Altering Your Training to Boost Your Immune Function
Getting from point A to point B in life - goal attainment - involves overcoming the inevitable obstacles that impede our forward progress. COVID-19 is obviously an obstacle and an impediment. Races are postponed or cancelled altogether. Group rides are out with respect to social distancing rules. The normal goals and routines of our cycling life have been upended. So, it is time to redirect our focus. We can still maintain structure and training with some of our races kicked down the road. We can now just take more time to build fitness more methodically, take more time to identify and shore up our weaknesses and just generally build a broader base.
We also need to plan our activities and training and lifestyles around the need to keep ourselves healthy. We will all at some point be exposed to the COVID virus. One variable that will help us resist becoming infected, and have better outcomes if infected, is a healthy immune system.
In my last article I discussed at length the concept of the stress/adaptation model, the fundamental precept being that we adapt to external stress and, provided the stress doesn’t exceed our ability to adapt to it, develop a resistance to it and become stronger. Does this same principle apply to our immune function? Can we train our immune system through repeated and controlled doses of stress to improve its function? Can overtraining, either acutely or chronically, depress our immune system?
Let’s look at the research. It is generally accepted that regular aerobic exercise improves our immune system, and public health guidelines recommend 30 minute of exercise a day. Even recent more recent research has pinpointed the mechanism by which aerobic exercise can maintain healthy immune function in older adults (Dugal, et. al. 2018), and regular aerobic exercise even increases the effectiveness of vaccines. And the good news is that it doesn’t have to be a lot - typically 30 minutes or so of moderate and sustained aerobic activity.
Most of us ride more than 30 minutes. Some of us ride a lot more than this. Some of us even willingly do pretty strenuous things on the bike like centuries, gran fondos, long and difficult mountain climbs and any number of activities that push us to exhaustion. It begs the question, is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? Although there is no clear scientific consensus that it does, and there are opposing camps here, there is ample research that highly competitive endurance athletes tend to suffer from high incidents of upper respiratory tract infections (Galesza-Franta, et. al, 2016), and URTI infection rank 2nd to knee injury as an obstacle to training consistency, and even a particular hard bout of training lasting longer than 90 minutes can create what we can refer to an “open window” of impaired immunity that can last anywhere from 3-72 hours after exercise where viruses are more likely to cause infection (Neiman, 2003)
Considering that COVID 19 is a highly contagious virus that targets the upper respiratory tract, the activities that we do that influence our rate of infection are of obvious relevance. So, how to we form some general guidelines for riding and training going forward? What are some specific workout strategies we can use to follow these guidelines?
Well, for one, the postponement of the events and rides we want to do till the Fall give us some time to plan a longer, more methodical training plan. Most of us have probably also had our training interrupted by the shelter-in-place orders and we have probably lost fitness. Getting our training back on track is the first objective. Doing so without putting us in a hole is the first thing. Many of us may have been in a build phase. It is probably best to go back to a late base phase or early build phase. If you were doing intervals, double check your training zones and dial it back a little, both in the prescribed intensity and the number of intervals.
Let’s take an example. I have a client who was ramping up his training leading up to the local MTB racing series. I prescribed him on a once-a-week high intensity workout of 30 seconds maximum effort / 15 seconds recovery. This is a very challenging workout, and really puts a strain on your maximal aerobic capacity, which is ultimately the point because we want to improve it, as well as the ability to do repeated hard efforts at VO2 or above - the kind of thing a mountain bike racer will encounter.
It’s been shown to be a very effective workout, both in raising threshold power, but also raising VO2. It’s also very stressful. I consider it a peaking type of workout - something to throw at my client in a final build phase before key races. It puts an athlete above that 2nd Ventilatory Threshold, which means they’re gasping for breath. This is the kind of thing that will make the upper respiratory tract vulnerable.
Instead of this particular workout, I’m adjusting the duration and the rest interval. Rather than a 30 second maximum effort and short rest, which put him squarely at his VO2 max, I give him fewer reps, lower the duration and increase the rest interval. In this case 15 seconds max effort followed by 2 minutes or so of recovery. The emphasis is more on developing peak neuromuscular strength and some fatigue resistance to hard efforts - maybe improve the ability to recharge ATP/PCr if we tweak the recovery interval a little. Once the time comes to lengthen the interval and shorten the rest and add reps, his time doing these workouts will have helped him, so we can really think about this as stretching out the base and build phases to prepare the athlete better for the hard work ahead.
I will also prescribe more steady state intervals in the 8 minute range. These are good for building threshold power, and typically the intensity is around 100-108% of FTP. Again, this is a tough workout. For now, I’m going to dial back the intensity to 90-100% of FTP, depending on what the athlete has been doing prior. It’s not an easy workout, and still gives a training stimulus, and has the additional benefit of not being so grueling that an athlete can continue to do this consistently without mental and physical fatigue. This is a great workout to program into Zwift or TrainerRoad for the indoor riding many of us seem to be confined to.
Longer Zone 2 workouts are still recommended, depending on your comfort level for outdoor riding and social distancing. I would recommend that you not increase the duration of these rides too much or too quickly. If anything, keep them the same duration or even reduce the duration. For example, if you ride for 3-4 hours, don’t bump the duration to 5 hours, and make sure to keep the intensity on the lower end - about 65-70% of your FTP or even less.
And make sure you have adequate carb intake - maybe even consume more than usual on rides. One strategy in the early season is to do your longer rides in a glycogen depleted state to improve the ability to utilize fat as a fuel source and to lose body fat. I’d skip this. It’s pretty stressful on the immune system. Instead, alter your overall diet with foods that have more anti-oxidant properties, which can particularly provide a benefit to the immune system of an athlete (Elkington, 2015).
