The Tour de France is back for 2021 but how do you reduce cycling injuries?

Most cycling injuries are overuse injuries, therefore caused by small micro-tears to a tissue over a long period of time leading to an acute flare up of a chronic condition.

What is a micro tear?

When you exercise, small tears appear in the muscle and give you that feeling of achyness and soreness the next day, this is more commonly called DOMS. If you ignore these small aches the next day, and don’t foam roll, use a massage gun or sports massage the micro-tears repair often as scar tissue and the overall length of that muscle or tissue becomes shorter. When a muscle becomes shorter, it will often pull on the insertion at the bone, causing discomfort here. A good example of this is the trapezius muscles becoming stiff from being hunched over the handlebars, leading to headaches and neck ache.

How do I reduce micro-tears?

One way to reduce the impact of micro-tears is to have a sports massage during hard bouts of training or competition. A sports massage helps to reduce the build up of scar tissue and the shortening of a muscle therefore reducing the impact on the insertion of the muscle and allows you to continue training and enjoying cycling. At the Tour de France a team of therapists will follow the riders as they have evening and morning sports massages and most likely use yoga to compliment this too.

Our sports therapists and physiotherapists at Optimum sports injury clinic in Derby will help you to find the source of your problem and guide on how you can manage this yourself. Book here.

What more can I do?

A bike fit would be a great recommendation to make sure you are in the best position on your bike to avoid causing lots of micro-tears and traumas leading to time off the bike.

Make sure to visit a local bike specialist who can size up the correct height of your saddle, handlebars and pedals.