KV - Cycling: Are you a masher or a spinner?

 I've cycled all my life, but other than my mates teaching me how to get it the hang of it, I've had no other training. When you you first cycle it's natural to just push down on the pedals, but years later I read about cadence and spinning. With this technique you go into a lower gear and pedal faster. Spinners tend to pull on the upstroke too, using their clipless padals, because as you are botted into the padal, you are able to pull up. All I can say is that I hated spinning and pulling on the up stroke, as it was just hard work and wore me out. Maybe I needed to get used to it, but I just gave up in the end. 

Eventually, I found three great articles on this topic which supported my point of view, and all said spinning and up pulling was nonsense. It's a minority view, though, but, from my experience, they are right, anyway, each to their own. Maybe my body is just more suited to mashing, or that I've done it for so long that it now suits me more, because my body may have adapted perfectly to it. So, why change anything, especially as I've never had an injury from cycling, like sore ligaments, or too muscle building up in one place, which can knock the knee cap out of place moving it to one side, which can happen to people when they do a lot of cycling. 

Many cyclists work hard to perfect their padal stroke, sometimes even sitting a boring stationary training bike to improve their technique, but is it all nonsense? I just go and cycle for the fun of it.

 The Cycling Myth That Won’t Die: Pedaling Circles

Here’s a cycling myth that just won’t die; if you want to be a great cyclist you need to perfect your spinning technique and pedal perfect circles. It seems every year we get bombarded with articles explaining the benefits of pedaling in circles. They all say the a stop mashing the pedals and start working on all parts of the pedal stroke. Usually, these articles include a call to try out some goofy one legged-pedaling drills or worse a pitch for some silly piece of equipment.

So, surely professional cyclists must pedal in perfectly round circles, right? Nope. Not at all. The reality is that the best cyclists out there absolutely mash on the pedals. Pedaling circles is a myth, and one that can do real harm to you.

https://gearandgrit.com/the-cycling-myth-that-wont-die-pedaling-circles/

Is High Cadence Cycling Actually Slowing You Down?

WILL FORCING YOURSELF TO SPIN FASTER MAKE YOU RIDE BETTER? HERE’S WHAT THE LATEST RESEARCH HAS TO SAY.

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a26305270/high-cadence-cycling-not-increase-speed/