Adjusting Your Training Stress Ramp to Improve Immune Function
Since the racing season is effectively on hiatus until further notice, how does that impact your training, and more to the point, your training stress ramp? Ok, so what is a training stress ramp?
Firstly, we really ought to give a primer on what training stress is, and how we measure it. As biological organisms we, like all other things, maintain a certain equilibrium with the outside environment. You can see this pretty plainly in, for example, the heavy coat of a polar bear as an adaptation to the cold environment in which it lives.
This defines and governs the general evolutionary process, but this also happens on a more transient scale and micro level. We are constantly changing and adapting to our environment and the unique stresses that it creates, and this phenomenon is actually harnessed and directed through specific training.
A quick example: If you concentrically move the elbow joint with a heavy dumbell multiple repetitions and through multiple sets - and you have made it a recent habit of being a sedentary couch dweller - you will likely get sore in a couple days, a process we call Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or DOMS. We’ve all experienced this at one time and one form or another. It is simply damage to a muscle caused by exceeding its normal capacity. It has put the human organism in a state of disequilibrium.
We all know what happens after the soreness dissipates and we continue to lift that dumbell consistently. Eventually that bicep muscle responsible for that concentric movement becomes stronger, it becomes more fatigue resistant, there is more protein synthesis, and often the muscle fiber itself will grow larger to gain more concentric force. We describe this process through the Stress/Adaptation Model. In a broader sense, our body, in a remarkable ability to adapt to its environment, has increased its capacity to resist the stress of external stimuli.
The same principal applies to endurance training. There is a saying that, “If you want to become a better writer - write!” I often say this to someone who complains that they can’t climb well. If you want to be a better climber - climb. It is this Stress Adaptation model at work. You are working close to or above threshold. Your body produces excess lactate that can’t easily be repurposed as a fuel for continued aerobic metabolism, you tire and slow down. Do enough riding, and specifically, do enough targeted training through intervals and that internal strain leads to an eventual adaptation. Your lactate threshold improves and moves closer to your terminal VO2 max output, and your VO2 max will improve.
An effective training plan manipulates this stress adaptation model. You want to apply enough hard training and progressively add more strain, but you cannot do too much or you reach a state of overtraining, where excessive strain in the form of too much high intensity or too much volume too soon, or a combination of the two, lead to decline in performance - and fatigue, psychological burnout, the long term inability to recover and, what is particularly important to us at the moment, a suppressed immune system.
And this is where a training stress ramp can allow us to apply some data visualization to our overall training load; to closely monitor our training to keep from overtraining or overreaching, which, although some overreaching is needed to reach a peak before a key event, also contributes to a suppressed immune system.
So, to get back to the idea of a training stress ramp, one of the tools we have at our disposal is the Performance Management Chart that is included in TrainingPeaks. Another analog is the XSS or Xert Strain Score that is part of the Xert cycling power analysis software, and they both are similar and based on the same fundamental principle.
Both are ways to measure your current training as measured in stress points in relation to a historical baseline of your past training or fitness level. It is a means to visualize if your training is trending upwards, downwards or holding about steady compared to what you have been doing previously. If that training stress trendline ramps up sharply, you’re ramping up the total amount of training stress and, concurrently, decreasing your freshness and potential ability to recover. A steep ramp rate may also increase your susceptibility to infection and decrease your immune response, which is especially relevant now.
There are sometimes reasons under normal circumstances to ramp up your training. Overreaching temporarily can help break through fitness plateaus or help with the peaking phase before a major event, but it comes at the cost of a higher than normal susceptibility to upper respiratory tract infections and a generally suppressed immune system. An upper respiratory infection is exactly what COVID 19 is, and with no real races on the immediate horizon, any peaking strategy now is wasted, so why risk it. Better to refocus on a slow build and maintain fitness and health.
A better strategy when using the PMC chart to visualize your overall training load is to maintain your current level of training. Let’s look at three examples.
Here is client #1. When the social distancing imperative hit, his training dropped off a cliff. He described his motivational state as very low, and because of the nature of his vocation in the healthcare field, the pandemic hit him hard psychologically. The change in priorities is understandable, but I would recommend adding some maintenance trainer sessions and one or two longer rides on the weekend depending on responsibilities to family and access to routes with fewer people. It is important to maintain that one activity that does strengthen immunity and improves one’s psychological well being. In this particular case, I would add one day of longer steady state intervals that don’t exceed threshold power and reduce the number. For example, if I had him doing 4x8 min intervals at 100-108% of threshold power, I would reduce them to 2 total intervals at 90-100%, especially with his most recent training layoff.
Client #2. His motivation is still full gas even though the early part of the racing season is cancelled. He is just starting to round into form, his CTL is the highest it’s been since the end of last season ...and the weather has been great. We recently see a big trend upwards with his Acute Training Load and for him it’s important to reign in his exuberance just a little bit. I had him doing short, very high intensity intervals in the 30 second range at 150% of FTP. Those are out for now. I consider those more of a higher stress/peaking style of interval, and the very high strain and high breathing rate just put him at risk of getting sick. For him, going to steady state intervals at below threshold is a better interval day strategy, and I’m reducing the duration of his longer rides by 25% for now.
Client #3. Not too hot. Not too cold. She was having a pretty aggressive build when this all hit, and the avoidance of group rides and busy bikeways has made her training a little more sporadic. Still, a kind of holding pattern is not a bad approach to maintaining fitness and a healthy immune function during the pandemic. I still have her doing one a week trainer intervals and some riding outdoors on weekends, but I’ve reduced the total duration of the rides. In the initial weeks she took several long breaks from consistent riding you can see with the aggressive drop in ATL. I would add a little more consistency to avoid the peaks and valleys, but overall, this is not bad.
