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FORM & FIT: 5 Common Errors to Ruin Your Cycling Season Spring is once again settling in the valley. A sure sign of the change in seasons is the noticeable increase of bicycles on valley roads. One of the advantages of valley life, is the ability to switch fitness activities from skiing to bicycling. After months of being relegated to the snowy Nordic trails, cyclists revel in clear pavement, or dry dirt. This can lead to a medical condition know as Activity Enthusiasm Syndrome, or AES. Symptoms may include a sore butt, numb hands, and painful knees. Backs and necks can also become stiff and sore. AES (Activity Enthusiasm Syndrome) is a treatable condition if caught in its formative stages. Early detection is crucial if AES is to be prevented from ruining a season, and stranding that new bike in its garage (tongue firmly in cheek). Starting to bike again in the spring and summer is not an easy task. Your body is used to performing a lot fewer motions than in your winter activities. An hour of skiing might involve the equivalent of 1,200 steps. Bicycling on the other hand might take 10,000 knee revolutions on a 2 hour ride. This is obviously a very large change in stress to the joints, muscles, and nerves. The human body is able to adapt to ~10% increases in activity, extending beyond 10% risks injury, and the dreaded AES. It is difficult to keep your enthusiasm in check early in the season. A slow start in your time spent riding will allow time for your body to adapt to the change in stress that cycling brings. It’s not just increasing time too quickly on a bike that can lead to injury. Cycling up hills provides much greater resistance to the legs than riding on the flats. It takes time to be able to tolerate 10,000 revolutions with greater force. A solid base of riding on the valley floor will allow your body a chance to get ready for the increased load of riding in the hills. There are several other factors that create additional stresses on the moving body. The ageing process deposits a stiffer form of tissue into our muscles. This causes greater stiffness, and can form a resistance to motion. There’s a reason we get a little slower with age. On the bike, increased stiffness in the legs can lead to more rocking of the pelvis on the saddle. This is a factor in back pain on the bike. Tight iliotibial bands on the outside of the thigh, gives a very characteristic type of knee pain. A stiff back can make reaching for the handlebar drops difficult. There are very specific solutions to each of these areas in the form of stretching. Stretching is best done outside of the sport activity if you are trying to gain range of motion. It is difficult to take enough time to stretch before running or biking to make a difference in muscle length. Because people come in all different shapes and sizes, it makes sense that we need a bike to fit each individual shape and size. It used to be that bikes came in only a limited number of sizes with no choice of size in your handlebars/stem/cranks/pedals/seatpost etc. There was no chance in getting a longer stem to fit your long arms, just bend at the elbow more, and don’t ask for longer sleeves on your shirt! Now there is a wide range of sizes in every conceivable bike part. The trick is in knowing what size is right for you. Luckily the science of bike fitting has progressed to the point where new tools of video analysis can help. A picture is worth a thousand words. Video analysis can slow down visible motion on the bike, and assess how any unusual movements or positions impact your pedaling. Based on this information, specific recommendations can be made on how to make the bike fit you better. This can also help identify positions or motions caused by stiffness in your body, or a misfit with the length or shape of your skeletal structure. Better yet, you can change your fit on the bike, and compare how this changes your pedaling motion to your previous setup. In this way, you can be specific about what is creating the change in motion or position. Attention to detail is important when you are moving 10,000 times! I will now describe the top 5 ways to ruin the bike season. The following common errors all have treatments and solutions to get you back on the road in fine shape. It’s my hope that this can serve as your flu shot to healthier cycling.
Living in the mountains, we look to return to the hills as soon as possible in our riding. The nasty reality is that our body is not ready for heavy hill climbing until many weeks of riding on the flats. Kneecaps are particularly vulnerable as pushing harder on the hills also creates more force across the knee. Be sensible and enjoy the pastoral valley floor views before laying claim to the summits. Follow the 10% rule for prevention of this AES.
The proper seat height has been a holy grail of sorts in cycling. Common methods have included everything from specific fractions of leg length (Greg Lemond), to the “eyeball” method of placing the heel on the pedal with a straight leg. Unfortunately, your seat height is based not only on how long your legs are, but also on the relatively lengths of your thigh and leg bones. Video analysis can also assess how level your hips are during pedaling, a key indicator of seat height position. Getting this wrong can throw off everything from the foot to the head.
Yes, I know you are special. The 10% rule really doesn’t apply to you. Go ahead and sit in an office all week, then tackle that 100miler into the wind with the road never going downhill. Do I have to follow my own advice? As a recovering AES’er, I can admit that the truth hurts. Moderation will go a long way to keeping you ready to go the next weekend. Keep in mind that you can generally adapt to a 10% increase, but will usually react (negatively) to a greater than 10% change in duration or intensity of exercise..
When upgrading to a new bike, it’s important to provide the proper rationalization. I find that getting a new bike is in fact a unique opportunity for my wife to “upgrade” to my old bike, requiring me to get the new carbon fiber version. I’m shocked, shocked, that there is a poor fit happening here!!! It is not uncommon for me to find in my questioning of injured women, that they are riding their partners bike that were willed to them. Much as it pains me to reveal this secret of gear acquisition, women rarely fit on their partner’s bike.
People do come in every shape and size. I am often amazed at how short or long our trunk can be. Ever sit next to someone and think they are 6ft tall, only to see them at 5’5” when they stand! The length of our trunk affects the reach of our hands on the handlebars. Too long and our neck can hurt, too short and our back can’t stretch out. Yikes, this is often caused by the spouses bike. Luckily, adjusting the stem length, and saddle position can help this. Peter Dickinson MS, PT, SCS |
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