Training Tuesday #6: Cycling Injuries
June 15, 2010
Injuries
You get them, I get them, we all get them. Injuries are the bane of everyone’s life. From little niggles to breaks, tears and rips. Last week I talked about swimming and this week cycling is getting the works!
Cycling
Cycling is designed to be painless-you’re not jolting your body like you are in running and you’re using your biggest strongest muscles unlike swimming. If this is true then why does it hurt so bloody much?
I get pains in five different parts of my body when cycling: knees, bottom, back, arms and hands. I’m going to try and run through why these happen and how you should cycle to avoid them. I think now would be a good time to point out that you’re thighs are going to hurt pretty much whatever you do when cycling as that’s the muscle that’s propelling you forward! Another classic cycling issue is shortening of your hamstrings. Lance Armstrong can barely touch his knees! It’s important to warm up and stretch off afterwards although even when I set off on big trips with good intentions (stretching and ten press ups/sit ups morning and night) I never end up doing any of them! But here are the five aches and pains you can fix:
Knees
All your knees do when cycling is transfer the power from your thighs to the pedals via your shins-this shouldn’t be painful The key to fixing this is the set up of the bike. It’s definitely worth getting your bike professionally set up for you if you plan on doing any real distance on the bike. If you can’t afford to get a full fitting then adjusting the height, angle and position of the seat post should alleviate most aches. You should have the pedal so you can put your heel on it while sitting on the saddle-this buys you a couple of centimetres when you put your toe in the pedal which will stop you over stretching. Generically having pain at the front of the knee means the seat post is too low and pain at the back of the knee means your seat is too high. You might also need to adjust the seat forward or back for comfort-bare in mind a half a centimetre adjustment can change things drastically!
I cycled from London down to Aswan in Egypt with my knees in agony ignorant that I could fix it, thinking that it was just the after effects of tearing my cruciate and medial ligaments. In Aswan I met a South African sports doctor called George who was driving a truck overland to Cape Town. He adjusted my seat by about an inch and after that I didn’t have single a twinge! He also fixed my rim tape on the wheels and we had a bet that I’d buy him a beer for every 100kms I cycled with out a puncture I’d buy him a beer (I’d had 27 in 7500kms until then) and for every puncture I got he’d buy me five beers. When I got to Cape Town I owed him 120beers and he owed me five. Gutted. Pain-free, but gutted.
While my knee was hurting (at the front and under the knee cap from having the seat too low) I found it really helped if I spent a few minutes each break massaging my knee downwards and to the outsides-this really helped with the swelling and seemed to stop the pain temporarily.
Bottom
I don’t really know the answer to this-I used a Brooks saddle on both my last trips and for 12000miles and 22000miles respectively it was agony! I’ve heard of people who have worn theirs in well and think they’re great-my problem is that I get bored and fidget. This means that when I get an ache on one side I’ll move to the other and then get another ache there and this will repeat for months! I suppose the answer is not to fidget, break the saddle in well and you’ll be fine! (Two pairs of padded cycling shorts helps too!)
Back
This is a classic problem for long distance cyclists. Your back is the part of your body that balances out the leg drive. I had intermittent problems with my back and they only really flared up when I hadn’t been disciplined with keeping my form. Ideally your hips, upper body and arms shouldn’t move at all when you’re cycling. You should engage your core muscles and use them to hold everything in place-this allows each push of the pedal to go through with more force. If you ride hunched up or wiggle from side to side as you pedal then you’re wasting energy and pulling your back apart. Don’t do it!
Arms
If you’re cycling all day everyday with your arms locked out then they’re going to ache. You can lessen this by having handle bars that allow you to place your hands in different positions. For my last trip I had bull bars which allowed me to have my hands vertical and horizontal on the bar. Shifting between these two positions really helped me. I always wanted to try out a triathlon handle bar but never plucked up the courage to buy one!
Hands
You’re leaning the weight of your upper body on your hands for an extended period of time-they’re going to hurt. Cycling gloves are padded to protect the nerve which runs down the little finger side of the base of your palm. Even with gloves I lost feeling in my little and ring fingers on the first trip-they came back afterwards but it wasn’t much fun. On the second trip I changed the grip on my handlebars from a round one to one with a flat part that fit my hands much better and didn’t have any troubles at all.
In short: posture, posture, posture! And get your bike fitted and you’ll be fine!
The video below is from a great DVD that can help you set up your bike at home:
