider's performance. And I’d argue that when you put a World Tour rider at full-tilt breakaway mode, you’ll see a flat foot at the bottom of the pedal stroke, not a toe point.
Longitudinal Force and the Illusion of Useful Work
One of the most interesting aspects of pedal-force research is how much force cyclists can generate that does not directly contribute to crank torque. When a component of pedal force acts along the crank arm, it creates a radial load. This force may be substantial, but because its line of action passes through the crank's axis of rotation, it produces no torque about that axis.
At certain points in the pedal stroke, especially as the crank approaches the bottom of its rotation, riders may continue generating considerable force even as the effective tangential component diminishes.
This is an important distinction when evaluating techniques intended to extend power production through the bottom of the stroke. If an exaggerated ankle movement increases muscular activity without improving the tangential force applied to the crank, the rider may simply be adding muscular demand without a corresponding increase in propulsion. And if the movement introduces a tangential force opposite the direction of crank rotation, it can produce negative torque, partially opposing the work being performed by the other leg.
These are different mechanical phenomena. Radial force doesn't directly produce crank torque, whereas negative tangential force actively opposes rotation. Both matter when evaluating a pedaling technique, but they shouldn't be confused.
There's another complication that makes the discussion more interesting. Radial forces are not necessarily evidence of poor technique, and trying to eliminate them can actually compromise performance.
Recent musculoskeletal modeling research has demonstrated that constraining radial pedal forces during maximal sprint cycling can substantially reduce predicted power output and efficiency. The reason is that muscles don't have independent controls for generating tangential and radial force. Restricting one component can interfere with the muscular actions responsible for producing the other. This reinforces a broader principle: the objective is not to make every component of pedal force look mechanically perfect. It's to organize muscular activity in a way that produces the required power at an acceptable physiological cost.
A perfectly tangential force vector may look attractive in a diagram. That doesn't mean the human body can produce it efficiently, or that trying to do so will improve cycling performance.
The Problem With Teaching Movement Instead of Understanding Function
I think this is where much of the contemporary discussion about ankling goes wrong. Someone observes a television screen, with a perception of ankle movement in an accomplished cyclist, assumes the movement is responsible for superior performance, and begins teaching others to reproduce it.
But the observation (accurate or inaccurate) doesn't establish the mechanism.
We don't know whether the movement is actively generated, largely passive, or the consequence of a particular combination of anatomy, joint motion, and muscular coordination. We don't know whether it improves force transmission, helps manage the recovery leg, or simply reflects the way that individual has adapted to pedaling.
And we certainly don't know whether exaggerating the movement in another cyclist will produce the same outcome.
This is closely related to the mistake of treating a professional cyclist's saddle position as a universal power prescription. In both cases, we're observing a characteristic of an exceptional athlete and confusing it with the cause of that athlete's performance.
The best cyclists in the world are extraordinarily well adapted to the demands of their sport. Their movement patterns reflect years of training, individual anatomy, equipment choices, and neuromuscular development.
That doesn't mean every visible characteristic of their movement is something the rest of us should consciously imitate.
In fact, attempting to control a movement that the nervous system has already organized effectively may introduce unnecessary complexity into an otherwise well-coordinated task.
What About Cleat Position and Calf Muscle Demand?
This subject also connects to an area of cycling biomechanics I've studied directly: the relationship between cleat position and the demands placed on the upstream musculature. During my graduate research, I investigated the effects of moving the cleat rearward relative to the foot, with particular attention to the mechanical and temporal demands placed on the lower leg.
One of the underlying questions was whether changing the relationship between the pedal spindle and the foot could reduce the muscular demand required to manage the ankle during pedaling.
Moving the pedal interface rearward shortens the external moment arm between the pedal force and the ankle joint. Depending on the direction and magnitude of that force, this can reduce the ankle moment that must be balanced by the plantarflexors. sThat distinction matters because a considerable portion of plantarflexor activity during cycling may be associated with controlling the ankle and transmitting force rather than generating an additional source of propulsive power through visible ankle movement.
Reducing the demand placed on those muscles doesn't necessarily increase power output, and it would be inappropriate to assume that rearward cleat placement is universally beneficial. But it provides a useful example of how equipment configuration can influence muscular demand without requiring a rider to consciously alter pedaling technique.
This is one reason I've always been skeptical of fitting philosophies that treat the foot primarily as a lever to be manipulated in pursuit of additional power. It’s a mechanism of achieving muscular balance, and offloading overworked tissues.
The foot and ankle have important roles in transmitting force and managing the mechanical relationship between the rider and the pedal. Increasing their movement or muscular activity isn't automatically an improvement.
