Introduction
You have set off for one of the most thrilling journeys of your life, powering over mountains, hills, woods, and tracks, or any other terrain you come across. But shortly after, your journey abruptly comes to a halt when your body begins to ache, and your discomfort becomes too great to overcome.
There’s a chance you might have injured yourself!
Cycling is a sport that gives you a great sense of self-gratification since it is both a cardiac workout and a practical way of transportation. Unlike most other sports, however, the quality of the equipment and gear, bike fit, and technique might be the difference between having a fun ride and suffering from injuries.
In this article, we will be going through various ways of preventing bike injuries and how a Body Geometry Pro-Fit can be your best option.
Bicycle Injuries and ways to prevent them:
There are two types of injuries you may encounter while riding your bike; Trauma and Overuse Injuries. The former consists of bruises and lesions. While the latter deals with more persistent injuries involving strains and body aches. So follow along as we take you through the common risks involved and what you can do, as a cyclist, to work your way around them.
Avoiding Neck Pain
Neck pain comes out to be one of the most common injuries in sports. It occurs due to the faulty posture of leaning forward and holding your head up for long periods. This posture puts increased strain on your neck muscles, hampers your neck movement, often creating severe pain.
How to prevent it:
Neck pain is prevented by maintaining a proper posture and bending the elbows to damp vibrations. This technique provides stability and also reduces the stress on your muscles. Furthermore, remember to stretch your neck periodically during your ride to avoid muscle tightening. Also, consider eyewear and helmet profile as they can block our line of sight while riding in lowered positions forcing us to increase neck angle to see down the road.
Dealing with Numbness
Do you often feel numb at the feet or hands after riding your bike? Well, you are not alone! Numbness usually prevails in the hands and feet. The compression of nerves near the wrists and ankles reduces blood supply to hands and feet, respectively, consequently causing numbness.
How to prevent it:
Numb hands are averted by relaxing your elbows to decrease the angle between hands and the forearm; optimizing the fore/aft/height of the handlebar and saddle makes this possible. Likewise, numb feet are avoided by properly supporting the foot via arch support, and oftentimes internal or external cleat wedges are used to support pronation/supination of the ankle and forefoot. All of these are thoroughly addressed in the physical evaluation phase of the Fit.
Preventing lower back pains
Lower back pains often result from the cyclist’s poor positioning on the bicycle, which is not natural to the lower back muscles. This creates poor stress distribution and overworked back muscles. Terrain ruggedness might also play a part in aggravating the issue.
How to prevent it:
Bicycle adaptation is the best remedy for these pains, which focuses on proper saddle location, size/shape (based on riders unique pelvic dimensions), adjusting handlebar location based on balancing the riders flexibility and riding style. Regardless of fitness level, ample warm-up time and stretching can help in alleviating and preventing pain.
Warding off Pelvic Floor/Perineum Injuries:
You were out on an enjoyable ride, and you feel your bum numb or itchy! You may be experiencing compressed nerves and soft tissue. Groin numbness is another injury resulting in decreased blood supply to the genitals due to nerve compression in the perineal area.
How to prevent it:
Prevention methods include: choosing saddles with supportive shape based on your sit bone width, flexibility, and riding style. Adjusting saddle height, tilt and fore/aft will help distribute pressure to the areas we want it (think sit bones). Additionally using cycling-specific shorts along with chamois creme will help keep your skin feeling fresh and less irritated.
Ruling out Road Injuries
These injuries may result from a fall or a collision, causing abrasions, swelling, or deformity. Typically occurring in the extremities, shoulders, and hips they can include tissue ruptures, bone fractures, road rash, etc.
How to prevent it:
Riding within your limits, wearing protective items like helmets, gloves, bright colors improve your visibility, body armor and padding are great for offroad endeavors, and of course, being aware of your surroundings helps….save the “selfies” for the rest stop. This research by Alena Høye suggests a decrease of 48 percent in traumatic head injuries by simply wearing a helmet.
Taking your eyes off the road or trail for a moment could have dire consequences!
What is Bike fitting?
Having been familiarized with various injuries and ways to prevent them, We now need to go through the importance of bike fitting. It is a process that involves several customized adjustments to the bike to achieve two primary goals:
- Enhancing the performance of the cyclist through optimized body-bike connection.
- Preventing usage injuries.
A bike fit signifies a customized bike adjustment for cyclists to improve their comfort and efficiency through optimization of the body-bike connection.
Why Choose Body Geometry Pro Fit?
Can’t decide on a bike fit? We have just the thing for you!
Body Geometry Fit is the most extensively used fitting system today. It is a highly individualized fitting system that adapts the bike to the cyclist's unique physique and intended riding style making it useful for tracing an injury back to its source. Besides that, it adjusts the bike’s contact points to be coherent with the cyclist's riding style such as saddle, handlebar, and pedal positioning.
The Process
Flexibility and Structural Assessment
BG Fit is a custom-tailor fit procedure that requires your participation. The process begins with a pre-fit interview, during which the fitter will inquire about your cycling style, riding technique, past injuries, current discomfort, and just about anything else necessary to prepare you for a mock setup.
A complete Ride Analysis
At this stage, the fitter will be assessing you while you ride the bike. Starting from side plane analysis (X, Y), which helps the fitter monitor your knee stability, hip placement, and torso angle to ensure ideal weight distribution and reach to contact points. After that, we move on to front plane analysis (Z) to lock down knee tracking, heel/forefoot alignment, and handlebar support to ensure uniform power transfer from the body.
Report
The final report is presented to the cyclist including notes on support changes to include measurements for key components such as pedal, saddle, and handlebar. Notes often include instructions on form and adaptation to the new position as well as recommended exercises that will support any weakness, the goal being improved performance on and off the bike.
Benefits of Having BG-Fit
A better posture
BG fit allows the cyclist the best possible bike-body connection to unlock higher levels of performance. By introducing BG Insoles, along with carefully curated and tested in-house saddles and handlebars BG Fit will optimize all touchpoints – "hands, feet, and saddle" – that make direct contact with the bike to add a natural feeling of support and dissipation of pressure.
Enhanced Mobility
Correct adjustments will undoubtedly make a significant impact on your next ride, thanks to the modern and failsafe BG Fit technology giving you enhanced mobility.
Increased Efficiency
The induction of properly supportive insoles, saddles, and handlebars in cyclists' fit can immensely optimize their riding styles, consequently increasing their efficiency to a great extent.
Reduced injury probability
BG Fit also manifests itself in cycling gear by using ergonomics and scientifically tested equipment to supplement cyclists’ riding technique which reduces the chances of injury and accounts for a smooth ride.
Welcome the joys of cycling and adieu to discomfort!
We would sum up our discussion by saying that Body Geometric fit is one of the best fits on the market right now. A biker's uphill challenges are made more accessible and more fun with its guidance and analysis. We strongly advise you to give it a shot.
It's time for you to conquer the roads again!
Schedule your BG-Fit today!