As a general rule, I’m counseling clients to not only avoid chronic states of hard training, but also to avoid those really hard days. Even one really hard training effort can leave you immunosuppressed for several days afterwards.
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Why Triathlon/TT Fitters are obsessed with hips
Actually I’ve always considered myself more of a leg guy. With TT/Triathlon fits, however, it’s the hips that rule.
When I put on my bike fitter hat my consideration of the human form is no longer about the aesthetic - although my assessment of whether a client “looks good” does typically translate to a good fit (that would make a good blog article)- but about performance. When I’m analyzing a TT position, I zero in on the hips. I’m obsessed with them. To put a finer point on things, I look very closely at the angle your torso and upper leg make at the hip.
Aero fits are distinct from standard road or mountain fits simply for the movement pattern restrictions the aero position places on the rider. For a road fit or mountain fit, rarely do I look at the Retul metric “hip angle closed.” For aero fits, however, this is perhaps the single most important measure, one that I often fit around, and my eyes usually scan to this measure right after knee angle. It is so important that I often recommend an ISM saddle, both because it allows for better hip rotation with less discomfort, but also because they make it easier to improve this measure.
Why?
To understand the why, you have to visualize what an aero position does to the rider and the potential restrictions that a more aero flat back can place on an optimal pedal stroke. Think of the torso and the thigh as two segments that connect to each other. Where they connect forms an angle. This is essentially how Retul or any other motion capture system sees this relationship - as an angle.
The more aero or “aggressive” you get, the lower and flatter your back or that torso segment. Yes aero nerds, I know, aerodynamics involves more than simply back angle, but I think you know where I’m going with this. As you get lower that angle between your torso and thigh becomes more closed.
A question I’ll typically ask a rider when I’m assessing their aero position is: “Do you feel any restriction or perhaps a loss of power when you’re coming up over the top of the pedal stroke?” “Does it feel like your knees are coming up and almost bumping up against your stomach? A closed hip restricts the pedal stroke in that position, making the rider less powerful and efficient.
So, what do we do to enable a rider in the aero position to maintain a similar hip angle as a road bike position?
To help with the visualization of this concept, what I like to do is explain to a client the difference in aero bike design to that of a road bike. Triathlon and aero bikes look pretty funky compared to a road bike, not only because of the shaped tubes and other aero accoutrements designed into the frame, but equally importantly their seat tube angles are much much steeper than a standard road bike. Where my road bike may have a 73 degree seat tube angle, most aero or tri bikes are 76, 78 even 80 degrees depending on the bike and seat clamp configuration.
Why?
Again, visualize that phenomenon of the rider “folding” at the hips when in an aero position with a low back. With a saddle further back relative to the bottom bracket, the rider folds even more, closing up that hip at the top of the pedal stroke. This is perhaps the biggest challenge a facing a rider when simply clipping on a set of aerobars on his road bike and assuming all will go according to plan. It usually doesn’t.
The very obvious geometric way around this is to move the saddle forward relative to the bottom bracket. At the same time, when you move the saddle forward, you are effectively lowering the saddle. To maintain the same saddle height and knee flexion, a fitter would therefore also raise the saddle.
So, if I determine the hip angle is a restricted at the top of the pedal stroke, one of my strategies is to increase the seat tube angle, either by physically moving the saddle forward, or trying the aforementioned ISM or other noseless saddle. Because these are designed for the rider to sit closer to the tip of the saddle, they effectively steepen the seat tube angle, and I have had pretty good success with ISM saddles.
The other method is to be conservative. With triathletes, and especially long course triathletes, I’m fitting to comfort as well as performance. I want them to comfortably be able to stay in that position for hours on end if that is what the race demands.
If a rider is so uncomfortable over hours in the saddle that he is constantly fidgeting, getting out of the aero position to rest or stretch things or out, or is just so uncomfortable that it gets in the way of the business of pacing and applying power during that bike leg, then it defeats the whole point of optimizing that bike position. Getting a rider more comfortable usually (not always) means a higher back angle.
So, in this case I raise the aero pads, which raises the torso angle relative to the horizon. Because that torso is the one of the segments that forms that hip angle we were talking about, raising the front end effectively opens up that hip angle. So, in this case, we accomplish two things: a more comfortable position and potentially more power due to a less restricted pedaling at the top of the pedal stroke. Win/win.
With crank length, is longer better?
Maybe I’ll save a more thorough explanation of crank length for another blog article, but since you now have a little more experience visualizing the how certain equipment changes and positional changes influence that oh-so-important hip angle, I’ll leave you with a question: How does crank length influence hip angle?
Six Years In - What I've Learned as a Bike Fitter: Lesson #4 - Be Wary of Fitting to Poor Function and Why I Don't Like Flipping Stems Up
I’ve read in other fitting blogs or perhaps overheard in a fitting seminar or two about the relationship between fitting the client to the bike or fitting the bike to the client. There’s a great article about that here.
The premise of this dyadic relationship is that far too often the default method of fitting a client to a bike involves a machine with limited and predetermined geometry, which limits the range of adjustments a fitter can make. It could very well be the wrong size and just the wrong bike It’s always a compromise if the bike just doesn’t work for a particular client. Sometimes, however, that’s what we’re stuck with and a fitter just has to make due.
