cycling posture

Here Are 5 Tips To Correct Your Cycling Posture

October 11, 2022 by Eric Lister

As cyclists, we want to be economical and good cycling posture plays a significant role in doing this. Because of the countless hours we end up sitting on our bikes, it would be wise to figure out how best we can achieve efficiency in order to avoid damage to our bodies and improve overall cycling performance.

The question here is: How can we improve cycling posture?

To become better at something, you need to become more efficient. The truth(s) we are actually seeking is how do we get better on the bike? How do we avoid overuse injuries? And how do we get more for less while cycling?

torwaiphoto/Adobe Stock

A great question can sometimes be answered with an equation – and one for efficiency already exists. Borrowed from physics, it reads as follows

Efficiency = Output/Input

In cycling terms: Greater output (cycling performance) divided by lesser input (work done on the bike & wind resistance) will equal more efficient cycling.

One way to lessen the input is by improving posture.

After you’ve had a professional bike fit done to reduce hot spots and accommodate your unique proportions, the next thing to address will be your posture. The reason is because using the wrong postures at the wrong times (or just doing them poorly) while riding can make you a far less efficient cyclist…

Increased wind resistance, bleeding force, overloaded joints and overworked muscles are just some of the damage we do to ourselves and our biking when posture gets compromised. You end up putting in more work (higher input) for less reward (lower output), opposite of the desired variables in our formula above.

Today we want to give you 5 tips to improve your cycling posture so you not only feel better on the bike, but also increase your longevity, lower your injury risk, breathe better and enjoy yourself more – even on tough rides.

#1. Adjust Your Hand Position

There are three hand positions that you’re going to use throughout your ride, and it’s important you use the right one at the right time. They each have significant influence over how the rest of your body will be positioned, all with their own advantages, disadvantages and specific use:

Tops

You should be using your tops when you’re at the front of the group, riding alone or climbing a hill. This allows you to be in a more upright position where you can take in deeper breaths, have a better view of the road, pedal hard and be overall more comfortable on the bike.

Hoods

This is where you’ll be the majority of the time, think of it as a maintenance position for when you’re cruising on flat terrain and maintaining a steady cadence. This is a good position to relax into and conserve energy with easy access to your shifters or brakes should you need them.

Drops

Your most aggressive position and ideal for descending down hills as it lowers your center of gravity. You’ll naturally be able to shift your weight back and literally “drop” into a more aerodynamic position; increased output (speed/distance) and lowered input (pedaling/wind).

#2. Remember To Breathe

Not getting enough oxygen in is going to force your body to compensate through your posture. You’ll start to crane your neck, your breathing will get erratic and exaggerated, your lower back will arch, and basically everything will fall apart. Breathing is not something you can mess with on a human being without some sort of consequence.

There’s a couple of ways to address this, number one is to improve your strength and conditioning so that the stimulus of cycling isn’t so stressful on your body. The better shape you’re in, the more calm you’ll be on the bike. You can learn to modulate when your body breathes deeply for recovery and when it should really push for a sprint or hill climb.

Number two, maintain good posture even when you’re at the limits of your fitness. “Fake it until you make it”, in a sense. The reason is because you want to send the signal to your brain that you’re in control. Try your best to harmonize yourself with the stress, and you’ll recover faster when you hit flat ground or return to a more steady pedal rate. Keep it together!

#3. Engage Your Core

Maintaining some degree of stiffness in your core is going to help support your back (keeping it from collapsing) and give your legs something solid to push off of. The lower extremity is connected to your torso through the hip flexors, and pushes/pulls on the pedals in concert with the contraction of your core muscles in the front and back of your body.

Especially as you drop into a more folded position, it’s important to keep your tail slightly tucked (pelvis rotated back) to keep your core engaged. This will increase the power output from your legs, and also disperse the load more evenly throughout your body.

Remember that any break in the kinetic chain (combined muscle activity to perform a movement) will cause force to bleed out and be wasted. For many people, this is the core, and it presents itself as an arched lower back on the bike or abnormal movement patterns that don’t look or feel natural.

#4. Relax Your Body

Too much tension on the other hand, is also going to affect the way you look and move on the bike. While the goal is to produce force, pedal hard and cycle fast while riding, we also need to be able to adapt, stay loose and complete the distance we’re setting out to do.

