this is basically what all of my customers look like when they come in
i think i need some wedgie it's a bit blown out there we go so our bike for tuesdays is going to
be all about today yeah welcome to today's episode of bike for tuesdays today we are covering wedging
so when you're in the world of cycling you might hear people talk about wedging in cycling shoes in
today's video we want to talk about what wedging is discuss whether you need it or not and cover
shims which is a completely different thing which should kind of look the same but it's different
and we should also cover the fact that there are different types of wedging and they all
have different applications and needs and a lot of it is hugely misunderstood so that's kind of
what i really wanted to get across in this video is that we get people who come in here they've
got like 10 of these things under their shoes and lo and behold they're having foot problems
like if you need 10 of these in your shoes there's something wrong
it's exactly what it sounds like it's something that is thicker on one end than
is on the other so this bit this is this is the only yellow wedge i could find but it's thicker
here than it is here and in in bike fitting it's used as uh a means of applying tilt or canting
either certain parts of the foot or the foot in its entirety or the shoe it's in its entirety
cleat wedge they're usually yellow i actually like
these ones more these are made by uh form which is a little a little firm out in southwest london
mine called roman makes these and i i prefer these because they're just a slightly better shape but
the cleat wedge has been around for years this is one for a shimano spd sl or a look uh the form one
as the set has the same application there is also a teeny little spd one as well this is a a bike
fit spd and these are used to count the in the entire shoot and the the way in which they work so
they've been sold as many as a means of correcting knee tracking they don't do that they sold by many
as what you do is you post the medial side of the foot the inside of the foot and you count it and
count it and can't it and where it stops is the knee tracking in like so generally speaking if
you do that you're going to create quite a lot of tension and torsion through the knee and through
the foot so what the what they are what we do find that they do is they aid in just overall stability
of the foot in order to understand this is [ __ ] the function of this little thing you need to
think about how we walk most people heel strike lateral side calcaneous heel at the heel bone with
pronate because everyone pronounce him and push off with the ball of the foot now that you know
in very very basic terms that's the primal act of walking however in cycling foot isn't
working in in a primal fashion so it needs to be affixed and i'm going to need a prop
what happens is when the when the bottom of the shoe is affixed to the pebble what happens is the
uh the foot kind of does a bit of this inside of the shoe right so what the wedge does is it
brings the shoe up to the foot to stop the foot from driving in now this is something
uh that this this notion usually manifests itself as excessive float and that leads a lot
of people to move to like a fixed cleat if you do that you'll give yourself knee pain there's
a video on how to set your cleats fran's going to put it here the usual symptom of instability
is excessive flow and that's what these wedges can help to dial out as as a disclaimer you probably
don't want to be using more than one or two of these things per foot as another uh important
rule they are thicker on one side than they are on the other you should never i repeat never have the
thickest part of this cleat wedge on the outside of your foot if a bike fitter fits this to correct
your knee tracking and fits this on the outside of the foot take something very big and very heavy
and hit him with it and then when he asked why why'd you do that say bye for james told me to
that's how we use that's how we apply cleat wedging in this uh environment to be honest
with you we use this a little bit but we use uh heel wedging significantly more
the wedge that we use by far the most is a heel driven wedge this is i think relatively uncommon
in bite fitting circles because i think it's usually um misunderstood the heel wedge is exactly
what it sounds is it's it's a wedge that you affix to the heel of the foot to the hind foot and what
we the way we apply this is it aids in blocking pronation going back to what we were talking about
in the cleat wedge uh section in when you've got a foot that's pronating inside the shoe
what we do is we use a wedge which is thicker on the medial side on the inside of the foot
behind the heel which blocks the pronation of the foot all right now actually what we found
is that this can be used as a very effective means of optimizing shoe fit so for example
if you've got an individual that pronates heavily in one foot but doesn't in the other
you put them in the same pair of shoes and the shoe with the heavily pronated foot will feel
too small a couple of these in the heel guess what stops the foot growth because as you stand
up your feet grow and they flatten and they and they get wider stick one of these in the heel
or maybe two and it blocks that pronation it and the foot retains its shape from an unloaded state
we probably use these in pretty much every fit uh and in combination with the g8 2620
modular footbed which everybody for watching buy for tuesdays know that that's what we like we
don't really use more than one or two of these at a time i have used as many as four in very severe
cases but generally not can be very very effective for stabilizing feet knees hips and pelvis
this is one of the more common systems it is intended to treat uh what's called a forefoot
virus now a four foot virus is a skeletally fixed elevation of the first rate first line of bones
what that means is that it can't be manipulated all right what it usually results in is excessive
pronation of the ankle joint there's a problem with this it's relatively uncommon most people
possess what's called a forefoot supernatus which is a soft tissue elevation which can
