Side Stitch

NWLondoner

Does anyone else suffer from this?

Whenever I go a for a good paced (RP 3 Lap) or group ride I keep getting a bad stitch to the right side of my abdomen.

I always get it around the same time/distance and it just cripples me for around 8kms then it goes away.

It is doing my head in as it hits me when the pace of the group ride it pretty high and i need to maintain it to get the legs ready for the start of my climbs. However i just hang on for dear life just by trying to keep up a gentle pace let alone putting the power down.

Any suggestions??

jimycooper

hi, i had the same problem about 3 months ago, it was just after i had ajusted my handlebar height. Theta was what i put it down to anyway...

i found out that if you take a lot of really deep breaths it usualy subsided.

hope that helped in some way

DomPro

Do you take an isotonic drink? This should prevent cramps/stiches from happening.

NWLondoner

I have used both Torq and yesterday ZipVit Energy Elite.

Anonymous

I've been getting stitch feelings on the right recently but appears to occur after a bike ride rather than during. Can be even a day later.

I'm thinking it's the riding position as I've got a new bike. I'm not sure it helps that being bent over the handlebars is probably compressing all those folds of fat down there!

BigDarbs

I posted this reply on another thread, this is my solution...read on...

I had exactly the same problem. I was quite concerned as I considered myself fairly fit. I raced mountain bikes at expert level for 13 years, then stopped racing but carried on riding. For the past 12 months I have been training properly again to start racing on the road, and I started getting stitch occasionally which had never happened before. I only get it in maybe one in every 7 or 8 rides, and generally when giving it some onions uphilll.

There seemed to be no real pattern to it, I varied the time that I ate before riding, used plain water or energy drinks etc, I couldn't replicate it. Isotonic drinks had no positive or negaitive effect for me.

As I couldn't prevent it, I started to look for ways to deal with it. I think it may have been on this forum that I found the best advice. Having read a lot around the subject, there seems to be no real certainty about the causes of stitch, but this is the solution that works for me every time.

When I feel it coming on or it suddenly appears, I take a very, very deep breath and exhale hard through my mouth, forcing every last drop of air out of the bottom of my lungs, repeat this 3 times. hey presto, no more stitch!

I have now perfected this technique so that as soon as I feel it coming on I carry this process out (sometimes one deep breath and hard exhale does it), and it prevents it coming on any further. I have also started to make sure my breathing is very even and deep when working hard on the bike, as this definitely helps with preventing it coming on at all. I have actually found that concentrating on my breathing, making sure I breath deeply and evenly is the biggest preventative factor.

Mark Alexander

Talk about good timing. I got a stitch the other day 8 miles into a 15TT. It lasted for 5 miles then went away. I haven't had one since i was a child. :shock:

Does anyone know what a stitch is? Is it the medical equivalent to How can a woman always win an argument even when she's clearly wrong?