My Ride Injuries: Cycling Discomfort to Painless Riding
Disclaimer: Some of the experiences and remedies called out in this post could be specific to me as a individual and mustn't be generalized. Intention of this post is to provide some leads around self diagnosis and not suggest solutions. Please attempt to understand mechanics thoroughly before attempting anything.
The worst of the bicycling discomforts came my way when i decided to switch from SPD to SPD-SL. I was always in a dilemma on whether to switch from SPD to SPD-SL given that there weren't any great leads that depicted significant tangible benefits from this transition. Anyways, i decided to make the switch. My bike fit was done on SPD pedals and i decided that i would move to SPD-SL with the same bike fit and try and address the niggles myself as i use the pedals and get accustomed to it. Often i hear negativity around using google towards learning. But, for some of the niggles, i always believed that as far as i am able to read enough and understand the mechanics and then take action, it is fair. It took me more than 4 months to realize and address some of the discomforts that arose out of this transition.
1. Posterior Knee Pain - The very first discomfort i faced was Posterior Knee Pain in my right leg (pain at the back of the knee). It is also called as Biceps Tendinosis. Most of the leads indicated saddle height issue and recommendations were around increased saddle height with remediation being reduction in saddle height. Note that too much reduction in saddle height may eventually result in anterior knee pain and we will need to strike the right balance in terms of saddle height to get a comfortable saddle position that would keep away knee soreness (Anterior or Posterior) from both the legs. A couple of iterations with Saddle height adjustment (Reduction) did help fix the soreness for good. There could be other causes of this discomfort too and higher saddle is one of the causes related to bike fitment.
2. Super Tight Calves (Soleus strain) - Severe Soleus strain in my left leg was perhaps the most severe cycling discomfort i faced and this also kept me away from running for almost a month. I ended up with tight Soleus almost after every long ride and it was 2 to 3 days rest towards recovery post every long ride. Overtime, it aggravated and soreness started remaining forever. Possibly, my calves needed further strengthening and conditioning and i started to realize that there was something in my bike fit that was resulting in excessive use of my potentially weak left calf muscles. This was a show stopper in my case for two sports - cycling and running given that calves were critical to even run in hilly Bangalore terrains and i was ending up with drop foot after just a KM of run. Eventually, learnt and discovered that a cleat position at metatarsal head (the big toe ball) is generally beneficial for rapid accelerations and it is advisable to move cleats towards the center of the feet as much as possible for endurance rides unless participating in Crit races and a receded cleat position would also mean more quads deployment rather than calves deployment. Adjusted the cleats by moving them towards center of the feet (extreme outer end of cleat holes) and in a couple of rides, calf strain really got better thought didn't get eliminated completely. A part of the calf strain was also due to another reason that is describe in point 4 below.
3. Lateral Knee Pain - The next in line was Lateral Knee Pain (pain at the outer side of the knee) in my right leg and is supposedly caused by straining your IT Band and Quads. More predominantly, this pain is attributable to cleat adjustment and cleat angle. Typically happens when cleat is fitted towards the outer edge of the shoe or cleat is angled in such a way that your toe points inwards (towards the bike). Opposite of this would be Medial knee pain (pain at the inner side of the knee) caused by opposite conditions. The remedy in my case was to angle cleat in such a way that my toes would point outwards slightly (away from bike) that could have been my natural right foot position. With some iterative adjustment of the angle, i would fix this issue for good.
4. Outer Feet Pain (Outer Metatarsal Pain) - This was another long standing discomfort in left leg that was also getting cascaded into a bit of calf (Soleus) discomfort/soreness. Though a big portion of calf discomfort was relieved from remedy in point 2, still a slight left calf discomfort and extreme outer feet pain continued after every ride of 25+ KM. This was one of the tougher nuts to crack for me and once ended up doing a reverse remedy that further aggravated the outer feet pain. That is where it becomes important to understand the mechanics of leg movement before fixing anything. In case of my left feet, my inner foot was perhaps slightly higher than the outer foot (Forefoot Varus) that resulted in my outer left foot bearing the load in the neutral landing position. But, given the pedals were flat, cleats were twisting my foot inwards from neutral landing position resulting in outer foot strain. The solution was cleat wedges that would rest my leg on pedals in my natural and neutral position avoiding any external strain. In the first iteration, ended up putting a wedge on the outer side and this resulted in my legs further getting twisted inward when cleated eventually aggravating the outer foot pain. Took me couple of rides to realize the error and finally wedged the inner side of the cleat to achieve my neutral/natural position even when cleated. This fix was one of the most interesting discoveries that really required me to understand the leg and feet mechanics appropriately before remediation and glad that i was able to nail it. P.S: Also read about Forefoot Varus and Valgus
So far so good, I believe as far as my riding adventures and discoveries go. I will continue to document my learning and discoveries as part of this journey and hopefully this will help me as well as others in terms of providing good leads towards eliminating basic discomforts on a bike.
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