Put that chattering voice in your head to work by giving yourself reminders throughout the ride. Relax the shoulders and bring them down from the ears. Soften the elbows so they can act as your built-in natural shock absorbers. Unclench the jaw and relax your face. Loosen the grip and use only as much muscle as you need.

Bodybuilders know the effects of this all too well – they commonly report extreme muscle soreness and fatigue after doing a posing routine on stage. All their energy goes into those poses, but it doesn’t need to go into ours. Learn to catch yourself wasting unnecessary energy and gain it back through small reminders to relax.

Pattadis/Adobe Stock

#5. Control Your Exertion

Bursting too hard out of the blocks is a common problem among many types of athletes. In our sport, it can have some seriously negative effects on your cycling posture. If you overexert yourself too soon and use up all your reserves, you might not have the capacity to recover, and form will just slowly break down further and further as the ride goes on.

A proper warm up can really help mitigate this problem. It gives you the time to get yourself in a good headspace, go through the race or training plan in your mind, and figure out how best to approach the peaks and valleys of this session.

If you can stay relaxed in the right places, you’ll be able to fine tune the juxtaposition between your periods of recovery and moments of intense exertion (sprint, hill climb, attack, finish). This helps maintain overall composure, resulting in better race outcomes and training results over time.

Ride Pain & Injury Free For LIFE

If you’re looking for an all-inclusive training platform available to you 24/7 for a low monthly cost – check out, Dynamic Cyclist. They offer daily stretching and strength training video routines designed specifically for cyclists. Created by industry professionals, these programs will take your cycling to the next level and help you reach your full potential. So, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced rider, Dynamic Cyclist has everything you need to improve your performance and keep riding for years to come. Experience the results for yourself. You can try it for FREE by signing up HERE!.

Hip Flexor Pain and Cycling: The Ultimate Guide

July 6, 2022 by Eric Lister

Introduction

Cycling is a sport that we and many others around the world take pleasure in as part of a regular exercise routine and healthy lifestyle. There’s nothing worse than being debilitated by an injury or pain that prevents you from doing the thing you enjoy, and that’s exactly the situation so many of our fellow cyclists find themselves in.

The hips are a major focus point when it comes to cycling as it’s where the bulk of our power first originates in the pedal stroke. Unfortunately, many people start to feel hip pain in the cycling position or afterwards when they get off their bike.

This article will help to detail some of the hip flexor muscles that contribute to cycling, and how common causes of hip pain in cyclists can be remedied to continue enjoying the activity we all love.

What Are Hip Flexors?

The hip flexors are a group of muscles responsible for, you guessed it, flexing the hip (i.e. bringing the knee towards the chest). This group is mainly composed of the psoas, iliacus and rectus femoris muscles. Several other muscles have a ‘hip flexing’ quality to them, however when it comes to hip pain from cycling, we’ll primarily be talking about these three.

Iliopsoas

Source: Physiopedia

Iliopsoas is a group of two (sometimes three) hip flexor muscles: psoas major, psoas minor and iliacus (the psoas minor is only present in a certain number of people). These muscles have distinct separation in the abdomen but consolidate as they move downward into the thigh, contributing to the same hip flexing function, and thus their common grouping in the term iliopsoas.

As we’ll see, the psoas in particular is a major player in anterior (front) hip pain after or during cycling. Being the most powerful hip flexor and the only muscle that connects your upper body to your lower body, it has a significant influence on the biomechanics of cycling.

Rectus Femoris

Source: Kenhub – Illustrator: Liene Znotina

The rectus femoris is a quadriceps muscle that runs straight down the middle of the thigh. It is the only quadriceps muscle that crosses the hip joint, which gives it its hip flexing function. Rectus femoris also crosses the knee joint, making it a forceful contributor to cycling in general through its dual action of knee extension (power phase) and hip flexion (recovery phase).

How Do Our Hip Flexors Contribute to Cycling?

Cyclists and runners have something unique in common. They tend to think about (and train) the downward forces applied into the ground or pedal far more than the ‘pulling’ forces that allow them to regain position for the next repetition. This can be detrimental in terms of injury risk and performance, because only half the movement is being trained!

Source: Active For Life

Our hip flexors are mainly responsible for the last part of the recovery phase (10 to 12 o’ clock pedal position) during cycling. By using the hip flexors to ‘pull’ us through the final part of our upstroke, we can effectively utilize the force generated in the power phase and assist in creating an overall more efficient stride.

