So currently feeling grumpy as i’m 10 months into struggling with back issues.
I’ve ridden for years - and I used to just get a stiff back after a hard long ride ( i’m 46 years old ) which was fine. But after racing last June 2024 I had back issues come on 3 hours into a 6 hour MTB race i’ve struggled with it ever since.
I’ve raced a few times since and every time its come on after an hour or so
My back starts to slowly give up and i get an ache which then grows to pain which basically stops me from putting out any real power on the pedals.
I’ve done streching for the last couple of years.
I’ve seen a bike fitter Sep 2024 - who gave me strength training stuff and my fit was mostly fine.
I’ve seen a physio who gave me Acupuncture and exercises for glutes and psaos.
I’m on my second physio who has given me a few different set of exercises.
I ride enduro, XC, gravel and road.
I attempted a 200km gravel event over the weekend and had to bail and finish on the 130km route as I had to strech out my back every 5km. I was only riding at a leisurely pace and my back still gave out.
I even jumped on the shorter cranks and moved 165mm but that seems to have had no positive impact. So i’m going back to 170mm
I’m left feeling a bit lost of where to go or how to get out of this hole. I know it takes time for the exercises to possibly make it better - but its getting worse.
So - any success stories of those whoc have had issues and actually resolved it?
But, I am a similar age with a much longer history of back issues which at best gave me a stiff back and a bit of pain while riding, to at worst stopping me riding (and walking…) for periods. I have seen lots of physios and fitters etc.
The thing that has made a massive difference to me is regular pilates classes. Once per week. This has been revolutionary for me - I now dont get any pain or stiffness in my back. Not only great for my riding but also for life in general… I do complement the classes with 15min stretching routine most evenings, but I find it is the classes that make the difference.
I find you need to do a run of them, perhaps 8-10 before the benefits kick in. You dont need a specific athlete class or anything, just a normal all ages classes.
Yoga too. Cobra, cat/dog, crunches helped with strength, superman stretches, etc. Stretch by any way you like!
I’ve tried to figure out how to strengthen those muscles (QL’s too) and if they are already angry, that’ll likely just piss them off. I also was bad enough that walking and sitting was painful. My psoas was just excruciating. The recovery process was excruciating in the beginning too. It was in the middle of that process that I found out that in the ‘old days’ surgeons would actually remove the psoas muscles to get rid of the pain, but it usually left the patient unable to walk! Maybe in those days it was a fair trade?
I tried to avoid the pain, and sudden hard pedaling without standing up seems to be the trigger, as well as more of a ‘cat’ arched back when actively pedaling.
I was ‘caught’ doing child’s pose at physical therapy and was ‘yelled at’ to stop doing that. It feels good because that’s where the muscles aren’t being stretched, they are in their contracted state. But it does feel good. And at my worst, it took about three months to feel fully recovered, and the tension seems to sneak up on me. Just keep stretching…
I’ve dealt with hip flexor/weak glute for decades. Thought I had a bad back, because it started with muscle spasms in the 80s, and the doctors and chiropractors I saw about it never corrected the record for me (granted it wasn’t chronic enough through most of my 20s and 30s that I pursued it heavily). Finally, after seeing my last chiro for a couple years (I had started biking again after sitting at a desk for 20 years), he recommended I go to a masseuse, and she started talking about hip flexor and psoas, and how they tighten up tilt my pelvis the wrong way, and make my low back hurt. So, I did some googling, figured out I need to stretch and strengthen the hip flexors, and strengthen the glute medius.
Basically, I do a few stretches, and exercises, kneeling hip flexor stretch and glute bridges and focus on tilting my pelvis while doing them (this is really key for me after years of sitting hunched over a keyboard, and I continue to hunch on the mtb, but you can really feel the stretch). I also got a stretchy band to go around my knees and use it for the glute bridges, and added squats, and clamshells (?), and side-step walking with the band to do pronation and supination. I’ve heard some people recommend to do some squats with the knee band right before a bike ride to activate the glutes.
I also saw a video this week (think it was a bike fitter), that said when you’re riding and those back muscles start tightening up, to slide your but back on the seat and hunch over pretty low and pedal that way for a minute or two, which he said should help re-activate the glutes. Not sure if that works or not, but my back’s been getting a little stiff in the 2nd hour of some rides lately and it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to work on sitting more straight-backed and getting my pelvis tilted to posterior…I have noticed that when I do this, particularly when climbing (not on steep rooty surfaces, obviously), it feels like I apply the power a lot more efficiently and can spin higher for longer. Maybe that’s after getting the glutes activated, I don’t know.
Do you experience anterior pelvic tilt when you’re standing? (e.g. your butt sticks out?)
If so, and it’s common with a lot of people, you may need to learn how to release your iliacus muscle and combine that with glute med release. Could be causing issues with your SI which refers as big time back pain. Pretty common with cyclists and runners and people who sit all day.
Another thing that helps some is a vibrating foam roll. I can do parallel to the spine, and also roll perpendicular and get some relief. I didn’t think it would work as well as it does. Any port in a storm, believe me.
