Are you having a few issues with aches and pains on your bike?
The problem with being on a bike is that we are always in a bent over position with our lumber spine in flexion and our necks slightly protrused creating stress in ligaments, muscles, joints and other soft tissue structures. The other part of the equation is that cycling is obviously a very repetitive in nature and if for whatever reason we are inflexible, and/or not strong enough in our stabilising muscles or our positions on our bikes and pedals aren’t quite correct then all the structures mentioned above become stressed leading to niggly injuries.
So we become good at using our dynamic movement muscles to do the physical work associated with cycling, but forget about our stabilising muscles which help to support the lumbar spine, pelvic region and our necks while we move.
I’m sure many of you have heard the term ‘core stability’ before. Essentially core stability is about using the stabilising muscles effectively and therefore allowing our dynamic muscles then to do the task of moving and produce power and speed. The stabilising muscles around our lumbar and pelvic area include the tranversus abdominus, multifidus, and posterior gluteus medius, with other layers of the abdominals and gluteals coming into play a little later on.
Along with this comes breathing and being able to use these muscles while continuing to breath with relaxed abdominal breathing.
Today we can talk about trying to activate the Transversus abdominus (which also contracts the multifidus at the same time). In order to contract these muscles we need to practice.
First things first lets try and get them going by starting in either a crock lying position on you back with knees bent, four point kneeling or standing against a wall.
