Hands Become Feelingless When Riding The Bike?

Everybody knows the feeling of their hands beginning to tickle and even get feelingless, when they are riding both small and longer distances. An annoying problem can make a great training end up being a dreadful training. The problem that makes it occur is that the Ulnar nerve is getting compressed when having your hands on the handlebars. No matter if you are in the drops, hoods, or tops of the handlebars, you will end up getting this very annoying feeling at some time, and 9 out of 10 reading this, have already experienced it before. There are a few ways to make this disappear though, and we have collected them below.

Wrong angle of your saddle is a pain in the.. hands

Try looking on your saddle angle. As we already stated in the article of how to prevent damage and pain, if the saddle is pointing too much down, you will make a greater part of your bodyweight rely on your hands and handlebars, instead of your saddle. Many who are experiencing this problem, can actually get it fixed by this simple adjustment.

Gloves is the answer

However, if your saddle will kill your groin by pointing more upwards, try getting a pair of cycling gloves with gel pads. If you take a look on the picture below (Borrowed from the University of Wisconsin-Madison), you can see the red and yellow areas. These areas are where the problem starts, and as you can see, by fitting a pair of cycling gloves, you can make this area more or less disappear.

The gel pads in the gloves simply makes the pressure even out on a larger area, making the Ulnar nerve less compressed. This is usually the best way to prevent the damage from happening, but if the saddle angle is pointing too much down, you will just face problems with your shoulders still. Therefore, I will recommend adjusting the angle of your saddle first.

We have already tested the Sportful Bodyfit Pro racing gloves, which we loved. You can read about them by clicking here.

Keep shifting

Usually, the two fixes above should be enough, but if that does not help with the problem, there is another reason why this problem occur is. A potential problem is that you are probably placing your hands in the same position for half an hour without actually noticing it. For example if you have 20 kilometers of headwind, you are having your hands in the drops, and this will give you quite some time without shifting the placement of your hands. That makes the Ulnar nerve getting pinched for a long time, and therefore this problem can occur. So to cure this, try shifting from the hoods to the drops and the tops and back again, every 5^th minute or so. It will actually make quite some difference.

Do you have any other treatments for this problem? Please write about it in the comment section below.

Written by René

Read more: http://www.cyclingtipsonline.com/news/losing-the-feeling-in-the-hands-when-riding-the-bike-/