{"id":3921,"date":"2016-05-24T07:48:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T14:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/?p=3921"},"modified":"2016-05-24T07:49:21","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T14:49:21","slug":"who-needs-a-bike-fit-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/who-needs-a-bike-fit-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Needs A Bike Fit?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A blog post by Laurie Marlowe on the value of a bike fit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As an avid cyclist and a physical therapist, I fully appreciate the importance of a well-fitting bicycle.\u00a0 In fact I\u2019ve been meaning to get around to having a professional bike fitting for my Cervelo R5 for some time now. A bad experience with poorly trained bike-fitter several years ago however left me dragging my feet.\u00a0\u00a0 Then I heard about Julie Young from some women that I was riding with.\u00a0 She was excellent, they said; \u00a0\u201chighly recommended.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Well I\u2019ve now been working with Julie as my coach for about the last 18 months and I finally got around to scheduling that a couple of month ago.\u00a0\u00a0 And while my first experience left me limping away with a much lighter wallet and a bike that felt weirdly upright and downright unstable, this one left me not only more comfortable on my ride, but also with a new focus on my form and body position.\u00a0 It also helped me realize I need to address some physical issues, specifically a lot of tightness of my left hip musculature.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"IMG_4128<\/a><\/p>\n

Pre-bike fit<\/p>\n

When you walk into walk into Julie\u2019s office at Silver Sage\/O2 Fitness, prepare to be thoroughly evaluated.\u00a0\u00a0 Julie will pretty much check out not only your alignment, but also your range of motion of most body parts.\u00a0 She wields a goniometer (device to measure the angle of your joints), with the expertise of a seasoned P.T., which she is not by the way, however I\u2019d argue that if she\u2019s ever contemplating a change of career, our profession would welcome her knowledge and observational skills!<\/p>\n

Next step is to put you and your bike on a Computrainer for additional evaluation, which includes photos, more goniometric measurements and videos from several angles.\u00a0 All of this performed with Julie\u2019s characteristic thoughtfulness and unflappable nature.\u00a0 During this time, she was sharing everything with me and carefully assessing and reassessing any changes that she was considering.<\/p>\n

So in the end I was really happy to discover that my bike actually was fitting me fairly well although se did have a few recommendations.\u00a0\u00a0 She dropped my handlebars a bit and recommended a slightly longer stem to give me a better \u201ccockpit\u201d and position on the bike.\u00a0\u00a0 This, she told me, would also help me maintain a more neutral spine and help correct my problem of rounding my back when I ride. \u00a0She recommended I could probably drop my seat 3 mm as well, although I\u2019m waiting a bit on that for now.<\/p>\n

\"laurie<\/a><\/p>\n

Post-bike fit<\/p>\n

Her assessment also left me with some pretty good insights in terms of both some and postural habits on my bike.\u00a0 The good news:\u00a0 I had pretty decent trunk and hip stability (which I attribute in no small part to training with Julie over the last year and a half).\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Not so great however was my left hip range of motion, which was pretty seriously tight, and also the fact that I was not getting into a neutral spine position when riding.<\/p>\n

I ended up adding 10 mm to the stem length.\u00a0 Luckily I was able to borrow a stem from a friend for a 2-week trial before purchasing a new one, which I would highly recommend so that you\u2019re not out the money if the change ends up not working for you.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ve been working a lot on hinging forward, relaxing my shoulders and visualizing my sternum being pulled down toward the top tube, to maintain a neutral spine.<\/p>\n

In the end what I learned focusing on better posture and positioning on my bike was even more valuable than the actual physical changes that were made to it.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I must say that this wasn\u2019t even part of the equation during my first bike-fitting, adding to my realization that there is a huge difference in the skills and qualifications of a bike fitter.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve added a couple of pictures of the before and after to give you an idea of how this changed my positioning for the better.\u00a0 (And yes, I\u2019m a little horrified looking at the first pic to see just how far this was from a neutral spine position)!\u00a0\u00a0 Needless to say, I\u2019m very happy with the outcome and benefit for the money spent.\u00a0\u00a0 Now it\u2019s just training, practice and awareness as I work toward becoming a better and more efficient cyclist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A blog post by Laurie Marlowe on the value of a bike fit. \u00a0As an avid cyclist and a physical therapist, I fully appreciate the importance of a well-fitting bicycle.\u00a0 In fact I\u2019ve been meaning to get around to having a professional bike fitting for my Cervelo R5 for some time now. A bad experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletes-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3925,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}