Pedal stroke work:

There is a lot of information out there about pedal stroke technique, most of it says that it's a waste of time.  All I can say is I'm not the only idiot.

The first problem people face is that they don't understand the human body. They think the pedal goes in circles, so they should pedal in circles.  Does anybody ever test this? I did. You have two large muscle groups which fight gravity by lifting your body weight. You have two opposing muscle groups which just return your limbs to a position where the large muscle groups can work again. Trying to use the smaller muscle groups to produce power in the pedal stroke is like trying to accelerate your car by flapping your doors.

The real problem is timing. Humans learn to walk first, it's like your native language in motor skills. What you've learned is that all the weight is supported at the ground, and the quads lift your body weight by extending the lower leg from the knee. These skills are exactly wrong for pedaling a bike. Downward force at the bottom of the pedal stroke is wasted energy, and the quad only pushes down if the hip is over the foot, which it's not on a bike.

If you take an engineering approach to the pedal stroke you find where the two large muscle groups push tangentially to the crank.  The glutes extend the femur down from the hip, putting the center of that force around 2:30, the quads extend the tibia from the knee, putting the center around 12:30.  If we expand that range out +/-45 degrees we get quads pushing from 11:00 - 2:00 and the quads working from 1:00 - 4:00. It sounds so simple...

A few years back Pioneer came out with a power meter that showed force vectors every 30 degrees around the pedal stroke. This was a disaster because people could now see that they have learned to walk and stand, not pedal efficiently. People tried to change how they pedaled, but without a learning method it's kinda like trying to talk to someone who doesn't speak english by talking louder. As amusing as that is, it doesn't work.

Then there are the studies of pedal stroke that say that technique work doesn't improve pedaling efficiency.  If you read the abstract you'll find they left something out. "riders are asked to pedal four different ways" - there's no learning process.  In the Matrix Neo learns Kung Fu by downloading the skill set. Sadly there is no download for pedaling technique, but there is a learning process.