While cycling, many people are so focused on their thighs that they forget the entire leg is (or at least should be) working through the different parts of each pedal stroke. Fatigue tempts cyclists into relaxing during the 6 to 12 o’ clock position, but in doing so they leave a lot on the table in terms of output and will also overwork other muscles in the process.

Causes of Hip Flexor Pain During/After Cycling

There are usually several culprits responsible for the pain cyclists feel in their hip flexors during or after a ride. They tend to contribute to one another making the problem hard to diagnose and rectify. Though just as the issue tends to be multi-faceted, a given treatment protocol will often have overlapping benefits as well.

Here are some common causes of hip pain in cyclists and how best to approach them.

Source: Coen van de Broek

Poor Posture

Cycling puts your body into a terrible position. There’s lots of talk online about getting into a “good” or “better” position, and it is certainly something you can improve (with a proper fitting for example). Nonetheless, hunching over on a bike is not ideal for the following reasons:

Tendency to round the upper and lower back
Shoulders rounded forward, compressing the chest
Breathing is compromised
Neck is craned back
Hips stay in a flexed position and never fully extend
Pelvis is largely immobilized

Source: Jacek Dylag

While cycling, your hip is in a constant state of flexion, even when riding out of the saddle. The psoas muscle attaches to your femur and all five lumbar vertebrae. If the psoas muscles get tight and shortened from this constant flexion, they’re going to pull on these vertebrae and increase the curve in your lower back, creating what’s called lumbar lordosis.

Source: PhysioLogic

This leads to several problems. The lumbar discs are now compressed, your pelvis tilts forward (compromising movement of the femur head) and you’re likely to feel stiffness, ache and pain in the front of your hip from a short and aggravated psoas.

An immobilized pelvis due to the sitting position on your bike also contributes to this problem. The pelvis naturally tilts back and forth as you move, as well as some slight rotation between its two halves. The seated position on your bike takes away the majority of this tilting and already minimal rotation, stagnating the hips.

Treatment

Alleviating the hip pain you feel from spinning or cycling could be as easy as doing some simple stretches! By targeting the hip flexors through stretching you’re proactively treating and correcting the poor position cycling puts you in. And if you’re already in pain, this might be a great place to start to get you back on the bike.

Here is a hip flexor focused routine for you to try. Or check out these easy hip stretches for cyclists that target the back, front and side of the joint. Stretching will help combat the tightness created through cycling and several other activities that have become a part of our lives, such as sitting and driving.

Weakness

On the bike, your hip flexors are trying to work in a mechanically disadvantaged position. Having the trunk folded over your lower body is not optimal for force production, and is basically the opposite posture than that of a sprinter (the athletes with the largest and most powerful hip flexors).

Source: BBC

It’s almost unimaginable how many times your hips will flex while cycling. Thousands and thousands of repetitions. If the hip can’t fully flex as a result of weakness/fatigue, your body will compensate by looking for that flexion farther up the chain in your back and side. This can lead to overuse and injury of muscles trying to do an action they’re not designed for.

Treatment

There are several ways to strengthen the hip flexors and condition them for cycling. Any exercise that lifts the knee towards the chest will work the correct muscles. Many core exercises also train the hip flexors, particularly ones that move the legs. Knee raises and leg lifts, when done properly, are a great combination for core and hip flexor training.

Further, a number of factors could be inhibiting and weakening the hip flexors. Having the wrong size of bike could be putting your hips into a bad position, so it’s important that this is checked and fitted by a professional. Stretching your glutes might also be helpful, as tight glute muscles will fight the pull of your hip flexors every time they try to fire.

Overuse

We as a cycling community often drift toward the masochistic when it comes to our training regimens and discipline towards recovery. Long hours on the road, early morning spin classes, and intervals all mix up a dangerous cocktail. Or how about the elusive “recovery ride” that promises to refuel but instead turns into a full blown workout. We’ve all been there.

Many turn to cycling because it has a reputation for being low impact. Fortunately or not, that allows us to do it…almost all the time. As previously mentioned, the positions we find ourselves in on the bike tend to compromise our bodies, especially the hips, potentially risking injury long term.

Treatment

Remember the rectus femoris? It’s the big quadriceps muscle that crosses both the knee and hip joint. It gets tremendous activity during cycling through its dual functions of knee extension and hip flexion, and is one of the tissues most vulnerable to the excessive nature of our sport. Light foam rolling or massage over this area could provide some much needed relief.

