With the growing popularity of road cycling and mountain biking in the last couple of years, there are more and more cyclists on our roads causing an increase of the cycling injuries as well.
Cycling requires adequate physical preparation if you want to avoid injuries. It is therefore important for the cyclist to start his training before the beginning of the racing season.
Cycling requires the cyclist to keep on pedaling constantly for several hours. This, in combination to the adopted posture and the cycling surface, generates cycling injuries, as occurs with other sports as well.
The repetitive pedaling movement requires an adequate configuration of the bike and the body posture, if not, common injuries will start appearing that gradually affect the health of more and more cyclists.
Most frequent cycling injuries
Traumatic injuries
One of the main causes of traumatic injuries in cycling are those caused by falls.
In the course of his career, each cyclist has fallen or will fall at a certain point. It can affect any anatomical area, in the shape of fissures, fractures, dislocations, etc. The most common fall-related injuries are located in the elbow, wrist and collarbone, as well as the ribs, which is more common in cyclists aged 40 or more.
When the injuries are located in the legs, the knee is the part that suffers the most damage, especially the cartilage, causing a patellar chondropathy or chondromalacia.
Tendonitis of the achilles tendon
This cycling injury tends to be caused by a bad adjustment of the cleats of the shoe, a bad position of the foot or a bike seat that’s too high.
These bad adjustments can cause an injury due to the overexertion of the tendon when pedaling. This causes pain and inflammation in the hind part of the legs, where the achilles tendon is located.
Patellar tendinitis
This cycling injury can be caused by various factors: low position of the bike seat, intensive pedaling, cadence inferior to 70 RPM, unexpected rhythmic changes or excessive pedaling during large trajectories.
It causes an overload in the knee area, inflammation of the patellar tendon and severe pain that impede the cyclist from carrying out major efforts such as pedaling continuously or climbing slopes.
Tendinopathy or carpal tunnel syndrome
Sometimes a bad grip of the handle bars can cause tendinopathies or carpal tunnel syndrome due to the pressure exerted on the handlebars, generating a tingling sensation or lack of sensitivity.
Cycling is a sport that implies climbing slopes and lifting the body from the saddle to cope with the slopes. This increases the stress on the wrist and thus the risk of injury. The same thing happens going downhill because during the descents the cyclist also holds a tighter grip on the handlebar.
It is a painful and complex process, with characteristic signs and symptoms associated with the compression of the median nerve of the carpal tunnel.
Neck, back and lower back pain
A bad posture while cycling or a bad configuration of the seat and handlebars can cause severe pain, overload and excessive tension in the neck, back and lower back area.
The posture adopted by the cyclist for a longer period of time continuously activates the same muscles, causing an overload that leads to cycling injuries.
Cycling injuries and tecar therapy
Cyclists often suffer from ailments that require an efficient therapeutic approach as the healing process tends to be slow and the ailments are resistant to treatment.
On many occasions, this ends up frustrating the injured cyclist.
Capenergy’s technology helps prevent and improve cycling injuries in record time.
- Capenergy’s tecar therapy stimulates and accelerates tissue regeneration.
- It relaxes those muscles that suffered overload during cycling and prevents long term ailments, thus avoiding future injuries.
- It improves the nervous functions and heals the tissue damage caused by the pressure exerted on the handlebar.
- Helps increase the cyclist’s performance.
Capenergy’s technology will furthermore significantly reduce recovery time for both acute and chronic injuries, which is of vital importance to cyclists.
Capenergy offers pleasant, painless and analgesic sports physiotherapy, inducing relaxation in the athlete.
Would you like to experience Capenergy’s tecar therapy technology and see for yourself how it improves obtained treating cycling injuries? Request a free demo.
