arm pain after 20kms or so

eddiefiola

bought myself a bike a few months ago, Radon R1 http://www.bike-discount.de/shop/kS1/a78688/r1.html

been out putting the kms in and think im doing pretty good for a 'not slim' 100kgs, 40 year old, 6ft 2in ex 2nd row (as a kid). http://app.strava.com/athletes/1815467

but no matter what i do i keep getting a pain in my shoulder after 20 to 30 kms or so.

I went for a bike fit at a local store (i live in Germany) which uses the Specialzed fit system but just seemed to be a guy who stuck you on a trainer and looked (not saying thats a bad thing).

resulted in a new saddle, seat height adjustment, flipped stem and shorter by 10mm, the bike came with 120mm but i'd already swapped that out, after bike fit i'm now on a 90mm stem, with the couple of spacers that the bike came with under, surely i cant need it even higher? gonna look like im on a penny farthing soon....

but still that pain is there. honestly i feel like ive tried everything and not sure what to do, my legs have tons more miles in them but the pain builds up so much in my shoulder that it makes a 60km trip feel like torture.

probably exaggerating a bit its not like im actually dying, i can shake the arm pain off by getting out of the saddle for a bit, or taking my arm off the bars and shaking it a bit, so its def a weight on the arm thing?

tried moving saddle angle up a bit more to try and relieve any excess weight that maybe coming from me sliding forward but that just made my knackers go numb this morning ;-O

ive also tried to relax more, shoulders, neck, move positions, i bought some FSA Omega bars to allow being in the drops to be more comfortable.

nada, still that pain.

feel like ive tried every adjustment i can tbh.

any ideas? is that bike a particularly racy geo?

eddiefiola

ps the pain is in the top outside of the arm, the Deltoids? area ish.

cyco2

I did a search on Google, ' arm pain when cycling' and got over 5 million hits. Have a look through that lot and see if it helps. You have my sympathy.

Mindermast

Keep your shoulders down. Your upper body should not rest on the shoulder joints, these joints are pretty weak. There are enough muscles below for support. If the pressure on the hands and arms is too high, it might help to move the saddle backwards a tiny bit, because it makes you move some of the load to your spine.

mentalalex

post of your bike, one its own and with you on it. may give people a better idea

Steve236

Don't think you've mentioned altering saddle fore aft position. I got relief from sore arms n shoulders by moving my saddle back to unweight my upper body whilst pedalling.

pilot_pete

Impossible to comment without some pictures of you on the bike.

A descent bike fit starts at the shoes and works up and back to saddle position, then to reach and handlebar position followed by brakes/ hoods. No point just moving a saddle back if it throws everything out except the shoulders....

Like I said, pictures required as a minimum.

PP

Steve236

Pilot Pete wrote:

Impossible to comment without some pictures of you on the bike.

A descent bike fit starts at the shoes and works up and back to saddle position, then to reach and handlebar position followed by brakes/ hoods. No point just moving a saddle back if it throws everything out except the shoulders....

Like I said, pictures required as a minimum.

PP

Agreed that a picture would help but probably not with shoes and cleat position. So first thing to look at will be saddle position. Personally, I'd much rather teach myself the basics of correct position on a bike then make my own adjustment as and when needed (than spend out on a bike fit )

eddiefiola

cheers all, dont think there is a magic bullet to this, will try to get some pics to see if anything looks obvious.

pilot_pete

Steve236 wrote:

Pilot Pete wrote:

Impossible to comment without some pictures of you on the bike.

A descent bike fit starts at the shoes and works up and back to saddle position, then to reach and handlebar position followed by brakes/ hoods. No point just moving a saddle back if it throws everything out except the shoulders....

Like I said, pictures required as a minimum.

PP

Agreed that a picture would help but probably not with shoes and cleat position. So first thing to look at will be saddle position. Personally, I'd much rather teach myself the basics of correct position on a bike then make my own adjustment as and when needed (than spend out on a bike fit )

True, but I was pointing out to the OP the sequence of fitting himself properly to his bike.

