Why Moving Your Cleats Back Often Works Better Than You’ve Been Told
Author's Note
Before diving in, a bit of context. Not my usual path, but breaking tradition is warranted.
I've been studying cleat position for a long time. In 2012, I completed a 120-page master's thesis examining the effects of cleat location on cycling biomechanics. Fair warning: the writing reflects someone trying to finish graduate school while working full-time at Specialized Bicycle Components. The prose isn't my finest work. The literature review, however, remains one of the most comprehensive collections of research on cycling cleat position I've encountered.
More importantly, this hasn't been an academic exercise. I've been experimenting with and advocating for more rearward cleat positions since roughly 2007, long before it became a popular topic in bike fitting circles. With the exception of Steve Hogg, who at the time was the only person I knew exploring similar ideas, there wasn't much discussion around the topic. Steve and I exchanged countless emails trying to understand not just what happened when cleats moved rearward, but why.
Over the years I've applied these concepts with everyone from recreational riders to elite athletes, and the results have been remarkably consistent.
What continues to surprise me is that many fitters still view cleat placement primarily as a performance adjustment rather than a therapeutic intervention. In practice, moving the foot rearward on the pedal can influence plantarflexor loading, posterior chain recruitment, foot comfort, ankle stability, force distribution, and even the way the body organizes movement throughout the pedal stroke. For riders struggling with recurring discomfort, it is often one of the most powerful—and most overlooked—tools available.
The discussion that follows is based on both the scientific literature and thousands of hours spent observing real riders. While there is no single cleat position that works for everyone, the traditional "ball of foot over pedal axle" recommendation deserves far more scrutiny than it typically receives.
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Most cyclists who've had a bike fit have heard some version of the same rule: place the cleat so the pedal axle sits directly beneath the ball of the foot. It sounds anatomical and intuitive. And it sounds "correct" because it borrows heavily from how humans walk. The problem is that cycling is not walking and treating it as such creates unnecessary work—especially for the anterior chain and ultimately the entire system responsible for producing and directing force.
The Walking Model That Refuses to Die
The idea of aligning the pedal axle with the metatarsal heads comes from gait-based thinking in biomechanics. Actually, it mostly comes from an Italian shoe manufacturer when clipless pedals were introduced, but I digress.
In walking and running, the forefoot acts as a spring and a lever (arguable points, but this isn’t the time). The ankle plantarflexes, the calf complex generates and guides propulsion, and force is directed into the ground in a meaningful way. The foot rolls forward over the toes, and connective tissue tension within the foot and ankle complex reinforces rigidity to support push-off as the body moves over a fixed surface.
That model makes sense when the foot repeatedly leaves the ground and the objective is to propel the body forward by reacting against it. Cycling is fundamentally different.
In cycling, the foot is constrained to the pedal and never leaves it. Force is not being pushed into the ground; it is being directed into a rotating crank, which does not push back the same way the ground does. The task is not simply to generate propulsion through ankle, knee, and hip extension, but to transmit force as effectively as possible into the drivetrain while minimizing unnecessary muscular work. For simplicity, I’ll not get into the details of open-chain vs closed-chain aspects of gait and cycling - it’s nuanced and requires too much background information to be useful in this context.
Rather than a closed-chain push-off problem, cycling is a cyclic force-transfer problem where stability and force direction matter more than distal leverage.
And before anybody gets bent out of shape, gait is often described as both open and closed-chain depending on the phase being analyzed. I'm merely offering a practical explanation that helps illustrate why borrowing directly from walking mechanics can be problematic.
When we apply a walking-based model to a constrained task like pedaling, we often ask the wrong tissues to do the wrong job.
What Actually Changes When Cleats Move Rearward
Moving the cleat rearward shortens the lever arm between the pedal axle and the ankle joint. That single change quietly reshapes the entire task.
From a mechanical perspective, it reduces the ankle moment required to transmit the same pedal force. From a biological perspective, it changes who is doing the work.
In my master's research, we found that rearward cleat placement reduced the demand on the soleus and gastrocnemius—not by eliminating their contribution, but by changing it. Instead of acting primarily as force generators, the calf complex shifted toward a stabilizing and force-directing role. More of the work was carried proximally by the hip extensors, including increased contributions from the hamstrings and glute complex, where larger muscle groups are better suited to sustained force production.
