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Common Cycling Pains And How To Recover From Them?

Do You Have a Pain in The back due to long road bike ride?

We’ve got you covered.  Cycling is a fun, but repetitive, sport. Your body will be prone to repetitive motion injuries and we are here to help you single those out and combat them – as well as a few other aches and pains.

Common Culprits to Cycling Pain

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Biomechanical Stress:

• Your saddle needs to be adjusted
• Improper cleat position
• Improper shoe sole padding
• Weak core muscles
• Imbalanced muscles
• Improper wrist angle

And, the other culprit:

Over-Training

• Causes muscle strains, possibly strained ligaments and leads to injuries

Below, we will go over a list of the most common cycling pains, their top causes and relatively easy fixes. In addition, we have a list of fixes and preventions for nearly any ache or pain you will experience on your road cycling adventures.

Road Biking Back Pain

Causes:

• Weak core muscles
• Improper cycling posture
• Long periods of not moving your back in other positions

Fixes:

• Stretch often – especially psoas and hamstrings
• Core strengthening exercises
• Adjust your bike fit for optimal cycling posture
• Curve Forward – sitting upright causes the spine to receive all road shock

Road Biking Neck Pain

Causes:

• Badly adjusted helmet
• Loose eye wear
• Poor posture

Fixes:

• Tilt helmet back if you are lifting your head too high
• Wear close-fitting eye wear to keep head from tilting to hold glasses in place

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Pain in The Elbow When Cycling

Causes:

• Riding with elbows straight and locked
• Poor posture
• Allowing the elbow to absorb road shock

Fixes:

• Lessen the reach to allow your elbows to remain slightly bent
• Let arms stay slightly relaxed letting arm muscles take the brunt of road shock, not elbows

Pain in The Hand When Cycling

Causes:

• Numbness or tingling in hands caused by poor hand position
• Over-reaching
• Too much padding!
• Too much padding pushes into the carpal tunnel
• Too much shock, vibration and road buzz transferring through the bike to your hands

Fixes:

• Shorten your reach – this shifts body weight off your hands
• Purchased padded bars or a bar tape
• Wear gloves with gel padding
• Decrease over-padding

Pain In the Knees When Cycling

Causes:

• Incorrect cleat position
• Incorrect saddle position
• Too much cycling at a high gear
• Weak glute or quad muscles
• Tight hamstrings or lower leg muscles

Fixes:

• If it hurts in front of your knee, raise your saddle
• If it hurts behind your knee, raise your saddle
• Lower your gears
• Strengthen with leg and glute exercises
• Stretch your thighs (quads and hamstrings), IT Band and glutes
• Warm up and cool down with no pressure exercise like swimming

Pain in The Hips When Cycling

Causes:

• Overly tight muscles caused by not stretching
• Weakened or imbalanced muscles caused by not exercising opposing muscle groups often enough
• Working too hard at cycling in high gear for long periods with weak muscles

Fixes:

• Lower your gears
• Stretch your glute muscles, hip flexors and surrounding muscles
• Strength train your glute muscles

Pain in The Feet When Cycling

Causes:

• Decreased fat padding in ball of foot
• Cleat out of position
• Improper shoe fit
• Feet overheating
• Lacing shoes too tightly
• Foot angled too far back, resulting in excessive strain
• Foot angled to far forward resulting in excessive forward strain and toe pressure

Fixes:

• Loosen your shoe
• Wear vented shoes
• Purchase a wider shoe
• Have cleats adjusted to correct position
• Increase shoe padding
• Change the padding in your shoes and footbed every 3,000 miles
• Lower saddle so feet do not point to reach full pedal rotation

Common Cycling Pain Fixes

• Bike Fitting-Get a Professional Bike Fitting! Your posture on the bike is the key to good body mechanics and could make or break your cycling future. An excellent website to see informative photos about proper body angles and a downloadable guide to fitting your road bike is Bike Dynamics.
• Ice-Ice the area to flush lactic acid and inflammation away from the injury site.
• Anti-inflammatories – while this medication route is not the first suggestion, ice is, natural herbal anti-inflammatories and over-the-counter medications help reduce inflammation and pain at the injury site for those who are able to take them.
• Massage – Self-massage, a foam roller and a good medical or sports massage therapist will do wonders.
• Stretching –stretching helps return the muscle out of its spasmed state and back to full length. It resets the nervous system, relaxes the muscle and squeezes toxic buildup and lactic acid out of the muscle. Stretching is the most important maintenance tool you have to recover from and prevent injuries.
• Rest – micro-tears and real strains need rest to heal. Take it easy on a bad muscle pull until your medical professional gives you the ok to start cycling again.
• Sleep – your body heals and rebuilds itself while you sleep, get a full nights rest!

The Good News

The great news is unless you take you take a newsworthy fall off of your bike, your cycling pains are probably relatively easy to alleviate.  Pain attention to your posture and the wear and tear on your road bike. It may take time, some bike adjustments, and stretches, but your body will be a fine tuned machine powering your cycle again.