The Midlife Cyclist: The Road Map for the +40 Rider Who Wants to Train Hard, Ride Fast and Stay Healthy by Phil Cavell

Author:Phil Cavell [Cavell, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sports & Recreation, Cycling, Health & Fitness, Exercise, General, Medical, physiology, Research
ISBN: 9781472961396
Google: YWMhEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-06-24T23:53:36.679270+00:00

5

Bikes, Bike Fit and Biomechanics

Nobody hates the ‘J’ word more than I, where ‘J’ stands for ‘journey’ and is normally preceded by the word ‘personal’ and includes details of a yoga retreat or week-long silence in a monastic cell. But it’s clear that as midlife cyclists, we have to acknowledge life’s arc and the changes that are inevitably happening within our bodies and minds as we get older. And while it’s true that exercise, and especially high-level exercise, does bring huge physiological and cognitive benefits and protection, it’s also true that we can run the risk of having too much of a good thing, which can result in injury and illness. As we’ve learned from chapter 2, the bicycle inherently has so much to recommend it to midlife athletes in terms of joint protection and muscle trauma, compared to running, rugby and squash, etc. But the legacy of the fundamentals of cycling biomechanics which the Victorians kindly bequeathed us, and which was eternally and some (OK, I) would say unhelpfully preserved in aspic by the UCI, creates challenges that need to be continually considered if you want to stay healthy, fit and meet your goals as you age. In short, human beings didn’t evolve to ride bikes, whatever the Victorian gentlemen inventors thought or intended at the time. In this chapter we explore the practical aspects of the relationship between the bike and the midlife body and how it can be preserved, or even improved, as we elegantly age.

In chapter 2 we interlocked Alex Fugallo’s hypermobile–stiffness spectrum with Phil Burt’s micro-adjuster–macro-absorber spectrum. And I invited you to think of where you sit on both. Are you a princess with her pea on the bike? Or can you ride anything, anywhere and never feel a moment of pain or discomfort? Do you struggle with flexibility? Or are you naturally abundant in your joint muscle ranges and always have been? You should have an idea where you sit on those two scales (no self-delusion, please – it won’t help anyone). In this chapter, we’ll look in more detail at the biomechanical interface between the human and the bicycle and how this relationship can change over time.

The perfect cycling body

Before we look at what can go wrong in the body-to-bike relationship department, it might be interesting to think about the perfect cycling physique. In our opinion anyway. Bear in mind that the bike is, by definition, at least to start with, entirely symmetrical – cycling therefore rewards symmetry, or at the very least one needs to know where someone exhibits asymmetry, to potentially intervene with a compensation. For example, we’ve worked with many athletes, including professional cyclists, who exhibit a spinal scoliosis – an S-shape in the spine, when viewed from the back. None of us are robots of course (one of our favourite aphorisms in the fit studio), so all of us have little kinks and irregularities in our morphology, but it’s a question of extent. An extreme scoliosis can take the head, shoulders, hands, arms and even hips and legs out of alignment.

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