Last November i was hit by a cement truck out training. I came out of it a bit worse for wear ! My left Femur was broken and my right Fibea was also broke. So no bike and 2 months of Xbox is what i spent my off season doing.
As soon as i could get back on my bike i was on the trainer (with my cast on)
Anyway after a few trips to my Physio and i bit of advice i was advised to get on a set of Powercranks. I didn't know much about them really but after a bit of research i was keen to get Powercranking!
As i didn't walk properly on my left leg for some months i'd obviusly lost a lot of muscle that had wasted away. The obviuos muscles needed for cycling were pretty straight forward to work on but one of my biggest problems was getting my hip flexors back into action to get my walking and pedaling normaly again. This is where the Powercranks came in. Also there was a big muscle imbalance in each leg and this needed some work too.
So the guys sorted me out and i recieved my cranks.!
They were real easy to put on, i think it took me about 20 mins, just the same as any other set of cranks really.
I was a bit unsure of what to expect on my forst ride so decided to stay indoors on the rollers. Well, 5 mins later and i had to stop, my left hip flexor was as weak as Ricco without his cool box! I was pretty dissapointed but also happy that i had found the weakness and a way i could work on it.
So i planned to try every day to work up in steps and eventualy try to do a proper training ride on them. It took me a couple of weeks of riding every day before i could get out on the road and feel comfortable.
I could feel the burn in my hip flexors after about 10 mins on my left leg and about 30-40 mins on my right during a 1 hr ride after 2 weeks of riding.
So after a few weeks of solid work on the cranks i was ready to start to do some specific drills. I was doing some alot of left legged efforts, 1-2 mins long in big gears and then some fast spinning 80rpm + with both legs.
I have been using the cranks now for 2 months and i can feel a definate differnce in my walking and riding. My hip flexor is not 100% yet but definatly getting stronger. Also i can feel my pedal stroke is more of a complete circle than it used to be and have had a lot of comments from other riders of how smooth i look when im back on my normal bike - Power cranks!
So if any of you out there are in 2 minds whether the cranks will help you i can guarentee you that within weeks you will feel the difference and will be half wheeling you mates in no time at all. One thing i would reccomend is if you dont have acsess to 2 bikes ( 1 specificly for the PC) i would opt for the cranks with the lock out mode. I think its unrealistic to think that you can just jump on the PC and ride full time on them immeidatly.

Anyway
Thanks for reading.

Ill be in touch !

Matt