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-/

How To Set Up Your Bike To Prevent Damage And Pain

Many bike riders do not adjust their bikes the rightful way, and that ends up with giving them unnecessary pain when riding their bikes. Therefore we have collected some reasons why it happens, and how to solve it.

Pain in front of knee

This is 9 out of 10 times caused by your saddle being adjusted too low or too much to the front. Therefore If you want to avoid this from happening again, you should try to put your saddle either a bit up, or back.

Pain in the back of the knee

If you are experiencing this, you have done the opposide of the points above. Your saddle is adjusted too high and/or too much to the back. Therefore, if you are experiencing this, you should try to lower your saddle height, and/or move the saddle a bit to the front.

Pain on the outside of the knee (lateral)

This pain is mainly caused by your cleats not adjusted rightfully. Often the cleat is adjusted too far out on the shoes, and therefore you should try to adjust it closer to the frame, in order to make this pain go away.

Pain in the inside of the knee (medial)

This time the pain is usually caused by the cleats adjusted too close to the frame, so try to adjust them further away from the frame on your shoes.

Pain in the Achilles

This pain is usually caused by your cleat been adjusted too far to the back on your shoes. So try to adjust your cleat back, so your foot goes a bit forward.

Pressure on the bottom/outside of the foot

This is usually caused by your shoe not following your own bodytelemetry. So if you experience a pressure on the bottom or outside of your foot, try to wedge the shoes to the inside. Some shoes, like Specialized, already does wedge a bit to the inside, else you can buy an installation installed between the cleats and your shoe.

Pain the groin at the front and/or center of the saddle

This pain is caused by that your saddle is not adjusted the correct way compared to your bike. Often this can be helped out by lifting the bars of your bike, and/or tipping the saddle a bit downwards. Be careful not to tip the saddle too much downwards, because then the pain below will happen.

Pain in your shoulders

This pain is caused by too much pressure on your shoulder, which usually is done by your saddle pointing too much down, and therefore a lot of your weight is been hold up by your arms and therefore also shoulder. So in order to prevent this from happening, tip your saddle a bit upwards.

Losing the feeling in your hands

This is caused by the same cause as the one above, along with not shifting your hands placement on the handlebars. Never have the same position of your hands on the handlebars for more than 5-10 minutes, is a good advice, but also buying cycling gloves with gel pads can be very helpful to prevent this from happening.

To summarize it short and briefly we got this table below:

I hope this helped, else use the commentsection below to ask for more specific help.

Written by René

Read more: http://www.cyclingtipsonline.com/news/how-to-set-up-your-bike-to-prevent-damage-and-pain/