By: Matthew Clark, PT, DPT

The reason you get on a bike can be wildly different from someone else. Your friend may enjoy riding to work to save money on gas. Your parent may be just getting on a bike to ride around the neighborhood and stay active as they age. You may want to challenge yourself with a difficult mountain bike ride that features huge elevation changes.

Whether you’re biking at an extreme, competitive level, or if you are a casual rider, this sport is important to your overall health and wellbeing.

Biking for Global Health

Biking, as a form of cardio, has various benefits to help you move and feel your best throughout your life. Specifically, it can:

1) Increase your physical fitness.
Biking and other forms of cardio are linked to an increase of overall cardiovascular fitness, an increase in muscle strength, and an increase in endurance. If weight loss is your goal, it is also linked to a decrease in body fat.
2) Increase your mental cognition.
Exercise produces endorphins! These are happy hormones that boost our mood. It also has been linked to decreasing mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression1. Alongside this, cardio can improve our memory and thinking2. While exercise decreases stress, it can, in turn, help you sleep better, think clearer, and have less anxiety throughout the day. It also encourages your brain to produce growth factors and new cells, which boosts your memory.
3) Decrease the risk of disease.
You’ve probably heard it said that movement is medicine, and it’s not wrong! Getting moving can help decrease your risk of type II diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, and dementia.

Overuse Injuries in Biking

While there are multitudes of health benefits to hopping on a bike, pain with riding can–and often does–occur. In fact, 85% of cyclists experience pain at some point while riding. This figure is massive, but it is due to the nature of the sport itself. If you are pedaling at 90 revolutions per minute (RPM), you will spin that pedal, bend your knee, over 5000 times over the course of an hour-long bike ride. Imagine doing any other task 5000 times within one hour.

If your knee is in an awkward or incorrect position, or if you aren’t clipped in just right, or if your saddle is too high or too low, or if your handle bars are too close or too far from you, those 5000 repetitions are going to create some wear and tear–either in the moment or after.

Your bike needs to be perfectly fit to you, your measurements, and your sport-specific needs to help you avoid overuse injuries and keep you riding!

Image of a young man getting his movement on a bike digitally measured.

Medical Bike Fit

Physical therapists are movement experts. We are going to look at how you move in everyday life–on and off the bike. We want to make sure your bike is perfectly aligned to your movement needs and goals. A medical bike fit allows us to use our knowledge of anatomy and biomechanics and apply it to help you perform your best on your bike.

If something feels strange or painful on your bike, a medical bike fit is designed for you! It can be easy to stop riding because of your symptoms, however, your bike is adjustable to you. Physical therapists who are certified in bike fitting can make modifications to the bike so your body can safely adapt and get you back in the saddle.

Whether you’re a mountain biker, trying to get back on a bike, starting to bike to work, or going on a casual bike ride on the weekend, we want to help you achieve that goal in the best and safest way possible.

 

Medical bike fitting are available at Spooner Ahwatukee and Spooner Old Town! Schedule an appointment with Maria Kilgore, PT, DPT here.

Resources:

  1. Physical activity prevents chronic disease. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Published May 14, 2020. Accessed October 26, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/infographic/physical-activity.htm
  2. Exercise can boost your memory and thinking skills. Harvard Health Publishing. Published February 15, 2021. Accessed October 26, 2022. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-can-boost-your-memory-and-thinking-skills#:~:text=Exercise%20can%20also%20boost%20memory,or%20contribute%20to%20cognitive%20impairment