In general, just taking some time off. We know that might be the last thing some of you want to hear, but consider this: The more you like to ride, the more you need to learn to take care of yourself. Proper strength training, nutrition and rest. Luckily we have plenty of resources to help you do all those things and more.

So, Is Cycling Bad For Your Hips?

Well, it doesn’t have to be! Take this for example. It is common practice during physiotherapy after a hip replacement to integrate cycling into a person’s recovery. For the same reasons cycling leads us to pain (immobilized pelvis, hips don’t fully extend), we can use it as a regenerative practice that heals and restores function to the joint.

Finding balance is what’s important. Not just in your training volume, diet and rest, but also the length and strength of your muscles. Or the time spent folded on a bike versus being on your feet with your head up and shoulders back.

Hip Rehab Program for Cyclists

Cycling is a great activity that can be part of a healthy, active lifestyle. However, if you are suffering from pain or discomfort while riding check out Dynamic Cyclist. This comprehensive resource addresses the most common muscle imbalances and adaptive muscle shortening that lead to pain and reduced performance on the bike. With just 15 minutes a day, you can follow along with the video programs to alleviate tension and improve posture, so you can ride pain free and reach your full potential on the bike. Don’t let muscle imbalances hold you back. Try out their 6 Week Hip Function & Rehab Program and experience the results for yourself. Click here to try 7 days free!

This Cyclist Stretched Every Day For a Month – Here’s What Happened

May 18, 2020 by Guest Post

Let’s be honest, most cyclists are not known for their flexibility. Not saying I thought it was a waste of time, but I’d rather be out riding than sitting around at home in downward dog.

I’ve been an endurance athlete for most of my life, and with that has come both the joys and the pains of pushing my body to its limits. It also meant that I had no problem crushing a 100 mile ride, but I couldn’t bend over and touch my toes. My limited range of motion had never been a problem for me, so I didn’t pay it much attention.

About a year ago I started having hip pain that eventually turned into knee pain, and I found myself forced off my bike. After sitting around in self pity for a few weeks, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I called up a local sports physiotherapist and set up an appointment. His prescription? Twenty minutes of targeted mobility movements and stretches a day.

In my case the pain may have reared its head in the hip and knee, but the underlying cause is something most cyclists deal with. Dr. Ackerman explained that,

Most people have muscle imbalances, especially in today’s office chair culture, but the issue is taken one step further with cyclists. Hours on the bike is just more time in a bent over position that will inevitably lead to tight hamstrings, weak hip flexors, rounded shoulders, and a pelvic tilt.

The moral of the story? We sit too much, don’t move enough, and as cyclists we spent a lot of time in one position with repetitive movement. Don’t get me wrong, cycling is great for your health, but we’re not engaging our bodies in different types of movements, which in turn leads to imbalance.

Top: Excessive Lumbar Flexion with rounded shoulders. Bottom: A neutral spine in proper cycling position.

This all made sense to me, but it wasn’t until I started paying attention to my posture that I realized just how bad my muscle imbalances had progressed. On the bike my spine would naturally round as my shoulders were pulled forward by tight lats, and tension would gather in my low back. As pictured, tight hamstrings and a weak core accentuated the poor posture.

Now that the problem had been made clear, it was time for some solutions. Along with some specific movements and poses, Dr. Ackerman recommended I try out Dynamic Cyclist, which provides daily stretching videos for cyclists. I was skeptical at first, but on day one as I moved through the poses it felt like my pain points were being pulled apart- in a good way.

After the first routine I decided I would stretch everyday for a month and see how my body adapted. It was totally worth it. Within a couple weeks I could feel my posture improving, I became more aware of how my muscles and joints were feeling day to day and, most importantly, my knee pain was gone.

With my new found mobility, when I finally hopped back on my bike it was no problem maintaining proper posture with a neutral spine and relaxed shoulders. As I tackled my first climb I could feel new found power from my glutes and I was breaking PRs all over my regular route. I felt like I was ten years younger and couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I rode.

I know it may seem like a stretch, but getting mobilized really has changed my body for the better. If you want to give it a try for yourself, check out Dynamic Cyclist and start your 7 day free trial.

Here Are 5 Tips To Correct Your Cycling Posture