Saddled with discomfort..?

Saddle contact area discomfort is way too common a reason for Cyclists and Triathletes picking up the phone or sending an email to me.

Although there are may different causes for the discomfort which varies from examples including;

• The wrong size bike
• The Saddle to high
• Poor cleat placement
• Previous injury
• Asymmetric muscle tightness
• Overuse 

Once the root cause of the discomfort is ascertained it often follows that the Athlete falls into one of two broad camps.

I have not attached a label to either of these as I don't believe that this would be helpful, rather consider the question; 

"Do you sit on your bike in a position dictated to you by your saddle or do you sit on your bike how suits you which leads to you perching on an uncomfortable part of your saddle?"

On testing this here in the studio, there is no apparent specific pattern for this, excluding the athlete who is so lacking in flexibility that their on bike position is almost fixed due to their rigid lumbar spine for example. 

The less flexible athlete is presented with the choice of settling for an 'accommodative fit' or working towards more optimum fit with some remedial exercises. The choice will often depend on the time to the next race or sportive and the time that that athlete feels they have to work with when not riding their bike.

Returning to the saddle contact, from personal experience I find that I will get my contact with the saddle right first and then deal with everything else. By this I mean to say if I need to ride a borrowed or hired bike that is not my normal choice, the contact with the saddle will dictate my overall position, so it is very important.

This leads to a comfortable contact but can cause shoulder and neck pain for example in a spin class.

The converse of this is another rider who I watch sitting on his bike in virtually the same position irrespective of the saddle (within reason) but sitting on a less than ideal part of the saddle.

Whilst in the short term, this will just lead to reduced comfort in the contact point it will lead to a greater stress being placed on other contact points and joints as effort is shifted around the body to reduce the saddle point discomfort.

So, this brings us back to the same point; 

If the saddle is not comfortable it does not matter what the cause is, it needs fixing.

What is the best fix?

With experience the simplest solution is often a great place to start. By checking the overall fit of bike, after taking of a history and physical examination, if the saddle can be placed in a position that will be instantly more comfortable then great.

However, as it is not always easy to tell if the saddle contact feels better we make use of saddle pressure monitoring.

This allows a pre-fit measurement to be taken, the the case of the image above the image on the left, to show where the pressure is focused. In the case of this image there was discomfort centrally towards the front of the saddle. With a little alteration the second reading was recorded showing the increased distribution of pressure and reduced focus front and centre. This is represented by the image on the right, also above.

To do this we use the same system as Cervelo. The use of this system allows the improvement to be more quickly identified without the need to reproduce the athlete's pain.

If moving the bike fit around does not produce the desired option then, we can look at other saddle shapes based on the athletes needs and anatomy, we have over 30 shapes of saddle here to try.

Not all saddle issues are simple to 'fix' and can involve a combination of factors, which often include factors that are distant from the actual contact point itself.

For more information please contact me at info@fit-me-up.com

Have a look inside the studio

Happy Miles

Dean