Blog

• Make sure your elbows are slightly bent in order to allow your arms to absorb vibrations and impacts from the road or trail.
• Your hands should be snugly gripping the bars or hoods, but still staying relaxed in order to allow proper blood flow.
• Shoulders should be relaxed and loose to help absorb shocks your elbows can’t absorb alone.
• Make sure to look forward with your eyes as well as your neck in order to try and reduce some of the extension in your neck.
• Check your helmet; it may be sitting too low on your forehead and obstructing your view causing you to look up more.

Remember, while cycling the only part of your body that should be working really hard is your legs; make sure you’re keeping your neck, shoulders and arms in a relaxed ready to go state. If you don’t feel you’re moving correctly on the bike, schedule a Bike Right session and have a physical therapist assess how you’re moving on your bike; having someone else watch you ride can help isolate the specific movement deviations and bad habits you may have developed over time.

#2: Work your body

To help prevent some of the adaptive muscle shortening and nerve compression from cycling, try these 10 simple exercises and stretches. These are also great exercises to do if you work at a desk a lot!

Stretches/Mobility:

1. Pec Stretch: Stand in a doorway and put your arms out to either side and slowly lean forward until you feel a stretch through the front of your chest into your armpit. Play with the height of your arms above, at or below your shoulders to get the various fibers of the muscle. Do 2-3x for about 30 sec each.
2. Upper Trap/Scalene: Sitting in a chair, grab the bottom of the chair and side-bend away from that side. Look up for a scalene stretch and look down for a upper trap stretch. Do 2-3x for about 30 sec each side.
3. Neck Extensors: While sitting, gently pull the back of your head forward while gently pushing in on your chin till you feel a stretch just at the base of your skull. Don’t crank on this one, take it easy on your jaw, it should be a fairly gentle stretch. Do 2-3x for about 30 sec.
4. Pec Release: Take a tennis or lacrosse ball and place it between your chest, near the front of your armpit, and the wall. Roll the ball around until you find any tender spots and spend about 10-20 sec massaging that area. Spend about 1 min on each side
5. Upper Trap Release: Place a tennis or lacrosse ball in pillow case and lean against the ball and a wall anywhere between your shoulder blade and spine up through the base of your neck. Massage out any tender or sore spots for about 10-20 sec per area; spend approximately 1 min on each side
6. Foam Roll Extensions: In order to take strain off of the joints of your neck make sure your upper back can move well. Lie across a foam roller on your back with your arms supporting your head and your hips on the ground and lean back to extend your upper back. Start about halfway up your back and continue up until just short of your neck. Do about 5 extensions at each spot moving the foam roller up about an inch each time.
7. Towel Rotations: Wrap a small hand towel or pillowcase around the back of your neck, grab the ends with the opposite hands. Pull down to anchor the towel with one hand and pull the towel across your chin as you rotate your head, when you get to the end of your range add a little bit of overpressure from the towel to help stretch into the movement.
8. Thread the needle: Begin in quadruped position (on hands and knees), place foam roll on the outside of one arm. Once there, reach with the arm furthest away from foam roll under the body to make contact on top of foam roll and roll through, rotating upper spine.

Strengthening:

1. Chin Tucks: Begin by lying flat on your back with a soft pillow under your head. First gently press the back of your head into the pillow as you tuck your chin in, as if you’re making a double chin, hold for 10 seconds then relax, repeat 10-20 times. If this is easy practice against a wall while doing a wall sit.
2. I’s, T’s and Y’s: Lying flat on your stomach, across a swiss ball or end of bed or couch, place your hands at your side (I) out to the side at shoulder height with thumbs up (T’s) or above your head and out to the side (Y’s). The focus of the movement is to move your shoulder blades not so much your arms, squeeze your shoulder blades together and squeeze for 10-15 seconds and relax, repeat 10-20x in each position. The Y’s will be the hardest so start with less reps here and advance as it becomes easier. While lying on your stomach focus on good posture through your entire spine all the way to the top of your head.

#3: Get a Bike Fit

If none of these “quick fixes” seem to help, it may be time to reassess your bike fit. First off, were you ever fit? If so, how long ago? Your body changes, so you should really get a bike fit every year or so.

There are many aspects of the bike fit that can affect how much strain and what kind of strain is being placed on your neck and upper back:

• The most obvious is your handlebar height; the lower they are the more you have to look forward to see (looking at you, triathletes!)
• The length of your bike, the distance between saddle to handlebar, can also affect how much you have to reach and how you carry your weight through your arms.
• The width of your handlebars may be too wide or to narrow, which can make it difficult for your arms to rest or settle in a comfortable position.
• Triathletes, look at both bullhorn and aerobar pad positions.
• The angle of your hoods on a road bike might pitch the angle of your wrists and affect how you carry your weight through your arms.
• The tilt of your saddle can cause you to be unbalanced between handlebars and saddle.