Bike Fitting: Position vs Posture
There’s a long list of reasons why you should get a bike fit. Most people’s aims follow similar themes; improve comfort, resolve or prevent injury, ride further and faster.
There are principles bike fitters can follow that tend to produce good outcomes in this respect but individual differences mean that bike fitting still involves a great deal of problem-solving. Motion capture and pressure mapping can offer valuable insights into how someone is moving but understanding why people move the way they do is what separates generic advice from the individual problem solving that’s offered by good bike fitters.
The range of motion at a given joint, as well as our capacity to stabilise those joints through their range of motion (ROM) is in my experience, the key determinant of someone’s injury risk profile in cycling. This can be observed on the bike with motion capture but assessments of ROM through basic functional exercises tend to provide better insight into why movement patterns and behaviours exist. These assessments become crucial in situations where these patterns can be observed on the bike but not altered through positional adjustments.
In this regard, your bike fit must address both positional and postural influences. Riders with the greatest stability at key joints such as the knee, as well as those with the greatest ROM at these joints will, in general, have the greatest positional freedoms. Whilst those with the least ROM and poorest stability will have to minimise positional demands in order to achieve a position that minimises the risk of injury.
The balance between bike and body described above explains why some riders can tolerate positions with significant postural demands with little or no discomfort, even after long durations. Long-course triathletes, for instance, are able to hop off a time-trial bike after four or five hours and literally run a marathon (at a pace most of us couldn’t hold for more than a few kilometres - on a good day). Conversely, there are others for whom, even a ‘perfect’ position with minimal postural demand will evenutally lead to injury. Similarly, you may have observed that positions that once felt comfortable can become uncomfortable over a number of years.
Anecdotally, I’ve worked with riders whose primary sport has been gymnastics, or some form of martial arts that have excellent range of motion and seemingly superhuman stability at these joints throughout their range. These riders, in general, are able to hop on almost any bike (even ones that are set up relatively poorly) and ride for relatively long periods of time without injury or discomfort.
I’d contrast this with my experience that professional and committed amateur cyclists, whilst often able to develop stability in their position simply through sheer volume and repetition of movement - without good mobility - are generally unable to adapt to positional changes free of pain or injury without corrective exercises.
Fixing all pain and discomfort associated with cycling solely through positional changes just isn’t possible - at least for all but a tiny minority of cyclists.
Fortunately, there are numerous (mostly free) tools at your disposal to improve your bike fit, without any positional adjustments. Better yet, most of these tools are accompanied by a multitude of wide-ranging health benefits that will improve your life beyond cycling.
I’ve chosen to focus on three key practices but really, the biggest barrier to improving your mobility and postural stability, on or off the bike, is your adherence to regular (read as daily) practice. Don’t fret, though, as this commitment demands no more than 10 or 15 minutes of your day.
If you can’t manage 15 minutes, commit to two minutes - it’ll be better than nothing and chances are, you’ll unintentionally discover that you do, in fact, have 15 minutes to commit to a movement practice each day.
To simplify your priorities, the time you spend will either focus on improving your stretch tolerance or strengthening postural muscles through the following practices:
1 - Strength training (Weekly practice)
2 - Daily Movement practice
3 - Single-Leg Pedalling drills
1) Strength Training
In my view, your first priority in this quest should be improved strength. As set out in my article on strength training, regular heavy weightlifting can improve range of motion (as well as the pain associated with stretching) at least as well as, perhaps even more effectively than stretching. This, in addition to a number of desirable performance and health adaptations, makes clear that we should all be lifting heavy, not just for sports performance but for our long-term health.
Before reading any further, I suggest reading my strength training article as this details my recommendations on how to implement strength training into your routine in an effective and time-efficient manner.
2) Daily movement practice
In line with the recommendations made in my strength training article, try to accrue to at least one minute of stretching for every hour you spend sitting (on a chair or a bike). In some cases, foam rolling or even just some form of full-range movements (squatting, hinging, lunging, folding or otherwise) may be acceptable alternatives to stretching.
The stretches and movements are up to you, in fact, I’d actively encourage you to think critically about whether or not a given exercise is working for you and to seek out and practice new ones. I have a list of over a hundred movements or stretches that I regularly recommend to clients in some combination but in reality, you only need a handful. I’ve listed a few below* that you can easily do at home either throughout the day or as part of a dedicated mobility or strength session.
Since our aims in this practice are primarily to improve stretching tolerance and by proxy, our range of motion, I think it’s important to note that you should aim to relax into any stretch or movement rather than attempting to find a painful stretch and push through it.
3) Single-leg pedalling drills
Despite the lack of good research into the efficacy of single-leg pedalling drills in reducing injury or improving comfort, I have no trouble recommending them because it requires no additional time out of your day - just add them in at any point in your normal rides and you’ll likely see some benefit.
This being said, there is a wealth of good research to support unilateral strength training to improve performance, seemingly in almost any other sport. For this reason, I think it’s reasonable to assume that single-leg pedalling drills are likely an effective tool in improving our stability on the bike.
With limited evidence to support any specific protocol, my recommendation would be to spend two or three minutes in total per side (across 20 to 30s intervals) focussing on pedalling with the smoothest single leg motion you can manage, with a particular focus on maintaining as close to your normal posture as is possible. I like this drill in particular.
* Movement recommendations:
• Single-leg banded knee raise with isometric hold (no equipment alternative; SL knee raise from a box) for improved end range hip strength.
• Side plank with single leg raise (for strengthening glute medius).
• Reverse lunge (for controlled stabilisation of the knee through it’s range).
• Single leg straight leg deadlift (with or without weight) for end range hamstring strength.
• High + Low KB swing (hamstring/glute strength with an added dynamic stretch during low swing).
• Seated windowipers (dynamic internal/external hip rotation for increased stretch tolerance).
• Couch stretch with contraction or kneeling hip stretch (for increased hip stretch tolerance).
• Pigeon pose (for increased glute stretch tolerance).
• Ankle roll + flexion/dorsiflexion.
• Seated leg lift or the more advanced ‘boat pose’