This leads to the second alternative: fit the bike to the client. For obvious reasons this is infinitely better, and forms the basis of my Bike Finder Fit I first fit a subject on my Purely Custom adjustable fit bike, in the process establishing the ideal saddle choice and crank length, and the in the course of the fit process I establish fit coordinates. I can then use simple calculations to convert these coordinates into frame geometry coordinates. We can then filter through and find the best combination of frame geometry and stem and spacer choice to match what we consider this ideal fit.
It’s a great approach, and I find them fun and innately satisfying because they come close to providing a sense of mathematical certainty to optimal bike fit, which is in contrast to the mildly demoralizing feeling of doing something somewhat unorthodox to a bike configuration to make an unsuitable bike acceptable. A client starts off the right bike and the right fit, which maximizes the possibility of continued enjoyment on the bike and of the sport.
Nevertheless, the bike fit first approach is not without its own set of pitfalls, and as much as I or anyone else is attracted to a system that provides absolute certainty, the universe, as we know, is more complex.
Particularly with case of new riders, they often lack the proprioceptive sense of truly understanding what feels right and if they feel more fluid on the bike - they can’t quite recognize that dialed in feeling.
In addition, new riders aren’t necessarily adapted to riding a bike and spending hours hunched over a contraption that wasn’t really conceived by humankind to provide the best biomechanical position for the human body. We all have to adapt to the bicycle because it’s an inherently unnatural act. But as humans, we also have a remarkable ability to adapt to any number of different physical demands and circumstances, and the human powered bicycle is amazing in its ability to convert human mechanical energy into forward speed.
Through repetition and training, not only to new riders become better at riding their bikes; not only does a rider get more fit, but his ability to maintain proper posture in this innately unnatural act improves. Core activation and strength improves, flexibility increases, the rider becomes more adept and comfortable maintaining proper form. Riders naturally adapt. This has two implications:
Your position will change over time. What might be optimal one day, through days, weeks and months of riding, or through progressive or induced changes in function, will be now be sub-optimal. Riders improve, not only with respect to fitness and strength, but through improvements in on-the-bike posture.
Anticipating these changes brings us to the second implication: I try not to fully fit to dysfunction. If a rider prefers a position based on perceived comfort, and if I think there are long term positive changes that will allow the rider to tolerate a more traditional position, then I often make allowances - and prescribe some cycling specific off-the-bike exercises. I don’t like to fit to dysfunction as a permanent solution if I have a pretty good idea that dysfunction can be corrected and improved.
During a session I might add spacer value to the stem in response to positive feedback, but I also counsel my clients that, in the long term, practicing some of the postural exercises I recommend will allow them to feel more relaxed in a lower position, obviating the need for that higher handlebar position. An initial bike fit for new rider or dysfunctional one needs to be set up for immediate comfort, but also for long term positive adaptation. Bike fit should be a process, not an event.
Accommodation is bi-directional, and I like to use the marriage analogy. You have a relationship with your bike that hopefully grows, adapts and ultimately flourishes, and, like a marriage, it takes some measure of accommodation from each partner.
Things I've Learned as a Bike Fitter #3 - Practice a Little Humility
I had an encounter with a prospective client some time back. He had come in the shop inquiring about fit, and I did my best to explain what my process was, what motion capture was, the assessments that are a part of the process and how what I do could be a benefit to him.
He seemed decidedly less interested in methodology or process, and wanted something more definitive. He went on to talk about how his orthopedist told him to stay off the bike as a result of his injury, and mentioned the name of the fitter who had worked with him previously.
He seemed unimpressed with my response. I explained that So and So bike fitter probably did an acceptable job, but we can certainly take another look more broadly, and more specifically with Retul motion capture and see if there’s something that we can identify that can be changed.
He left and I never saw him again. I wasn’t too heartbroken. That relationship, I knew, was not going to be a good fit, so to speak. His expectations simply didn’t align with how I conduct myself, how I go about practicing my craft, and how I treat others.
His expectations were that I would talk loudly and authoritatively about my own prowess, and that I would belittle both the fitter (who I knew of) and the orthopedic doctor, and that I would guarantee that I would eliminate his source of pain (and probably increase his power, too).
To him, that was an acceptable and perhaps even preferred way to establish credibility - by bad mouthing others and through boasting and overconfidence. This works sometimes, for some people.
I don’t do things that way. I have two rules as a fitter, both of which this prospective client asked me to violate: I don’t guarantee outcomes, and I don’t speak ill of others in my line of work.
This particular rider was in enough pain to visit a specialist, who correctly diagnosed an injury. This doctor, in turn, made the sensible prescription to stop the activity that he believed was causing the injury. I’m sure he had good reasons for recommending inactivity.
For a cyclist, however, being on the bike is important, and simply to stop riding is not a realistic option. It could very well be that a closer look at his position could have led to a change that could have had a dramatic effect and alleviated the source of his pain. Sometimes it is that simple.
Mostly it’s not.
As I explain to clients, the type of pain that suggests an injury is an indicator of a problem that is unfortunately often multifactorial, and due in some measure to factors outside a change in your bike position.
Is there is weakness in one place that causes overcompensation in another? Is there patellar maltracking? Perhaps a lack of flexibility is causing dysfunction somewhere up or down the kinetic chain.
A slight change in tilt in the saddle typically doesn’t cure this if the problem is fundamental, and fitting around dysfunction is not a good long term solution.
Establishing relationships with good physical therapists, strength and conditioning coaches or a massage therapist who specializes in making changes in an athlete's flexibility is a better long term approach to matching a rider to his or her bike.
So I don’t boast.
