As a cyclist, nothing can be more fun than having the world fly past you and the breeze blowing through your hair on an open trail. However, we all know the dangers of cycling and the fact that it can be daunting and painful when injuries occur. Knowing how to prevent injuries when cycling is an important part of the game.
How can you prevent injury while cycling? The best way to prevent an injury when you are cycling would be to ensure preparation. With the right preparation, you can be sure that you don’t succumb to any of the possible issues. It is important to make sure that you have everything to stay safe whilst riding your bike.
To ensure that everything you are doing is calm and you always remain safe, you should focus on some of the steps I am about to provide. Having had my fair share of injuries, I can speak from experience and give you the correct advice. I will explore a few things in this article that have helped me prevent possible injuries.
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Common Cycling Injuries To Avoid As A Cyclist
Before we delve into some of the prevention methods and tips, we should look at a few of the most common cycling injuries you might come across. The idea is that you try to prevent these injuries as best you can.
1. Head Injury
Whilst not the most common, the head and collarbone injury is one of the most daunting injuries that anyone can face. It often leads to a massive shock for the body. These injuries occur when the cyclist loses control of the bike and falls. In many cases, it would happen when the rider falls over the bike when riding.
2. Muscle Injuries
Muscle injuries might not be as common, but you can often deal with muscle injuries through the means of training. Common muscle injuries that could occur when cycling would be things like muscle strains and tears. If you overload the muscles with tension and they are not used to it, you could find yourself dealing with these issues.
3. Pain In The Joints (Patellofemoral Syndrome)
One of the most common injuries is Patellofemoral Syndrome and Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Both of these injuries are often related to the overuse of muscles and joints. These injuries take place inside the joints of the knee, forearm, or wrist. As expected, these injuries are often due to overuse.
4. Saddle Sores
When it comes to constantly riding your bike or sitting in the saddle, you would often need to deal with pain in the saddle. The pain in the saddle often has to do with not wearing the right clothing and frequent use of the saddle. This can be avoided by wearing the right gear as I would discuss later in the article.
5. Standard Rash
A common injury that you could also be dealing with is road rash. However, this injury could either be worse or lessened depending on the fall. If a fall is too severe, you might find that the rash could be accompanied by broken bones of the person as well. It might be important that you try your best to avoid falling to prevent road rash.
Tips To Help Prevent Injury While Cycling (Back Pain, Posture, Neck Pain, And Low Back Pain)
If you fear some of these injuries, you will need to take the right preventative measures when it comes to riding your bike. You must know how to prevent possible injuries whenever possible. The following section would help you better understand how you should go about preventing possible injuries while riding your bike:
1. Fitted Bike
One of the first things that you can do is to make sure that your bike is fitted. If you are riding with a correctly fitted bike, you should be able to avoid the injuries often occurring due to imbalances and bike issues. It might be advisable to speak to your specialist at your local bike shop to help you get the correct specifications for various bike parts like the bike seat and prevent saddle injuries or falling off your bike.
The right range of motion is important for your pedaling to avoid the most common injuries in cycling.
2. Correct Training And Fitness
Another one of the issues that you will need to deal with is improving your fitness and having the correct training regime. The correct training would provide you with a variety of benefits, which include making sure your muscles, are adapted to the way you are cycling. This could prevent you from muscular injuries.
Fitness also works hand in hand with preventing injuries. Much like training would make the muscle stronger, fitness would enable you to deal with possible injuries coming from the forceful motions of cycling. The forceful motions of cycling could tire you out. Once it tires you out, you will be more prone to falling for specific injuries.
Improving your cardiovascular fitness would be a great way to improve muscles and posture as well. You will learn to keep your back straight, which could also prevent the most common problems.
3. Stretching Before Cycling
Another one of the most frustrating things that often occur would be spraining a muscle whilst riding your bike. I have already emphasized how muscle damage could occur if you don’t have the fitness and skip out on your training regime.
There are numerous basic stretching exercises that you could follow, which would all work hand in hand to ensure that muscles are working and everything is in order. It would be vital that you follow a few important stretching routines to make sure that everything is in order. This is especially true for joints in the elbow and to avoid the tingle many often feel with tennis elbow issues.
4. Wearing The Right Gear
Finally, you should consider the gear you are wearing and it would be important to make sure that you have the correct gear for your cycling journey. The right gear would be easy to find and you could easily find them online. When it comes to selecting the right gear, there are a few important things to keep in mind:
· Headwear: You should make sure that the most important part of your body is fully protected. Having one of the best helmets like the Schwinn Trasher Bike Helmet would prevent common injuries to the head.
· Cycling Gear: Since bike rash or saddle rash is one of the important issues that you could deal with, you will need to wear the right clothing. The right cycling gear is often padded and would ensure you avoid some of these issues.
· Cycling Shoes: I always believe that if you don’t have clip-in pedals, you can wear virtually any shoe, which should allow you to pedal the bike. However, the right cycling cleat would clip into the pedals and make sure that our feet don’t slip and the laces don’t get entangled.
· Additional Stabilizers: Riders suffering from lower back pain would need some form of stabilizer to help them deal with numbness. These stabilizers would ensure that you have optimal posture.
· Knee pads: Using knee pads when cycling would prevent you from damaging your knees when you are falling. However, they also serve the secondary purpose of keeping your knees stable and reducing knee pain. Some would even speculate that it could help with Achilles tendon injuries.
· Glasses: The final benefit would be to work with your glasses. There are various forms of cycling glasses you can choose to wear and these would prevent dust and other things like stones from coming up into your eyes.
There are numerous other accessories that you can add to the handlebar to extend the width and give you a better grip. However, these accessories are geared toward more experienced riders. Bike fitting is important as we have mentioned to help you when it comes to avoiding a ride with an improper bike.
Can You Cycle Through Knee Pain?
One of the most common injuries would be knee pain and as I have mentioned, many people have to deal with this throughout their cycling journey. For some, it would be important to continue riding and this could be something they attempt. While it would be possible to cycle through knee pain, it is important to visit your doctor.
Upon visiting your doctor, the doctor would diagnose any possible injuries and allow you to see what you need to do to prevent them from happening. The doctor might ask you to wait for a bit, which would allow the injury to heal. However, this is not always the case and some riders would aggravate the issue.
You must focus on preventing possible injuries and allowing yourself to heal, which could help to prevent the aggravation process. Those that do endurance cycling would be more prone to feeling these knee injuries, which are often a result of overusing the muscles and overextending these specific muscles.
How Can You Prevent Injury While Cycling Summary
Injuries can seriously damage your life when cycling and you will need to make sure that you avoid them whenever possible. I have had to deal with my fair share of injuries over the past few years, which has given me some insight. However, I would love to see some of your thoughts on cycling injuries and how you go about avoiding them.