Riders often describe this shift intuitively before they can name it - less calf fatigue, less stress on the knee. Smoother pressure through the stroke and a greater sense that power is coming from "higher up" the leg.
They're not imagining it - the EMG, in-shoe pressure sensors and force pedals all confirmed the finding.
Moments of Opposition and Muscular Unison
What makes this topic particularly interesting is that the change isn't limited to simple reductions in medial and lateral gastrocnemius and soleus activity. It alters the coordination strategy required to pedal.
Several biomechanical models have suggested that efficient pedaling depends less on maximizing force production and more on organizing muscles so they work cooperatively to direct force into the crank. This is particularly important because many cycling muscles are biarticular, crossing multiple joints and serving both force-production and force-transfer roles.
The challenge is not simply generating force. The challenge is generating force while simultaneously directing it.
Sanderson and colleagues described an interesting phenomenon they called “moments of opposition”. In traditional cleat positions, portions of the triceps surae complex may be performing conflicting tasks at the same time. The soleus contributes to force production while the gastrocnemius simultaneously assists with force transfer and stabilization across both the ankle and knee.
In effect, the system creates internal competition that must be coordinated and managed.
When the cleat is moved rearward, these moments of opposition appear to diminish. Rather than portions of the calf complex working against one another, muscle activity becomes more coordinated. Sanderson referred to this as improved muscular unison. The result is not necessarily more power, it's a simpler mechanical problem.
Several musculoskeletal modeling studies have demonstrated that effective pedaling strategies rely heavily on monoarticular muscles such as the gluteals, quadriceps, and soleus to generate mechanical work, while biarticular muscles such as the hamstrings and gastrocnemius function largely as force-transfer and force-direction structures. This is very different from gait.
Viewed through that lens, a rearward cleat position makes intuitive sense. By reducing the ankle moment and shortening the lever arm beneath the foot, the system asks less of the plantarflexors and allows larger proximal muscle groups to contribute more directly to crank torque.
The movement becomes less dependent on distal leverage and more dependent on coordinated force transfer through the hip and knee.
I suspect this is also why riders frequently describe rearward cleat positions as calmer, smoother, and easier to sustain despite producing similar power outputs. While we cannot directly measure the neurological consequences of that simplification, it is reasonable to hypothesize that reducing moments of opposition decreases the amount of continuous compensation required by the system.
Why This Matters for Real Riders, Not Just Models
When cleats are placed far forward, the ankle is asked to manage higher moments throughout the pedal cycle. Over time, that increases demand on the plantarflexors, raises local fatigue, and often encourages excessive ankle motion as the body searches for relief.
As an exercise, approach a set of stairs and place one foot on the edge of a step underneath the first metatarsal head. Place the other foot on the stair just behind the fifth metatarsal. Now perform a shallow squat and pay attention to where the force is required to support yourself. Make it more obvious by repeating the exercise one leg at a time.
The farther forward the pressure is located, the more demand shifts toward the anterior structures of the lower limb.The farther rearward the pressure is located, the more effectively force can be transmitted through the posterior chain. Still not convinced? You wouldn't intentionally place the balls of your feet on a leg press platform if your goal was to generate maximal force and stability - you place the whole foot flat on the sled, just like a squat.
The same principle applies here. Moving the cleats rearward reduces ankle moments, reduces negative ankle joint work, and makes force application less sensitive to small timing errors. The entire system becomes more tolerant of fatigue.
Steve Hogg has argued this point for years, noting that rearward cleat placement allows the calves to contribute more effectively alongside the hamstrings during leg extension rather than being overworked attempting to control the ankle independently. We were both exploring these ideas around 2006. I simply had the opportunity to spend a few years trying to quantify some of those observations in a biomechanics laboratory.
This isn't about “pedaling circles” or fixing technique. It's about distributing work to tissues that are structurally and metabolically better suited to perform it.
That said, while it’s too much for this article, there’s a massive impact on total negative torque that is directly impacted by cleats located further back - I’ll address this in a future article, hopefully.
Why So Many Fitters Resist Moving Cleats Back
Part of the resistance is tradition or deviating from what looks anatomically neat. And part of it is practical: many (nearly all) cycling shoes simply don't allow enough rearward adjustment to properly explore this space. There's also a persistent misconception that rearward cleats reduce leverage and therefore reduce power.