I know there are limits to what I can do, and that I can’t cure everything by simply raising or lowering a seatpost a couple of millimeters. Some fits just aren’t successful. It’s inevitable that somebody, at some time and for some reason still doesn’t feel comfortable after a comprehensive bike fitting session.
I all I can do is establish and trust the process; to ensure it is based on a thorough approach to implementing best practices that have the highest probability of making a client more comfortable, efficient and happy on their bike.
And I don’t bad mouth other fitters.
What I've Learned as a Bike Fitter - #2 Tools are Just Tools
I was recently glancing through the website of another fitter and smiled a little at the subtle jab at those fitters who rely on “computerized angles” or something to that effect. He was no doubt referring to Retul, which is the dominant fitting specific motion capture system on the market (there are others, and even Shimano rolled out an impressive system a couple of years ago). I’ve come across this before from other fitters who, naturally, don’t use Retul, and have been the recipient of outright hostility for my use of a “$10,000 goniometer” or a system based on “smoke and mirrors.”
No doubt the equipment is expensive, and presents a pretty large barrier of entry to the small, independent fit specialist trying to make a go at an obscure niche industry, and I recognize the pushback as rooted partially in insecurity or “mocap envy”. Some of the criticism, however, is not without validity. For example, simply fitting a client “to the numbers” or looking at one angle measurement of one individual joint is a misuse of what is a pretty powerful tool, and motion capture does have its own set of limitations.
The root of the problem here is the use of the Retul normative ranges for the host of angles and distances that the system records. What I tell my clients when explaining what all of that gobbledygook of numbers means on the screen is that we look at these angles within the context of normative ranges - the angle range under which most cyclists tend to fall. For example, Knee Angle Extension, or the angle of the knee when a rider is at the bottommost portion of the pedal stroke has a normative value range of 35-40 degrees. This means that most people, when measured with Retul, should fall more or less within this range, and I’m usually quick to explain to a client that this merely represents a bell curve - that it represents the value for most riders, not all. It’s not prescriptive, but descriptive; it merely shows what a rider is doing and puts that number within a context. It is merely information. Information is good. Data is good, but beware of overly simplistic interpretations of data or trying to put it in a box. For one, this angle is influenced not only by the saddle position, but also the natural amount of plantarflexion of the rider. If, after a deliberate process of making positional changes and getting feedback, that number winds up being 42 degrees, then I’m perfectly happy with number. This is something I learned and adopted early on.
I’ve also developed through practice and a continually growing sample size my own set of normative ranges. For example, Retul’s normative range for back angle on a road bike position is 40-50 degrees. This is so broad and generalized as to be almost meaningless. In practice, I find that most cyclists with adequate core strength and an absence of any limiting back dysfunction are best somewhere between 40-45 degrees, and for those fortunate cyclists with a natural or developed ability to lower their torsos further with more elbow flexion often are lower than 40 degrees.
Knee Forward of Foot is another measure whose normative range I typically disregard. This is the measure of the knee marker in relation to the foot marker placed on the 5th metatarsal. It is roughly analogous the old plumb bob over the knee axle measurement, and is influenced primarily by the fore/aft adjustment of the seat or seat tube angle. The range Retul considers normative is 0 to -10 mm, with the knee falling behind the foot in the power phase of the pedals stroke. In practice, very seldomly does a client of mine fall within this range. 15mm to 20mm behind the 5tht metatarsal is pretty typical for me, and I’m also double checking with a laser to determine where the knee aligns with the pedal spindle. Saddle setback for me is determined by weight balance between the two contact points - saddle and handlebars - and the ability to produce power up through the top of the pedal stroke when in the drops. Moving the saddle back, usually, tends to shift the weight back and take weight off the hands, arms and shoulders when in the hoods. Conversely, moving the saddle forward opens up the hips when in the drops and helps with power development with a lower back angle. I try to balance both, and this is wholly dependent on the type of rider I’m fitting and his level of flexibility, weight, body proportions, riding history, core strength, the brand and style of saddle and probably some other factor that doesn’t immediately come to mind. In other words, it’s complicated, and is dependent on variables independent of the normative range for a single measure in a vacuum.
Motion capture is a powerful tool, and I still consider the tool to be indispensable to me when performing a precision fit. The analogy I like to tell clients is that Retul is to bike fitting like an MRI is to medicine. An MRI is not a treatment, but does allow a doctor to look more deeply and accurately at what is going on with his patient. Retul allows me to a look a little more deeply and globally at what the rider is actually doing on the bike, and gives me the objective data to better understand the interrelationships between, for example, knee angle and the amount of individual foot movement such as plantarflexion, or the differences in function and kinematics between the left and right sides. But I’ve learned to filter out the noise and interpret the data in my own way based on my own objectives and my own criteria.
Retul Six Years In - What Have I Learned - #1
I was recently reviewing my files and making a rough count of the number of fits I’ve performed since I started using Retul. This was a couple of months ago, and, at the time, I had a running total of over 1200 individual fits, and this doesn’t include a big chunk of basic level fits which don’t include motion capture. I was surprised how many I’ve done. That’s a lot of probing for joint lines and lateral epicondyles. That’s a whole of lot of palpating for greater trochanters - 2400 if you think about it. That’s a lot of lot of trying to get velcro to stick to sweaty and oily skin (hint: if the alcohol swabs don’t work, chain degreaser often does the job). I’m pretty good at it. By no means do I have all the answers to every fit conundrum that involves simply an adjustment here and a tweak there, and that is one of the frustrations of do and one of the important realizations I’ve made - that “solving” a fit is often multivariate, multifactorial... and sometimes elusive. I’m still learning. I have to. No body of knowledge should remain static. If that were the case, we’d still be using stone tools. In this six year process, however, I’ve made some observations, fine tuned my approach and developed my own way best matching rider to bicycle.
