If you’re often experiencing discomfort when you’re out riding, it can be because your position isn’t quite right. Although it can feel confusing to know where to start and how to go about fixing this, in this article, I’m going to list a few pretty common areas of discomfort that you may encounter when you’re cycling and how you can potentially fix them. Let’s dive in.
Starting off with saddle sores, they can be a real ruiner to your cycling fun and turn a nice gentle ride into feeling like you’re sitting on a snooker ball, absolutely horrific. I’ve suffered with them plenty of times in the past. There are a few ways you can go about fixing them. If you are someone who often experiences flipping saddle sores, the first thing I would do is lower your saddle height. If your saddle is a bit too high, what happens is you begin to overreach for the pedals, and your hips start to rock. That rocking causes friction on the saddle and can be a common cause of saddle sores over time. Saddle choice is another factor to look at too. You want to be trying to carry the majority of your body weight on your sit bones. If you sit further forward on the nose of your saddle, then you’re going to be taking a lot of pressure on your groin area, on your sensitive areas. Plus, if your saddle isn’t wide enough, same story. So, you want to look at moving your saddle forward, getting a wider saddle with a cutout, and that can help alleviate any groin issues or pressure on sensitive areas.
Numb hands, tingling, pins and needles can really put a damper on your ride. One of the main reasons for this is because you’re taking too much weight with your hands. Your upper body weight is forward, and it’s all resting on your bars. One reason for this could be that your reach is too long and your core doesn’t have the strength to maintain your body, so your hands are doing all the work. Another reason could be your saddle tilt. So, while slightly tilting your saddle down has benefits, one of the drawbacks is that it shifts your weight forward onto your bars, causing those numb hands and tingling. So, something to look at would be shortening your reach, opting for a shorter stem, or potentially tilting your saddle up a bit. Plus, you need to look at strengthening your core so your body can take that weight and not just your hands.
Tight shoulders are a really common problem when cycling, something I suffered with myself quite a lot when I was racing, actually. At one point, it got so bad that I could barely pull the brakes. A bit of a low moment, that one. But if you are suffering with tight shoulders, there are a few things you can look at changing. Number one would probably be raising your bars. If the height of your bars is pretty low relative to your saddle height, what you’ll find, if you don’t have the flexibility, is that you’ll be overreaching, craning your neck, which can build tension and lead to severe tightness in your muscles. By raising your bars, you allow yourself to sustain a much more relaxed position that you can hold for a longer period of time and feel solid without craning your neck and causing muscle tightness. Part of the reason I found I got tension in my shoulders was because I used to run super narrow bars, which really help a lot if you’re maneuvering in a bunch, getting through narrow gaps. But at the same time, running really narrow bars can close up those shoulders a bit, and I personally think that can lead to tension. When I opted for wider bars, it helped to open me up and find a position that was much more relaxing and comfortable too. As always, there is an optimal measurement here. Going too wide isn’t going to help either, so a good starting point is trying to get the correct bar width based on your shoulder width.
Knee pain can be a frustrating one to suffer from and try to fix. There’s a whole host of reasons that can cause it. It’s not just position that can lead to knee pain. Poor core strength and stability off the bike can be big factors that lead to suffering from pain in your knees when you’re riding. Also, if you’re recovering from an injury, that’s a big one too. So, it’s quite likely that if you’ve injured your knees and you’re trying to get back to riding, if you’re not fully recovered, changing position is going to make no difference whatsoever. You need to make sure you’re fully recovered before you start riding again and also seek the help of a trained professional, a physio, to make sure you’re getting back to your riding in the best way possible and not doing any damage as a result of trying to get back to pressing on the pedals. A common cause of knee pain in cyclists, however, is because your saddle is set too high. That’s because your hamstrings and your IT band are overextending in the pedal cycle, which can over time cause pain at the side of the knee and also at the back. On the flip side, if your saddle is set too low, your knee will be forced to bend more, which can put compression on the front of your knee, on your kneecap, which can increase pain there. So, getting your saddle height right and getting the correct knee angle is a really good starting point to make sure that you avoid such issues with your knees.
If you’re finding it hard to put down power when the road really heads uphill, then one thing to potentially consider is your saddle tilt. If your saddle is pointing up too much, when you hit those steeper gradients, what you’ll find is the nose will point up even further as the road rises, which can make it quite hard to ride efficiently and transfer your power to the pedals. Just tilting your saddle down slightly and finding what works for you can make a big difference. And that applies to everything we’ve said in this video. Don’t make one big change straight away. Do things little and often over time and constantly assess whether it’s working, if it’s the right option for you.
There you go then, a few things you may be able to change in terms of your position on the bike that will hopefully make you a bit more comfortable when you’re enjoying those spins out on the road. Let me know in the comment section down below what changes you make to your position and how that potentially helps you. Thank you.