In practice, average power is rarely compromised and often improves. What changes is the biological cost required to sustain that power. As with crank length, the laboratory may show relatively small differences in output. The rider feels the difference in fatigue, comfort, stability, and repeatability.
And of course there is the common argument that sprinting requires forward cleats while time trialing and triathlon benefit from rearward cleats. Certainly there are discipline-specific considerations at the highest levels of the sport.
But for the other 99.9% of riders, positioning the pedal axle somewhere beneath the fifth metatarsal head is about as far forward as I ever find myself recommending.
Cycling Is Not a Calf-Dominant Task
The triceps surae are remarkable muscles. They excel at elastic energy storage, force modulation, and joint stabilization. They are not ideal primary engines for sustained, repetitive power production. Rearward cleat placement acknowledges that reality. It doesn't eliminate ankle function. It simply places ankle function in a role that better reflects the demands of cycling. The result is often a pedal stroke that feels calmer, more stable, and less fragile under fatigue.
For many riders—especially those prone to calf tightness, Achilles irritation, foot numbness, or recurring discomfort—this single adjustment can be more transformative than any exotic shoe, pedal, or insole.
The Catch Nobody Talks About
There is one important caveat. Rearward cleat placement often improves the mechanical task of pedaling, but it also removes one of the body's easiest methods of compensation.
Research examining changes in cadence and workload has consistently shown that cyclists tend to adapt first at the ankle before making substantial changes at the knee or hip. The ankle acts as a remarkably effective shock absorber and timing mechanism. Small changes in plantarflexion and dorsiflexion allow riders to accommodate variations in saddle height, fatigue, limb asymmetry, and force production demands without consciously realizing it. When the cleat moves rearward and the ankle lever arm shortens, some of that adaptability disappears.
This is often a good thing. Excessive ankle motion is frequently a symptom of the system searching for a solution rather than evidence of an ideal pedaling strategy. However, it also means the rider becomes less tolerant of errors elsewhere. Saddle height, fore/aft, and crank length all become more critical. The rider can no longer rely on ankle motion to quietly absorb those “mistakes”.
In practical terms, riders who move substantially rearward with their cleat position often require more careful attention to saddle height than they did previously. Small changes that were once hidden by ankle compensation become much easier to identify.
The same principle applies to foot correction. If the foot is unstable on the pedal, or if significant forefoot varus, forefoot valgus, leg-length discrepancy, stance-width challenges, or other asymmetries exist, rearward cleat positions can expose those issues rather than conceal them. The solution is not necessarily to abandon the rearward cleat position. More often, it is to improve how the foot interfaces with the pedal.
This is where a detailed understanding of foot correction becomes invaluable.
Posting, wedging, shimming, arch support, stance-width adjustments, and shoe selection all become increasingly important when the goal is to create a stable platform capable of transmitting force efficiently through a more rearward foot position.
Unfortunately, this is also where many bike fits fall apart. While saddle height and handlebar position receive endless attention within the cycling industry, relatively few fitters possess extensive training in foot function, foot correction, or lower-extremity biomechanics. As a result, riders are often exposed to only a small portion of what a rearward cleat strategy is capable of delivering.
Moving the cleat rearward is rarely the end of the conversation. More often, it's the beginning of a more sophisticated one.
Closing
Cleat placement based on the ball of the foot is a walking solution applied to a cycling problem. When we stop pretending those tasks are the same, better options emerge. Moving cleats rearward—relative to traditional recommendations—doesn't make cyclists weaker. It often makes them more economical, more durable, and easier to fit successfully when pain or discomfort are part of the equation. That said, there is no magic recipe for HOW FAR BACK cleats should be moved. And the type of riding and type of rider is such a critical aspect of the recipe.
Like many effective changes in cycling, it isn't flashy, it just works and for reasons the body seems to understand even when tradition does not. It’s not flashy aerodynamic positioning, or stick figure kinematics. It’s actually quite foundational…
So when we tell you—read: ask—that we're about to Dremel your shoes for a more rearward cleat position, fear not. We've done it countless times before.
Seriously.
We would never permanently alter someone's beautiful cycling shoes...
...without asking first.