Hands falling asleep

[fosgate]

Hello eveybody,

Long time reader first time poster. Heather Stanley is helping coach me up in the Orillia area.

When I ride a find my hands fall asleep. I have tried moving them around, different grip, position ect., but no success. Any thoughts?

I have bought new gloves. Maybe are my hadle bars too low or too high?

I look forward to hearing a responce.

[Chris Helwig]

Likely the issue has something to do with your bike fit, or at least could be helped by a better fit. A professional fit would be something to look into. If you are up in the Barrie area Steve Neal does a very good fit, a few of my clients have been fitted by him with great success.

[fosgate]

Do you have any contact info for Steve Neal? Is he based out of a Bike shop or an independent?

[Chris Helwig]

Steve is based out of Hardwood Hills. Here is his email address:

steveneal@xplorenet.com

He uses Wobblenaught laser fit. It is very detailed and from everything I have heard very good.

I hope this helps.

Chris

[Graydon]

Hello eveybody,

Long time reader first time poster. Heather Stanley is helping coach me up in the Orillia area.

When I ride a find my hands fall asleep. I have tried moving them around, different grip, position ect., but no success. Any thoughts?

I have bought new gloves. Maybe are my hadle bars too low or too high?

I look forward to hearing a responce.

Are you talking about Road or MTB here?

Agreed, bike position is most likely to blame. Your fore/aft seat position will affect your centre of gravity, and therefore weight distribution of butt vs. hand.

If you are talking about a MTB, I tell my clients racing 24 Hr races to wrap 2 layers of the softest gel road-bar tape instead of normal grips. Just be sure to tape the ends down tight. Bar/shift lever position is also crucial. Many people position their brake levers too high, forcing them into constant wrist extension which tranmits all force and vibrations into the wrist instead of the arms. And if you use STI, you might want to think about click, thumb, or grip shift. Lastly, check your front suspension setup, and adjust to make it softer and/or more rebound dampening.

Failing all the above, go see Dr. Bell in Orillia. If I'm not racing Elliot Lake, I'll be in Orillia next weekend as well.

[fosgate]

Thanks Graydon,

Well I am just getting re-introduced to the love of cycling. I road ride but I use a mountain bike (no suspension). I seem to enjoy road more than off road the last little while. I put road tires on my bike. I want to make sure I am fully sold on road biking before I actually invest in a real road bike.

I will try putting more padded handle grips to see how that works.

[Blair]

Time for me to weigh in on this. While bike positioning/set up is pretty crucial to all this hands going numb can stem from other issues further up the chain, ie. neck/shouldner posture and muscle imbalance. I see it quite often in my practice, everyone is chest dominant. As a result the shoulders roll forward which shortens the pectoralis muscles as well as putting more strain/pull on some of the neck muscles. Why is this a problem??? Because the nerves that supply your upper limbs pass through and under these muscles. Put yourself on a bike and this compression is only accentuated.

Definitely if your set up is poor this can only add to the problem so proper set up is important, however it may not be the sole cure. Similarly for padding your bars etc...

A simple thing to do is to stretch your chest. Lie diagonally on your bed with your head at the foot end. Hang your arms off the side and lie there for a few minutes. You may get some pins and needles/hands falling asleep. If so, bring the arms back in and try again with slightly less stretch.

I can go into more detail if anyone's interested.

Cheers,

Blair

[fosgate]

would be very interested.

[fosgate]

Thanks Graydon for stoping by a couple weekends ago and helping me with some adjustments with my bike. It has seemed to help a bit. I still have to het some better gel grips.

Your help was appreciated.