Weak leg

General
1

So, I’m noticing more and more how much I favor my right side. For example, I can only mount one way (left foot on pedal, right foot on ground), I turn much tighter when I turn right (I’m afraid to do a left U-turn), my right leg feels stronger, and now my right knee is starting to bother me. Can anybody suggest anything? My current plan is to get my free-mount fairly reliable and then try to switch legs. I feel very uneasy when I try to switch sides. I guess my biggest concern is I don’t want to do any permanent damage to my right knee.

I can’t help but wondering if my right leg is longer than my left.

Anyway, any suggestions?

2

My experience is similar - I noticed that I am as much right-footed as I am right handed. I still prefer right turns when I really want to make them tight.
What helped me was a lot of practice idling (alternating between chocolate and non-chocolate foot); things began to develop from there.
> Can anybody suggest anything? My current plan is to get
> my free-mount fairly reliable and then try to switch legs.
There is no reason to wait. Use any assisted or free mount you are comfortable with and start practicing left turns, idling with either foot, etc. From my experience: Very suddenly, the (static) non-chocolate foot mount materialized. BTW: A lot of riding (outdoors, in my case) helped me develop some skills (such as tight turns) without any specific practice sessions.
Save your right knee.
Have fun,
Fred

3

Re: Weak leg

Weird… I’m left footed, but I turn right much better than I turn left. I
can just about idle with my right foot downwards, although not very well.
However mounting on my right foot is totally eluding me; it’s not that I
can’t do it, I’ve no idea where to start, it just feels completely wrong
even though (I think) I’m doing the same thing, just the other way…

Phil, just me

“Cattle Prods solve most of life’s little problems”

4

Re: Re: Weak leg

That’s just how I feel.

also, I don’t know if all this means I’m right-footed or left-footed. I guess its right, right?

also, also, what is chocolate?

5

Ahh… little glasshoppel… that is your mistake…each side of the body must find its own path…

Seriously, each side has to learn on its own. To learn the new side, forget everything the old side knows and start at square one. New side may or may not learn faster than old side did. But many of the lessons old side learned the hard way also have to be learned by new side the hard way.

Anyhow, that’s my experience with both ice skating and unicycling.

Also – yes idling velly velly good for balancing legs, especially n-idling.

6

Re: Re: Re: Weak leg, chocolate

In relation to unicycling: “chocolate foot/side”: “stronger, better, favored, etc. foot/side”. As opposed to the non-chocolate side, a.k.a. the vanilla side (see several recent posts).

Non-unicycling related answer: Chocolate = a drug containing phenylethylamine, anandamine (+ several of its derivatives), theobromine, and other psychoactive substances (mmmhhhhmmm).

Check out:

and

Eat more chocolate.
Have fun,
Fred - a chocoholic who has no intentions to quit

7

Maybe I’m weird as well.
When I do a rollback mount, I can do it very reliably with my right foot. However, if I’m doing a static mount, I’m much more reliable with my left foot. Go figure…

8

All,

Very weird. I am stronger on my right side, but I hear Nbrazzi saying that as a right-favored person, he mounts with left foot back/down on the pedal, and he hops up with his right foot. VERY STRANGE to me.

I favor the right, therefore I mount using the right foot. (Phil seems to be like me that way, but he favors left and mounts left). So, to me, I always just called the left foot my “chocolate” foot because Chris told me the Chocolate foot was the forward foot. However for me the forward foot is my WEAK foot.

So, this chocolate nonsense has got to go. Besides, when given a choice of multiple flavors, chocolate will be the last one I pick.

For me, the right foot is stronger, it is in control. Therefore, I mount with the right foot back and down on the pedal. Maybe that is because once I get “up”, I’m basically doing an idle, since I’m doing a rollback mount. That right/down foot is the one I roll back on and recover with, while my left (forward foot) is trying to get on the pedal.

I tried mounting with my left (weak) foot once ages ago, with no luck. I only tried once or twice at that time. Last night I went out and mounted with the left (weak) foot) with a 75% success rate! I was surprised.