#1 - Your Client is the Best Tool
Retul is a fantastic tool. It allows a much more comprehensive look at the rider as he or she is riding under different loads and records more data points. Knowledge is power, and more information is good, and taking a more granular view of the rider and the position gives me more insight than traditional tools like plumb bobs and static goniometer measurements. But as cool a tool as it is, by far, the single best tool at my disposal is a simple, well formulated and specific question. The rider, and what he or she is feeling often is the final driver of the final outcome. Every individual, to varying degrees, have a well developed proprioceptive sense. You may not realize it, but you are constantly monitoring your body as it relates to the environment by way of touch and equilibrium.
My job as a fitter to is to make the rider aware of this prioproceptive sense. I do this by asking very specific questions. “Does that feel better?” is just not enough. What I’ll often do is something like this:
“Ok, now take a mental snapshot of how this position feels and in a moment I’ll make a change.”
“Ok, do you notice that anything changed?”
“I think so. What did you do? Did you raise the saddle?”
“I’m not telling. Now, tell me. Does that pedal stroke feel smoother, more natural? Do you feel as if you may be reaching a little at the bottom of the pedal stroke? Do you feel any restriction in the hips when you come up over the top of the pedal stroke, especially down in the drops? ….Yes?...No? ...or is it hard to say?”
Some people are pretty dull when it comes to feeling and gauging what is going on with their body on the bike, and I get a few “uh...I dunno. Maybe” However, the vast majority of clients are very good at this, and really enjoy being involved in the process. It really is a type of mindfulness, where the things that you otherwise don’t notice are now part of your conscious self. It’s a skill that every rider can take with them out on the road: to be aware of what is going on with his or her body while on the bike - to self-monitor. And yes, I have to be aware of inherent bias and erroneous feedback - that hypersensitive subject who is convinced he or she is feeling something when in actuality nothing happened. I had one client who, after three hours of painstaking adjustments and double digit Retul scans and and near endless feedback and microadjustments , finally settled on exactly a 1.5mm saddle adjustment. That’s 1.5mm. And the next day he had the service guy lower it exactly a half a millimeter. He was maybe a bit neurotic, but he is also a hyperintelligent audio engineer, and paying hyper attention to such nuances is what he does or a living….and he’s been riding bikes for a long time and knows what works for him.
So yes, pressure mapping is really cool and can give great feedback, but simply asking your client, “Do you feel more or less saddle nose pressure?” is often more instructive...and doesn’t cost $10,000
Foot Pain and Cycling - Searching for Happy Feet (part I)
As a cycling activity, cycling has a few immediate paradoxes. If our body, through eons of adaptation is most ideally suited to walking and, some would argue, running, why is the physical breakdown of people’s lower extremities so commonplace - even inevitable? Cycling is often seen as a palliative to the degenerative onslaught of the abuse of running and walking. It’s often used as therapy to facilitate healing with lower body injuries or major surgery. But cycling is an inherently unnatural act. Put simply, we didn’t evolve to apply forces in our legs in a perfectly round and symmetrical pattern, repeated thousands of times. Somehow, however, it works. It is a testament to the body’s ability to adapt to multivariate activities that cyclists can push themselves to repeat this unnatural act long past the duration that would cause us to break down completely when running. Contemplate for a moment the number of pedal revolutions it would take to complete the Race Across America.
Still, cycling has a number of characteristics that act to create a pretty common pattern of pain and injury among serious and recreational cyclists. Identifying the patterns and causes - and solutions - is an ongoing challenge, in part, because the physical loads that cycling applies to the body really haven’t been studied to the degree that other physical activities have. A persistent puzzle to me as a bike fitter is the recurring issue of foot pain or foot related numbness.
A cursory search on the internet using some keywords related to foot pain and cycling will typically yield an equally cursory explanation in some bicycling blog magazine and almost prosaic solutions involving loosening the straps to your cycling shoes. For someone who deals with this recurring and debilitating issue, there’s just not a lot out there. And for me, there really isn’t a set of bike fitting best practices that address foot pain. So, as is so often the case, I have to do a little detective work: ask questions, watch them pedal, look at their shoes, look at their feet, check the amount of varus or valgus of the forefoot, check the level of arch support or ankle pronation while standing, check their current cleat position relative to their metatarsals...and scratch my head a lot. Often it can be broken down into a systematic and thoughtfully implemented trial and error process to achieve the best results. But in that process, I’ve made a number of observations.
Another thing about cycling that makes it so different from walking or running is the foot requirements. Historically, our hunter gatherer nomadic selves would walk up and down and across uneven and rocky terrain. No pavement back in prehistory. As such, our foot and ankle is called upon to do a lot of things when we walk and run. It moves around a lot. It adjusts to camber angle and general unevenness of the rough ground we walk on. The arch will stretch and elongate and subsequently rebound with each foot strike - acting as a natural shock absorber. Our big toe will flex and, working in conjunction with the rest of the foot and lower leg, help propel us forward.
In cycling, none of that is relevant. We would prefer that the foot doesn’t move at all. In fact, all the important things that a foot naturally does, including acting as a shock absorber and moving about to provide stability in an unstable world to our unstable bi-pedal gait (humans are really the only creature that exclusively walks on just two legs, and with our heavy brain and high center of gravity, we have to work a little harder to stay upright) really are a hindrance to effective cycling. The foot is best when it is stable and stationary, and the lower leg, rather than being a propulsive unit, is better when it contracts isometrically to provide stability for the big muscle groups - the quads and glutes - that are the real prime movers in cycling biomechanics. Anything other than a stable shoe pedal interface that minimizes what our foot naturally wants to do creates power leakage - an inefficiency in an activity that is, by most measures, extremely efficient.
