7 Reasons Why You Get Lower Back Pain When Cycling and How to Prevent It
If you want to learn more about how to prevent and relieve back pain, watch this presentation to the end!
Lower back pain is a common issue that many cyclists face. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out, or if you’re an experienced cyclist, it affects all of us.
The good news is that there are specific reasons why this type of lower back pain when cycling occurs, and there are specific things you can do to prevent it from happening.
1. Your Bike Saddle Is Too High
If your saddle is set too high, your hips will actually rock from side to side each time you pedal. This side to side motion will become very repetitive during your ride, and it actually puts stress on the muscles and joints of the lower back. If you feel a rocking motion at all while you’re cycling, you should take a look at this further.
The way to prevent this is to simply check your bike saddle before you ride and get it adjusted so that it is at a comfortable level where you don’t rock on it at all.
2. Your Handlebar Is Too Far Away From You
Nothing screams back pain more than having to reach over and hold a handlebar for extended periods of time.
If your handlebar is too far away for you to comfortably grip it with both hands while having a slight bend at your elbows, that’s a problem.
Look into adjusting your handlebar if that’s the case, your back should be comfortable as you’re gripping your handle bar.
3. You Have Poor Core Strength
When we think about core, we think about abs. But there are actually other muscles in your midsection that end up connecting to your back. These muscles don’t actually get trained or exercised while you cycle. Instead, they get put under stress. This is because while cycling, you have to hold a static position of sitting for a decent chunk of time. If the muscles in your core aren’t already strong enough to handle this, you may feel soreness and back pain by the end of your ride.
A good way to remedy this is to simply train your core often. Focus on exercises like planks and medicine ball crunches. This will help you build up stronger obliques and core strength.
4. You Are Riding in Too High a Gear
Riding at too high of a gear puts a lot of force on your legs and entire body. If you aren’t used to this, you’ll end up with a sore back or back pain by the end of your ride. The muscles in your legs are connected to your lower back, and depending on if you’re riding up hills, it’s a lot of force to be riding in high gear.
The solution is to always ensure you’re riding at a comfortable gear and avoid over-stressing your legs and lower back with each exertion. It’s better to ride on a lower gear, than to huff and puff on a higher one, even if it feels more efficient.
5. You Are Not Varying How You Ride
A lot of cyclists have a tendency to get into one position and ride that way for the next 30 miles without even realizing it. However, this can be very bad for the back. Think about it, your back is under a consistent load and pressure for miles, with hardly any shifts in body positioning or movement.
What you want to do is be aware of how often your back is staying in the same position for extended periods. It is all about keeping the joints in your lower back loose so that by the end of a long ride, they are not tight from being fixed in one position for so long.
6. You Aren’t Stretching
Before you do any type of physical exercise, you should stretch for a couple minutes. Stretching allows you to loosen your joints and accelerate blood flow throughout your body. A couple of stretches I like to do before cycling would be leg swings and hip circles. They’re self explanatory to do, you want to swing each leg in a circular motion, and also swing your hips as if you’re hula hooping. You should also do some bodyweight squats to warm up your entire body. This is super key because cycling will test your full body endurance, and squats are an excellent way to stimulate your whole body in one exercise. Lastly, I highly recommend doing cat cow stretches, which I will cover in the next section.
7. You Aren’t Doing Cat Cow Stretches
Cat cow stretches are an excellent way to release tension in the back and exercise the spine. Because the spine plays such an important role in back pain, it’s an area worth paying attention to. Especially if one wishes to reduce back pain when cycling.
To do cat cow stretches, you want to get down on all fours like in the picture below.
This is your starting position. Notice how the back is expanded upward. You want to move your body slowly to this position, to allow your spine to stretch and release tension. Next, you want to move your body to the next position below.
This is the ending position of the stretch. You have now completed a full cat cow stretch. Notice how the spine has become fully stretched from the top position to the bottom. Repeating this stretch for 30-60 seconds before you begin cycling is a great way to exercise your spine and lower back to prevent back pain.
One Last Important Tip
Everything we discussed today will help you drastically in addressing the feeling of back pain when cycling.
But if you really want to understand the root cause of back pain and why it occurs, I highly recommend you watch the short presentation below. The presentation goes into the science of back pain and ties in directly with the tips we’ve talked about here.
I personally was stunned by what I learned, specifically the “20 second rub ritual” that they reveal which is basically a rubbing technique that can be done at home to help relieve back pain, it’s pretty stunning stuff and you don’t want to miss it. So do yourself and your back a favor, click the link below and watch until the end.
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