be manipulated and it doesn't result in excessive pronation what this means is that if you apply a
lot of pressure in an area where it isn't needed and it isn't wanted you end up typically either
excessively loading the first metatarsal ball of the foot it can in some cases shift pressure to
the outside the lateral aspect of the foot and it can also have knee ramifications it's worth
noting that there are some shoe brands well we can go outside so specialized shoes have
this built into them and i i personally i'm not a huge believer in that because i don't believe
that everybody should have support applied to where they don't necessarily need it
but uh i quite often will use these to neutralize that in a specialized shoe so i fit this um
this thicker part on the outside and i know i said don't do that but there is a reason for doing this
i do it in a specialized shoe only i'd never do it in a uh in a neutral shoe apart from perhaps
if you have someone who's got a valgus forefoot extremely uncommon which is where the fifth
is elevated not the first so the pinky toe is elevated not the big toe again extremely uncommon
i have found through experience with using these that people almost always don't like it when you
ask them so rather than just sticking in the shoe and say right that feels better when you put it
into the shoe when you apply it you ask the rider how it feels they almost always don't like it
it feels like there's too much space being taken up inside of the shoe they feel like there's too
much pressure being put through through the forefoot there is a quite a clever uh
variation of this again created by our friends at form so running a clever bugger he basically took
the forfeit the four foot wedge and cut the end off of it and what that does result in is a
slightly better um you get a little bit more space inside of the front of the shoe but ultimately
these shouldn't be applied um without correct screening and and i say i'd say maybe five to
ten percent of the people that i've treated here possess for various no it's less than that i'd
say 100. uh it's it's uncommon so that's kind of why i would say you know i'd be very careful about
this and furthermore there's a little diagram out there from a certain website that we won't know
that uh basically talks about putting these in and then all of a sudden it straightens the
knees and as we alluded to earlier we discussed earlier knee tracking isn't solely driven by foot
correction and foot activation if someone is putting more than one of these into your shoes
something big and heavy again should people be experimenting with these at home no i don't i
don't believe in self-application of of this stuff uh it needs to be done in an informed
manner it should be done by train bike fitter i don't to that end i don't even sell them on
our web store anymore because i don't i don't want people playing with themselves if you do it wrong
you have the potential to hurt yourself these videos give you a little bit of information but a
little bit of information can be a dangerous thing but i think it's it's more to give you a bit of an
understanding of what each system does uh rather than you know giving you the the tools to apply
it yourself because you need to understand how to need to understand how to screen someone you need
to understand where the pain or discomfort might be coming from you know we talked a little bit
about discomfort on the outside of the foot i mean that could be driven by your feet being too close
together too much pronation one foot your saddle being too high your reach being too long your
shoes aren't great your shoes don't fit certain shoe brands will drive that as well so there are a
lot of different drivers for pain in this realm so i i it's it's important try to not self-medicate
this is a leg length stack it is intended to balance a leg length discrepancy which a lot
of people possess most of the people that i treat have discrepancies of less than five millimeters
and actually it's hard to diagnose whether they're actually a true leg length difference
my finding is that most people who possess a leg length difference the shorter leg is accompanied
by a comparatively tighter hip and what that means is that when you apply one of these
between the shoe and the cleats is its intended application is it impinges the hip through the
top of the stroke through top dead center which actually can serve as a driver of pushing the
rider in the opposite direction so actually can have the opposite effect of what you're trying
to achieve i would only use one of these in very very extreme cases and provided the the riders
functionality can can accommodate it the other thing i found with these
i find these very commonly applied to individuals who have had
bike fits using a certain motion capture system these have been used as a means of
pleasing the motion capture system so the way a motion capture system works
is that they apply a fitter applies infrared sensors to certain areas of the body usually
incorrectly it's put through an algorithm which tracks the the movement of the joints in space and
what uh we've found is that we're finding right uh fitters fitting these to try and balance the
leg extension of of of each legs so what they'll typically find is that if you've got someone who
sits off the right hand side because the saddle's too high some fitters will apply
this to the left leg to improve the leg extension number rather than actually looking at the rider
so uh i would say if this is being applied in a considered manner i.e you've been screened
for it they've checked you for a leg length difference there are a number of ways of doing it
uh and and you're confident that they've screened you correctly then you know this might be a a good
way of leveling your pelvis on the saddle if they're looking at their computer and go
i think you've got a leg length discrepancy and then they start bringing some of these out
but james told you you could that marks the end of today's episode of bike fit tuesdays if you
have any questions for james please put them in the comment section down below and he'll do his
best to answer them also if you'd like to book a fit with him because he's a bike fitter then
all the information will be down below and i will link to his website goodbye