Nbrazzi, it freaks me out that you are right dominant but mount with the left more naturally. But at least now I discovered that my experience lets me mount with the left pretty regularly. I still prefer mounting with my “strong” foot (right) down and back, for control.

Oh and I agree with U-Turn that each side is different. With my right foot (strong, favored foot and mount foot), I’m all over the cycle. I’m so comfortable with it that I can be accurate, sloppy, slow, fast, and no matter what I nail it. So, I tend to have a much bigger rollback, because I can and it is fun. On the left-down mount, my pedals are much closer to vertical, and it is almost like I mount into a still stand with the pedals vertical. Then I still do a rollback but it is small, and tiny by comparison, and my body feels hugged up much closer on my balance point. Still, it is easy enough.

Well, just trying to throw my experience into the pile, in case it will help.

Lewis

9

RE: Weak leg

> So, this chocolate nonsense has got to go.

THANK YOU!!!

> Besides, when given a choice of multiple
> flavors, chocolate will be the last one I pick.

That’s one of the reasons why it’s not an effective description. Is
chocolate your dominant foot? Some people like vanilla. Does the favorite
flavor go first, or get saved for dessert?

The people I’ve taught and ridden with over the years have used the words
dominant and non-dominant for a long time. They seem to be fairly hard to
mix up. Sure they’re a little more clinical, but that’s usually the idea
when talking about these things.

I am dominant with my right foot. I mount with my right foot, and do most
one-foot things with the right foot pedaling. I have learned many skills
with my left foot, but I don’t consider it dominant at any. My right foot
did 'em all first.

Many people mount with one foot, and ride one-foot with the other. I seem to
have noticed less of this with experienced riders that have learned lots of
skills though. It shows up more in people who do fewer unicycle tricks.

In most cases it probably starts from not worrying about which foot to learn
skills with. You just do it. Sometimes we on this group need to do more
“just doing it” and less of the text-based analysis we are famous for.

Especially when it comes to spoked-wheel theory, I might add… :slight_smile:

Stay on top,
John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
jfoss@unicycling.com

“You’re not supposed to wash your Roach armor” - Nathan Hoover, on safety
equipment cleaning methods

10

i start with my right foot on the pedal and left foot on the ground. does that mean i’m left or right foot dominant?

Jess

11

You guys have given me some good info, and I think maybe I can clear up a few things. Animation said he mounts with his right foot back because it is his strong foot. I mount with my right foot FORWARD, because it, also, is my strong foot. The key is, Animation does a roll-back mount. We both control with our right foot, but because our mounts are so different, his right foot is back and mine is forward.

You see, when I mount, I need my strong foot on that high/forward pedal so I can have the strength to send that pedal forward and maintain the balance on that foot.

I definitely need to try mounting the other way. Maybe, after I nail down backwards-riding, I’ll easily do that rollback mount with my right foot down. However, that would still be favoring my right side, which I need to get out of.

12

Here’s something that I found helped with my favoring-the-right-side-problem. I tend to twist my body to maintain balance because there is much more strenth pusing the right side of the ride. I find that if I hold onto the front of the saddle with my right hand while riding, that forces me to correct that twist and forces some of the balance responsibility on the left leg. I think this will help a lot. Also, since my backwards exercises are improving, this will open doors.

13

In my understanding, that means that you are right-foot dominant. You might want to confirm that with other things. For example, if you have started idling, which foot did you start with first? That is, which foot did you use in the down position when you started idling? That foot is most likely your dominant foot. If you haven’t started idling yet, which foot do you use when you come to a stop and step down behind the uni? The foot on the back pedal when you step off is most likely your dominant foot, because it is doing both the strength work (braking/deceleration) and the intelligence work (balance point manipulation).

For me, the answers to all these questions was my left foot. If you have mixed answers, perhaps you don’t have a strong dominance, which may be a blessing when it comes to unicycling.