by Andrew G » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:16 pm
[quote]it was only my qauds
As Ian says cycling makes you bike fit and devlops specific muscles or muscle groups.
One of the muscle groups that you "over develop" (compared to running and many other sports) is your quads. If you push bigger gears rather than spin this accentuates the development. I gather junior races limit the gear size they are allowed to use to prevent this happening while the body is still growing.
If you straighten and lock your leg to tense your quads you can see the development as a large muscle above the knee on the inside of your thigh, and a large muscle towards the top of your thigh on the outside.
Muscles are heavy and when you run these cycling developed muscles "bounce" up and down creating a shock on your legs. The lower quad shock could also cause knee pain as there is no muscle around the knee to protect it. (This is also why you should make sure you keep your knees warm during winter cycling as they are supported by ligaments with no muscular insulation).
If you want to continue to run a lot as well as cycle you might want to spin lower gears quicker, rather than push bigger gears to limit the muscle over development, but I don't run so would recommend you talk to some triathletes for their advice, as they obviously need to be able to do both for long periods of time.
Running and cycling - are we going to see you doing the [url=http://www.3peakscyclocross.org.uk/]3 Peaks[/url] next year.