Setthe bike up on a turbo trainer and use a long spirit level between the front and rear quick releases to ensure it is level.

First thing to look at is ensuring his cleats are positioned correctly on his shoe; ball of the foot should be over the pedal spindle. Heel in or out depends on natural feel for what doesn't put strain on the knee joint. I personally have shoes parallel (no heel in or out), but of course everyone is different.

Then you should move up to saddle position. With a crank arm lined up with the seat tube, the lower pedal will almost be at the bottom of the pedal stroke, but not quite. Clipped in to this pedal, with your heel held in its natural position during that part of the stroke ( get a helper to watch you pedal, you stop at that point and he supports your heel so that you don't raise or drop it) you then need to adjust your saddle height so that you have about a 30 degree bend at your knee joint (this will vary slightly due to a number of factors), but 30 degrees on a normal road bike should get you in the ball park.

You now need to adjust the fore and aft of the saddle (which will affect that knee angle, so you may need to re-tweak the height). Ensure the saddle is level (compress the padding with a spirit level, but ignore any 'swept up' rear section if your saddle has one). You should be able to sit up and ride no handed without feeling like you are falling forwards.

Now look at reach to the bars. With your hands on the hoods you should have roughly an angle of 90 degrees between your torso and upper arm. In this position you should not be able to see the front wheel spindle (hub centre). if you can and it is in front of your bars then your stem is too short. ifit is behind your bars then the stem is too long. Replace as necessary.

Bar drop (height below saddle tip) depends on flexibility and beer gut size! Crank length will also limit this. In the drops you want to be able to get nice and low, but your thighs will contact your belly at some point, so this will be a limiting factor. Coming back to saddle fore and aft, when in the drops you shouldn't have to be supporting your weight through your hands; the weight should be supported through your sit bones and the hands should just be able to hold the bars to steer. if you are supporting weight on your hands you might find your saddle needs to go back a bit. However, if the saddle is too far back your hip/ torso angle will be very closed and you may well be over-reaching for the bars (thus opening up the torso/ upper arm angle excessively).

Hood position wants to be comfortable (obviously), allowing you to use the brakes properly (again, obviously) and if when on the hoods you can get no 'cocking' of the wrist (ie a straight line down the forearm and through the back of the hand) then this should prove optimum.

Remember that you can have to keep revisiting the saddle, bars, stem set ups as you adjust one it can have an effect on the others, so they in turn may need a further adjustment and so on until you reach the optimum. Then it will take time to get used to this new setup, be patient. Over even more time, if you build flexibility, get stronger, lose some weight etc you may be able to make further adjustments to optimise more. It all depends where you want to end up really and the type of riding you are doing.

My advice above is a starting point for a road race type set up, on a bike with the right size frame to start with. Further optimisation may include getting a more aggressive position etc.

Nothing stopping an individual doing their own bike fit to save money, just takes a few simple pieces of equipment, many of which can be bought cheaply or made yourself (such as printing a large protractor off the web and using a large nut and bolt and two straight bits of thick wire (like a coat hanger) to make an angle measurer!

Hope this is useful.

PP

eddiefiola

Thanks PP for your in depth response and thoughts!

I decided Monday morning to in effect throw away the bike fit numbers i was given and do my own fit, i ended up with a saddle 5mm lower, saddle set 5mm further back, also made some adjustments to cleat position and angle (i changed to spd-sl after the fit so these needed setting anyway).

Also angled my saddle down a bit more, its still upright enough so i dont slide forward putting weight on my arms but not so much that it causes any other discomfort.

The stem is still 6 deg up and 90mm.

i also made more of an effort to relax my shoulders and not push my head back too much when looking forward at the road.

Seems to be better, i still had an ache in my shoulder but i think that was more residual from the day before than a new ache from the current fit.

Need to spend a bit more time but i think the main issue was believing my bike fit numbers for height and fore/aft where the defacto and thinking i dont need to change those.

Amazing how these small adjustments make such a difference!