Clipless pedals and cycling shoes will make your body “one” with the bike. Your feet and legs will be “connected” to the bike. Without clipless pedals and shoes, your pedaling technique will work like pistons in a car engine, i.e. one of your legs will stay idle when the other is working, then role changes ... When your feet are one with the pedals, that will allow you not only to push down but also to pull the pedals when your legs are on their way up, thus making use of other muscles that you have in your legs. Describing the pedaling technique using words like "push down" and "pull up" in reality is still incorrect. Good pedaling technique should result in a constant pressure on the pedals in a circular movement, not up and down. This is easier said than done. One of Lance Armstrong's book suggests for training that one puts his bike on a bike trainer and pedals with only one leg.