So, clipless pedals are meant to provide a stable and efficient connection to the lever that powers the cranks, and shoes, like bikes, have carbon fiber soles that are lighter, stiffer and all the rest. But applying a static system to a foot and lower limb system creates it’s own issues. For one, there are pressure hotspots. We have a lot of foot variability in terms of shape, the thickness of fat pads, the amount of natural arch support we have and the natural movement of our forefoot that we call varus. I would generally just characterize the set of problems, including pain and hot spots that derive from the static nature of pedals and shoes and cycling in general as Static Foot Problems. Here are few examples and solutions from some actual fit sessions I’ve had:
Pain on the outside of the foot closer to the mid-foot area.
It wasn’t so much as pain on the sole, but on that outside edge which corresponded with a wider than normal tuberosity of the fifth metatarsal. What was the solution? Well, firstly, this seems like it is a no-brainer, but just getting the right shoes is the first step in maximizing your enjoyment of the sport. If you have wide feet, don’t get Sidis. The Giro Empire, as cool and as light as it is, is probably not your best choice. My default suggestion for those with wider feet for whom this could be a problem are Shimano shoes. A good fitter or retailer should be able to direct you to the appropriate shoe for your foot width. I wish there was a better system for matching foot width and shape to shoe last. Alas, maybe I need to invent something.
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The second solution was to get this device that looks faintly menacing and almost Medieval and stretch out the upper in just that area that is causing pressure. This can work, but the device itself works better on traditional leather shoes. Cycling shoe uppers are designed to resist stretching and hold their shape, so if you try to use it, caveat emptor.
A dull ache and burning sensation that starts under the fifth metatarsal area.
This is where some sort of pressure mapping system for the foot to use during the cycling motion would provide the necessary objective feedback to make effective changes. Alas, maybe I just need to invent something. The challenge here to equalize the pressure across a broader, even section of the foot. What’s happening is that there is a hot spot under the fifth metatarsal during the power phase of the pedal stroke, due most likely to a natural forefoot varus. I’ve had decent luck using wedges to shore up the medial side of the foot and get more pressure over the first metatarsal, but I’m reluctant to rely on wedges for various reasons, and use them sparingly if I can. The best solution here is a combination of a cycling specific custom insole and possibly and in-the-shoe wedge to prop up that first metatarsal.
Fit First, Buy Second - Why Most Consumers Are Getting it Backwards
I had a fit session with a client a while back for what I call our Frame Finder fit. I worked with him for about two and a half hours, set him up on the automated “DFU” fit machine, which is this really impressive motorized fit bike, and made various adjustments based on multiple Retul motion capture scans as well as several questions and feedback until we collaboratively found a position that felt great. I then went through and sorted, based on the ideal fit we settled on, a selection of bikes based on manufacturer, size and stem/spacer combination that matched up with those optimal fit coordinates. It was a deliberate and thorough process that, in the end, yielded an ideal result. I dutifully built a list of bikes
So fast forward several months. He comes back in. He is dismayed. As it turned out, he bought some ...thing.. off of Craigslist that had some +30 degree stem practically pointed straight up with a frame size that was too small, and, surprise, it didn’t feel right to him. He wanted to know what I could do. I offered, in the most diplomatic of ways, that I could try to match the original fit coordinates as best I could or refit him on his bike, which would have involved substantial stem, saddle and handlebar changes, but also involved my time and, subsequently, money. In the end, he was not a satisfied consumer, and his enjoyment of the sport was compromised.
In a way he was lucky. He only bought some second hand heap and his failed speculative investment wasn’t terribly high. I submit to you, Exhibit B. He is a triathlete I subsequently coached who came to me with his very expensive Trek Speed Concept with electronic shifting. It’s a beautiful bike. It is a technological tour de force. It does what it’s supposed to do very well. It was the wrong bike for him. It placed him in too aggressive a position, which couldn’t be adjusted due to the characteristics of the proprietary aerobar, which subsequently caused shoulder pain and saddle pain and kept him from training and competing in the sport of his choosing. In contrast, however, to our previous example, this wasn’t his fault. He went to his local bike shop and the employees there probably gave him the standard eyeball test and asked how tall he was and, if he was lucky, they measured his inseam or something cursory and then selected for him what they thought was the appropriate bike. Several thousands of dollars later he’s in my studio discovering that it wasn’t the appropriate bike. For him, based on his needs and individual morphology he needed a less aggressive position and a different bike altogether, which we discovered by pre-fitting him on the DFU with my standard and deliberate process.
High end bicycles, both road and triathlon, are evolving like smartphones at an ever quickening pace; becoming faster, lighter, more comfortable and more enjoyable... and often more expensive. But the methods consumers continue to use to choose the right bike are still rooted in an era of leather Brooks saddles, steel frames and horizontal top tubes, where sizing the bike involved little more that straddling the top tube, lifting the bike up to your crotch and determining if you have an inch and a half of standover height. In a data driven era of increased specialization and complexity, absent or faulty data yields poor outcomes. I submit that we need a different approach.
