It’s astonishing the money and time many elite and ‘weekend-warrior’ cyclists devote to retro-fitting racing bikes to conform to their bodies rather than first restoring function to the most critical piece of racing equipment… the rider’s body! When muscle imbalances, faulty movement patterns and joint fixations distort the body’s bony framework, the cyclist is led on a never-ending journey searching for that perfect bike fit (Fig 1).
My personal mantra~ fit the body to the bike stupid!
Bodyworkers and functional movement trainers whose practices cater to amateur and elite cyclists are keenly aware of the clinical and performance advantages gained by restoring optimal mobility, flexibility and stability to the biker’s muscle/joint complex. It makes sense to first ‘get the kinks out’ before sending the client off for an expensive and sometimes useless bike retrofit. Without hands-on maintenance and functional fine-tuning, cyclists often unknowingly reinforce dysfunctional movement patterns ingrained from long-forgotten micro or macro traumatic injuries.
Confusion and controversy over this chicken-or-egg (bike or body) thing is primarily due to lack of understanding of the Law of Cause and Effect. For instance, let’s say a bike shop performs a retrofit and Bob, the cyclist, smilingly pedals away on his newly reconstructed machine feeling secure and pain-free. Life is good… or is it?