Aching hands on long downhills...

ichabod

I often have trouble with my hands on long descents where I am doing a lot of braking. The outer edges of my palms start to hurt quite badly and I have to stop and shake my hands out for a few minutes.. annoying when it interrupts a good down! I guess it has something to do with the pressure on that part of my palms when reaching for the brakes and wondered if anyone else had any ideas on how to prevent it? New grips? Bars with a different sweep?

Cheers
Dan

kdawg74

it could be from holding on to the bars to tightly, bar position, brake lever reach or as you mention grips which are too solid in feel.

nicklouse

pics of your hands on the grips and resting over the brake levers.

ichabod

Fraid I havn't got my bike with me here but the grips are on the thin side. I feel that without my fingers over the brakes my weight is distributed evenly across my palm but when I reach for the brakes the weight transfers to the outer edges of my palms and almost no weight is on the area near the thumb webbing. Not sure how to prevent this!

kdawg74

move your brakes inwards towards the stem so you are only using one finger, leaving more of your palm in contact with the grip.

madmole

ODI Ruffians will help (Think and soft), staying loose and relaxing. Getting riser bars so your hands are at a different angle

Lastly try different gloves, I found out the Specialised body geometry ones kill my wrists as their extra pads press where they shouldnt

On downhills your weight transfers forwards onto your arms, try raising the bars, lowering the saddle or positioning yourself to rearward a little more

andrewyzfr6

I get arm pump on long decents, which when i "think hard" to remember to grip less the arm pump is reduced, but ive found that the body geometry gloves help releive the problem of sore hands, but ofcoarse everyone is diffrent!!!!

ichabod

I've always preferred thin grips and gloves with no extra padding as it makes me a feel more 'in control' of the bike somehow. I also have fairly stubby fingers so thin grips get them a bit closet to the brakes! Looks like I may need to compromise..

Also short fingers means I don't want to bring the levers inwards towards the stem as it means reaching with my index finger to the most distant part of the end of the lever which is and uncomfortable stretch even with the levers fully adjusted inwards.

My bars are already about as high as I want them in relation to the saddle - roughly level with it when it is at its highest (i.e. uphill) but I tend to drop the saddle quite a bit lower than the bars when going down. This is on a Trek Fuel mainly used for XC and trail centres. I guess having your weight thrown forward onto your arms is inevitable when going down steeply.

Perhaps trying a different backwards sweep on the bars could help? Does anyone have any experience similar issues? Kind of an expensive experiment to buy new bars!

popstar

Just do some specific muscle training, problem solved.

madmole

Yep, Stress fractures in both wrists 20 years ago from repeatedly doing leith hill tower down hill on the tree roots on a rigid Steel Marin

Swapped from thin solid grips to thicker softer ones and never had it again (oh and fitting the first manitou 2's in the UK (with an incredibke 1" travel) may have helped) (Believe it or not they are still working well on my old bike)

captainfly

It could be one of many things, from brakes, grips, bars and even stem length. I found I got less hand pain with wider bars that have less rake, but rotating you bars to get a better hand position and reducing the reach of you brake lever blades.

Dan_xz

Sounds like is that you are currently putting too much pressure on a small area of your ulner nerve. You need to spread your weight better across your hands, or take some weight off them.

If you're shifting your whole hand to reach for your brakes then as others have said you need to fix your lever position. Is it only on the downhills that you shift your hands to brake? Sounds like your levers could be too low - when you go downhill typically people shift slightly back on the bike and therefore increase the stretch to the controls. Try rotating the levers up slightly and see if you can reach them more comfortably on the downhills.

Otherwise you could try some ergonomic grips that add support to the outside of your hand but leave your inner (braking fingers) area as normal.

I use Specialized BG contour grips and they work great for me (I was getting pain on longer rides) but I have long hands and fingers, with shorter fingers you might not feel like you can grip the bars as well.

paul.skibum

It's going to be some issues relating to reach to your grips, how many fingers and where you use to brake, how much you brake, how hard you grip and your positioning on the bike - fix it with a allen key and a review of an article on here somewhere about setting up your bike properly.

Dont buy any new grips and what not until you have worked through that.

mac_man

I Have some Ergon grips. http://www.ergon-bike.com/gb/en/product/gs1-leichtbau
They feel a bit weird at first but are designed to reduce stress on the ulna nerve. I like 'em.

And they're pretty cheap as an upgrade

popstar

Ergo grips mixed with DH mtb-ing?

I would rather use these for Radness sake

Anonymous

popstar wrote:

Ergo grips mixed with DH mtb-ing?

I've met a few DHers who swear by them for long descents, and long periods of DHing - say a week-long DH holiday, for example.

nicklouse

yep and more often than not it is poor cockpit set up.

still waiting for images.

Anonymous

These were the ones I've seen people use for DH, nick - they're not nearly as peculiarly shaped as the others - never tried them myself though...
Although, I've been tempted recently, I can't get any sense about the two fingers I damaged, and they ain't half giving me grief sometimes.

timpop

I use these Ergon gx1 grips, I think they might be a little more compact than the gs1 and are still very comfortable. I find they allow for really good control and quick movement.
http://www.ergon-bike.com/gb/en/product/gx1-leichtbau
Check out the downhill/freeride ones too, they look good:
http://www.ergon-bike.com/gb/en/product/ga1-leichtbau
Richie Schley uses them.

popstar

While all those fancy ergo grips do look interesting, can't say anything more to agree that personal fit of cockpit could be an issue.

Going back to very basics and found out there are far too many riders overlooking their -finger strength- . It may sound a bit comical I know, but those are very basics things to understand.

For example if we remember ourselve being kids, surely you remember shape of classic pen you used to write with. Now throw that pen away and buy yourself an ergo one. You will feel the difference surely, especially if you had to write so many things on paper for hours etc.

Here it comes, if strenght in your fingers/wrists isn't developed no matter if it was classic pen or ergo one you would still get tired after half an hour of writing.

There are certain excercises to develop your finger strength aka -grab- and I've found a bit about it.

You just take a couple of 2.5kg weight plates, and hold them together in one hand for a minute, then change to other hand. It helps develop that particular group of muscle in your hands and build strength and endurance in your fingers. Do 6 repetitions of it every day and after a week you will notice massive difference while riding. Obviously if it's too easy just increase holding times.

IMHO.

Kaise

IMESHO



you need to increase forearm strength and hand strength, there are other more private ways of increasing this but not sure they would be safe for work.

popstar

That powerball massively improved my tennis.

Anonymous

Powerball does make a surprising difference.
I recommend the one that keeps score, highest RPM, and that stuff - it turns it into a game that you try to beat as well as just something to fiddle with.

Kaise

yeehaamcgee wrote:

just something to fiddle with.

really Yeehaa, really!

you can also get these ones


really really good, the force it generates is pretty mental!

cooldad

Are those alternatives to computer pron, or in addition to?

popstar

Those powerballs are amazing at tossing salad!

getonyourbike

cooldad wrote:

Are those alternatives to computer pron, or in addition to?

addition