To be fair, bike fit has come a long way from dropping pieces of string from a subject’s knee or the “Italian Slide” technique of placing the heel of the foot on the pedals and checking for leg extension. The increased specialization, high tech tools (the motion capture system we use being one example) and greater nod to some semblance of scientific rigor is catching up to the enhanced specialization and high tech engineering of modern bikes. That’s good. It still think it’s backwards. Yes, consumers being consumers, we will still make purchases based on emotion. We have to have that swoopy, sexy-looking Italian bike or that matte black, techie looking triathlon bike with those really tricked out aerobars. Consumers, however, are also rational enough not to want to waste thousands of dollars on a bike that doesn’t work for them, and are increasingly appreciating the importance of a proper and precise bike fit. A bike finder pre-fit accomplishes both. If I work with a client to comprehensively pre-fit them on a capable fit bike with the right evaluative tools, then it’s just a matter of choosing from a list of suitable frames and frame sizes and having it set up to match the coordinates we came up with. We’ve already determined the proper saddle, saddle height, saddle fore and aft, stem length, stem angle, spacer value, handlebar width, reach and drop and, most importantly, frame stack and reach. This all might sound like Greek to most consumers, but in this aforementioned era of increased complexity and specialization, the world will need specialists. That’s where I come in. The advantage of this pre-fit process is that it very nearly obviates the need for a more comprehensive fit after the fact. We already know what your proper bike fit coordinates and equipment choices should be. It’s just a matter setting up your new bike to match, performing a shorter follow up fit and making any additional small adjustments as needed. So, my advice to you: don’t be ass backwards with your expensive bike purchase. Get it done right first and make the right choice. Enjoy the Tour de France and go Tejay.
Bike Fit - Don't Set and Forget
We are now well on our way into the second month of the new year. Typically, at this point, those New Year’s fitness resolutions have either been discarded to the slag heap of wishful thinking, or you’re actually making some headway, have continued to rack up some miles and are looking to make additional improvements. Now is a good opportunity to talk about and contemplate some tweaks or changes to your bike fit.
Today is also Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Abraham Lincoln is perhaps my favorite human being of all time. He is that rare figure in history who achieved greatness, left the world better and has become a revered figure, not because of the typical traits of aggression, force of will or arrogance, but through wisdom, thoughtfulness and humility. I find that there’s not any question or conundrum that can’t be improved upon by asking, “What would Lincoln do?” Is there a contemporary social issue or intractable political impasse? What would Lincoln do? That person just cut me off on the freeway. Should I get irate and respond with an obscene gesture? What would Lincoln do?
So, there’s always a lesson or an example that I can draw upon from history and from Abe’s life that is applicable today. Which brings me to Lincoln’s Lyceum Address. He was only 28, and at the time, an obscure frontier lawyer trying to make a name for himself and hone his rhetorical skills by giving a lecture to young men in what was then called a Lyceum. At that time, Lyceums were a common and popular way to spread knowledge and ideas to other adults, a sort of adult education. The Lyceum movement was Ted Talks, pre-internet. In one particular passage in his address he said of the founding fathers, their legacy and their passing, “What invading foemen could never do, the silent artillery of time has done.” In his use of his own style of poetry, the use of emphasis and contrast, one sees those distinguishing rhetorical traits he would use some time later in his much more lasting and significant Gettysburg Address.
What does any of this have to do with bike fit? Honestly, not a lot. But the example does describe the effect of time, and this is relevant to bike fit. It describes time, that immutable force of perpetual mutability; in other words, the only constant is change. As living, breathing bicycle riding entities, we are subject to that silent artillery of time. We are born, grow, develop, wither and decay in a never-ending entropic process. In terms of our relationships with our bicycles, our fitness tends to wax and wane the more or less we ride. Our optimal bike fit when we are just starting out, completely new to cycling, is going to change as we get better. As we ride more and learn to ride, our whole body becomes more adapted to that machine and that position we spend so much time with. Our body gets stronger. The tissue around our sit bones gets tougher. Our core and postural musculature becomes stronger and more engaged in the task of holding ourselves in an optimal bicycle position. As a result, that saddle can go just a little bit higher. Those handlebars can drop just a little bit, which might give you more power, better aerodynamics and give you better handling and, ultimately, make you more comfortable. Conversely, as we age, we shrink, lose flexibility. Our joints get a little more achy. The back hurts a little more, and that more aggressive position just doesn’t work quite as well. As your body changes – and it is always changing – so does your fit.
So, bicycle fit is not Set and Forget. It does change, and it’s even a good idea to have a fresh set of experienced eyes and some objective data provide a double take of your current position. One thing I’ve realized in a lifetime of seeing different doctors or physical therapists is that diagnoses and opinion vary dramatically. You also often get different opinions and sometimes different results from different bike fitters – or the same bike fitter.
A good illustration of this are the riders of professional pro-tour level teams. I was recently at a Retul conference and we were looking at Retul data and case studies from some Garmin Sharp riders. On many of these pro-level riders, there were some significant changes made to their positions. It struck me that these riders still benefited from having their position on their machines evaluated precisely and having improvements made. One would think, after years of riding up through the junior, semi-pro and pro ranks, and having any number of various coaches and doctors poke, prod and tweak them countless times, that their positions would be, by this time, pretty well established. Not so.
The takeaway lesson from this is that there are always improvements to be made to the position on your bike that improve your comfort, efficiency and reduce the chance of long-term injury. You are constantly adapting, trying to reach homeostasis. You respond to training and additional riding by getting stronger. Your bike fit should adapt to your individual morphological changes as well. So, for those who have not yet had their bike fit evaluated, or who have had a bike fit in the past, and if you plan on ramping up your riding and your fitness goals this year, it’s a good idea to have that position precisely evaluated by an experienced set of eyes and the tools to give detailed and objective data. A good, thorough bicycle fit once a year or so is that buttress against the silent artillery of time.
Happy Lincoln’s Birthday ….B