Sometimes the more productive question is whether we can reduce unnecessary demands on the system rather than asking it to do more.
A More Effective Pedal Stroke Isn't Necessarily a More Efficient One
Perhaps the most important lesson from pedal-force research is that mechanical effectiveness and physiological efficiency are not the same thing. Repeat - effectiveness and efficiency are not the same thing.
Mechanical effectiveness describes how much of the force applied to the pedal contributes to positive and negative crank torque. Physiological efficiency concerns how much metabolic energy the rider expends to produce a given amount of external work. Those two measures are related, but they don't always improve together.
A cyclist can consciously alter pedaling technique to direct a greater proportion of force tangentially, yet expend more metabolic energy in the process. The result may be a mechanically cleaner-looking pedal stroke that is physiologically more expensive. That tradeoff is especially important in endurance cycling, where the objective isn't simply to produce force at one moment, but to continue producing it economically over thousands of revolutions. And while it was a small-sampled, single study, a flat foot has been shown to increase mechanical effectiveness and metabolic efficiency together. So take that, Dom Tanielson.
A small increase in unnecessary muscular demand, repeated over several hours, may matter far more than a visually appealing improvement in the shape of the pedal stroke. This is why I would be extremely cautious about prescribing exaggerated ankling, pulling through the bottom of the stroke, or any other technique intended to make pedaling look more circular without demonstrating a meaningful improvement in performance.
The human body is not obligated to satisfy our preference for symmetrical force diagrams. Its objective is to accomplish the task.
What Should a Bike Fitter Actually Be Looking For?
When evaluating ankle movement during cycling, I don't begin with the assumption that the rider should display a particular amount of plantarflexion or dorsiflexion.
I'm more interested in understanding why the ankle moves as it does, whether the movement changes with workload or fatigue, and whether the rider appears to be managing the relationship between the foot and pedal effectively. Excessive ankle movement may sometimes reflect a positional problem, an equipment constraint, or a compensation occurring elsewhere in the system. In other cases, it may simply represent the rider's normal movement strategy and require no intervention.
A relatively quiet ankle isn't automatically superior, just as a visibly mobile ankle isn't necessarily problematic. The appropriate interpretation depends on the rider's anatomy, mobility, muscular capabilities, cleat position, crank length, saddle position, and the demands of the riding task.
This is another example of why a rider's position cannot be evaluated in isolation. The ankle is not an independent motor attached to the end of the leg. Its function is influenced by the mechanical and neuromuscular organization of the entire rider.
Technology can help us document ankle motion, but measuring movement is not the same as understanding its cause or consequence. Even force-sensing pedals require careful interpretation, because a more mechanically effective force pattern does not necessarily indicate a more economical or sustainable technique.
The objective should be to identify meaningful limitations and determine whether an intervention improves the rider's function, not to reproduce a movement pattern because it resembles something we've seen in a professional cyclist.
Stop Trying to Make Pedaling Look Perfect
Cycling has a long history of attempting to turn pedaling into a technique that can be taught through simple visual instructions. Pull up on the pedals. Scrape mud from your shoes. Pedal in perfect circles. Point your toes at the bottom of the stroke. These instructions are appealing because they transform a complicated neuromuscular task into something that sounds manageable.
But the research has repeatedly demonstrated that making pedal forces appear more mechanically effective does not necessarily improve physiological efficiency. The muscular coordination required to produce power is considerably more complicated than the shape of the foot's movement around the crank.
None of this means that pedaling technique is irrelevant or that riders cannot benefit from changes in movement strategy. It means those changes need to be justified by a meaningful functional outcome rather than an attractive explanation or a video of an accomplished cyclist.
The ankle has an important role in cycling, but that role is not necessarily to create an elaborate movement through the bottom of the pedal stroke. Its contribution must be understood within the coordinated function of the entire lower extremity and the mechanical demands of the crank.
The best cyclists don't produce exceptional power because they've learned to make their ankles perform a special movement at six o'clock. They produce exceptional power because their entire neuromuscular system has adapted to deliver force effectively, repeatedly, and at a physiological cost they can sustain. The ankle participates in that system. It doesn't need to become the star of the show.
And before anyone tells you that deliberately ankling through the bottom of the stroke will make you more powerful, there's a reasonable question worth asking:
Does the movement actually improve the power delivered to the crank, or does it simply give your muscles something else to do? From the chair that I sit in, watching others perform tasks I perceive as impossible, I see a lot of flat feet, with VERY LITTLE ankle movement throughout the pedal stroke. Maybe I’m crazy.
Korff et al. (2007), Mornieux et al. (2008), Bini et al. (2013)