What 20 years of driving a manual transmission with heavy duty pressure plates looks like

    by abotoe

    24 Comments

    1. Moist-Visit6969 on

      Start doing some one legged calf raises and body squats with the other leg to balance it out lol.

    2. My left leg is also noticeably stronger than my right. I’ve been dailying a manual for the last 9 years

    3. But… That muscle lifts your foot, not presses it?

      Surely a heavy clutch would give you a bigger foot pressing muscle, not foot lifting muscle.

      I mean, if anything you’d expect your right leg to have a stronger foot lifting muscle because you depress and release the brake and accelerator more than the clutch.

    4. Decent_Risk9499 on

      I used to have people try to push the clutch down in my cheap-ass Scion xD because it had such a heavy clutch plate. It gave them a newfound respect for me lol

    5. I don’t spend a lot of time in stop-n-go traffic, but a recent rushhour trip from North SF Bay to Sacramento gave me a one-legged workout. That’s what a 9″ clutch disc to hold 500# will do to a fella!

    6. Wanna try something wild?

      Try using the foot brake with your left foot, but strap in first.

      Amazing how you can accurately apply brake pressure with the weaker leg, but cannot with the strong leg.

    7. I had a cable clutch in one car and hydraulic in the other and the switch felt like this photo looks lol

    8. I had to have my left knee scoped & cleaned out a few years ago, I blame 15 years of driving manual (although likely much less clutch pressure than OP)

    9. If anyone’s wondering why, I modulate the clutch with the ball of my foot. This engages the tibialis anterior muscle which normally doesn’t receive much use relatively speaking. I’ve never noticed the slightest bit of functional difference in daily life and it’s really only noticeable if I flex them. Who knows, maybe it’s something more because my right knee had issues with hyperextension growing up due to my right leg being noticeably shorter than my left. And yes, I do walk in circles with my eyes closed. 

    10. warpedaeroplane on

      If you wanna be miserable and bridge the gap move your seat too close while you drive and have to be tensing your foot back the whole time. Will destroy your tendons for no real gain but you’ll get that symmetry babyyyy

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