cromagnon said:
I know the gluteals are enormous powerful muscles but during intervals, climbing and TT's I feel the burn in my quads almost entirely. After a very hard session that night when I go to sleep it's my lower thighs that are literally hot to the touch.
How do I stop being so quad dominated and start recruiting those big old glutes to help generate my power?
Ok, so I'll start out by saying that I'm not a doctor or biomechanicist or anything like that. The following comments are solely from my own experiences with also trying to ride more efficiently.
I'll start by saying that from what you describe, your seat is too far forward. I had similar problems with overdone quads when I spent a season racing duathlons. I started thinking that something was wrong when my performances went off and I started getting quad burn mid way through the season. The only thing that had changed was that my position was changed to reflect the common wisdom on tri bike set up - ie., pull the seat forward. I put it back to where I liked it for road riding and - despite keeping running and the like - found that my speed increased no end and the pain disappeared.
So, check that your seat is set up so that your knee sits just behind the pedal spindle when the pedal is at the 3 o'clock position. If you have a long femur relative to your leg length (as I do) you'll find that modern bikes with 74 degree seat angles are a real pain and you need a good setback seat post. I use the Look Ergopost - it gives heaps of setback - but it's hugely pricey ...
While you're at it, just give your whole position a check over - seat height (equal to 0.883 times your inseam), ball of foot over pedal axle or just in front of pedal axle being the biggies.
Next thing is - how tight are your muscles? I find that my hill strength drops off and my legs start to burn when my muscles are overly tight. I'm thinking especially of glutes, piriformis, ilio-psoas as these are often overlooked and can really tighten up with biking. Obviously, also check out the old standards like the ham and quad groups, plus the tensor fascia latae (not sure on spelling) and the aductors/gracilis (the inside of the thigh). If you're not sure how to stretch/test for tightness, then grab the book "Stretching" by Bob and Jean Anderson. It is still the authority on stretching (my partner's a massage therapist and uses it heaps with her clients).
If your muscles are tight, then put in a stretching regime to your program - or add a yoga class or two per week. I'd also strongly recommend that you get some massages if you are tight - you'll have built up a tightness over a period of time and massage will help bring it out quickly. But be ready for your performance to drop off temporarily while your muscles adjust to working "properly" while they're getting used to being freed up.
My guess is that the combination of those two things will give you at least 75% of your answer ...
Ok, so those are the easy things ... Beyond this, your next step is to just work on building up your glute strength. Most cyclists are relatively weak in the rear leg muscles - not an absolute weakness, more a reflection of huge quad dominance. So, it's a combination of building strength and correcting the imbalances.
My recommendation would be to do that by using a range of activities. Weight training is an obvious one - but my experience says only early in the season or the off-season as it can detract from your riding. Also, weight training strengthens the muscles but doesn't recruit/use them in the same way that riding does, so you'll be building strength but not bike specific strength.
Get yourself an exercise ball and a wobble board and practise doing exercises on them. Don't be fooled by the fact that they seem "easy" or aren't using "real weights". Get a good series of exercises on each of them and you'll know about it - believe me!!!
Then do some cross training. I noticed a huge improvement in my seated climbing (which recruits glutes really heavily) after a winter of XC skiing (skate skiing), skating and a spring of trail running. All of those sports make more use of all of the rear leg muscles than bikers are used to using, so make a great compliment to biking. But - and it's a big but (no pun intended after the last sentence) - you need to concentrate on using "proper form" for the sport. In other words, don't run or ski off your quads as most bikers do. It'll take some time, but you'll find a huge improvement in your rear leg muscle strength.
Also concentrate on sitting and spinning up hills. Like I said, this recruits the glutes more than most riding, so is a good way to build some more strength.
Do remember that this strength building will take some time. You haven't built your current muscle state over-night, so it wont change over-night either. Keep that in mind ... most people expect instant changes and get disappointed both when their performance initially decreases and then when they don't reach their "ideal state" instantly ...
Anything beyond that is beyond my experience, so I'll leave any more comments to experts who can talk about bio-mechanics and the really specific vagueries of bike set up.
Hope that's of some help to you ...