Right - Just got back from my Physio and i’ve been suggested to get an xray to see if its Osteoarthritis. Yay!
I’m going to continue my strength training based on a new set of exercises.
Mainly deadlift, gorrila rows, some weighted rotation stuff. supermans, weighted leans left / right
Thanks for the suggestions - i know these problems are always a n = 1 type of thing
Back pain is tricky because a lot of things can refer pain there. For me, I knew what my issue was - my SI was dysfunctional and would occasionally slip “out”. My hips would then be subtly misaligned (right hip higher than left hip) and everything hurt. Sneezing was the worst.
If you have anterior pelvic tilt, releasing your iliopsoas and glute med will definitely help with that, and that alone is worthwhile as it will cause issues down the road. SI joint issues are tough to diagnose - you won’t see anything on an x-ray, etc.
So go after it, and if you get a clean diagnosis, you’re all set. If not, you may want to go down the SI joint treatment route. Pain for that would refer on the bony, flat part of your lower back, just above your butt, usually on one side or the other just off-center from where your spine sits in the hip bone.
I got that line. Well, sure, I’m ‘old’ I guess. I also have a complication: I have a zero-turn mower, and they push using the seatbelt hard but the problem with the seatbelt is that if you have a less than smooth yard, the seatbelt can cause the injury I had: The rear tires dropped into a rut, and the seat sank, then it popped back up, as my rear was on the way down. I have a compressed disc in my lumbar spine, so everyone knowledgeable stands there looking at the image and hope I don’t push them to ‘fix it’. But the side effects have been really very limited, but everyone gets nervous. Even though it isn’t causing direct issues, the joint has been disturbed and it will cause, or acquire, osteoarthritis. That could cause a whole lot of issues, or none if I can .
But why I came back is to say that one thing that helped was when I changed the way I read in bed. When I was young(er) I would lay on my stomach and in cobra pose, read. I started reading on my back years ago, decades, and I’m sure that wasn’t a really great idea, so I swapped to reading on my stomach again and it seems to have helped. I can get all of the time stretching my lower back that the PT folks professed would fix me, and read e-books and other content and have a good time reading, then going to sleep. I can be creative in how I stretch and try to deal with this ‘being old’ thing.
Keep moving the meat, keep stretching, and Good Luck! We’re all this together.
I’ve suffered from low back pain for years when pushing hard for long and I think this is my problem.
Lately my back has been bothering even on Z2 rides. I’ve been going to the gym for years so it’s not a strengh issue, more like imbalance.
I’ve been training my abs more, stretching hip flexors more and doing this routine and it’s already helping.
Also doing some glute and ab activation before rides.
I had quite a few times that I couldn’t stand up over the years. Go to get out of bed and my legs buckle and I end up on my knees. Seemed like a back problem to me, but once I figured out that I could ease the spasm with the kneeling hip flexor stretch (which was convenient since I was already stuck kneeling), I could get standing again.
During covid, I hadn’t had any of these hip flexor issues since I’d figured out how to stretch to avoid them, but I knew I had some imbalance issues, probably from all those years I didn’t get any exercise and at that point had only been getting exercise in one plane of motion from being back on the bike for a few years. So, I went to see a PT. It was brutal, first test was to stand/balance on one leg for 10 seconds. Couldn’t do it. Spent lots of time on a bosu ball and doing 1-legged squats and sit-to-stand type exercises, as well as lots of lateral motion work. And I do have some kind of compression issue in my low back, but it only seems to come into play when I’m at the limits of back bends. I use a balance board every couple days now to keep my balance and all the supporting muscles sharp as I age (have arthritis in my feet and broke my tib/fib looping out riding a wheelie 15 years ago).
Also did FT for years, strongly endorse and recommend it to my athletes. Didn’t resolve all of my issues but made a big difference (to the point I can’t believe I forgot to mention it!).
It’s generally some combination of muscular release plus strength that works. Release can either be via stretching or some form of pressure/massage and the strengthening usually can’t go wrong if some form of single leg work with the appropriate queues.
For me, it’s been a combination of the Pso Right for a couple of minutes a day (the Aletha product didn’t do anything for me, but that’s just me), plus regularly doing Lawrence Van Lingen “Happy Hips” progressions, and then a load of split stance dead lifts every single week.
@JohnCWCC just make sure you understand what your exact (or close to exact) issue is from your PT and go from there. Any of the suggestions provided above could be perfect for you, or they could be a complete waste depending on your specific issue - including mine.
For some listening around the topic, if you search Colby Pearce Cycling in Alignment Podcast he did a 3 part series where he talks through hip imbalances in episodes 103-105 that are a pretty good starting point. His discussion surrounding right hip forward and down is what I deal with, and is actually not uncommon
I have high hopes for it. I thought I was strong after years of deadlifting but I still haven’t managed to complete that 12min routine without resting but I’m getting close. Hits just the spot that starts to hurt while riding. And hopefully helps with the anterior pelvic tilt problem.
