Could erg mode have made my leg imbalance worse

:wave: good people.

So, I recently upgraded my trusty Assioma uno to duos. I also pretty quickly learned that I have a pretty large l/r imbalance, 60/40 on most rides. I do 99 percent of my training indoors and on erg mode, and have been using the uno since I started training seriously about 3.5 years ago.

In the last couple of weeks since buying the duo, Iā€™ve noticed that my right leg is suddenly struggling, twitching, cramping etc. all the dang time lol. Left leg is fine. This got me wondering, could I have been ā€œtrainingā€ a leg imbalance by always using left only powermatch? I.e im sitting at erg threshold and my body realizes subconsciously that if I just put down more power with the left itā€™s worth 2x or more the reduced rpe? Again, I have 500 hours a year in erg mode (between 400 and 550) so any effect would have lots of time.

Feel free to say this is a stupid thought, just wondering why the right leg seems to be struggling so hard suddenly.

Also, I should ride outside more :man_mountain_biking:

Interesting thought, but I think your body is trying to be as efficient as possible trying to lay down power, so Iā€™d doubt itā€™d be actively promoting that sort of imbalanceā€¦ though Iā€™m sure a PT on the forum may have a more educated guess. I have Garmin Vectors and sometimes I see more of a a L/R disparity when I donā€™t stretch out enough - especially my IT Bands and my lower back. When those muscles/tendons are tight, my body tends to fight and compensate.

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Yeah I have back and flexibility issues so probably has something to do with it for sure

I think there could be something in this.

I did a month last year using a 4iiii single sided as the ā€˜moderatorā€™. At the start I measured it against our neo 2t and they generally agreed. However after a month there was a drift, the neo was down by perhaps 3%. Therefore perhaps i was learning that it hurt less if I pushed just a little harder with the left legā€¦? Experiment was stopped at that point as I purchased a power2max meter.

In general that 4iiii is a great meter, fine for outside and sim mode. Just for me, maybe not ideal for erg mode.

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Or is it the knowledge of the imbalance that is making you subconsciously work your right leg harder, leading to cramping, etc?

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Ha yeah thatā€™s probably likely. Certainly more on my radar now. Id love to somehow design an objective study on this though, itā€™s fascinating how our bodies do strange things to compensate or maybe cheat.

Are you using a rocker plate? I was using one inside and also saw a large discrepancy. Went back to trainer on solid ground and it cleared right up. Also lowered my cadence down to 85 during aerobic work and rest intervals to make things easier on the rear.

When I switched from Uno to Duo I had a ~5% imbalance. Turns out it was partly due to my trainer (w/ rocker plate) being a bit off level. Fixing that almost completely eliminated the imbalanced though it still shows up at lower power.l (recovery intervals). Something to checks anyway.

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