Hand problems

[BikerJeanne]

I wear cycling gloves and I move my hands around a lot while riding but I am losing strength in my right hand to the point where I cannot even shift. The ill effects last and don't go away after the ride. I notice when I am not riding that I have trouble turning doorknobs and the key in the ignition of my car. I just don't have any strength left. After a few days, it does come back. Any suggestions?

[Pedal Wench]

I was having problems with numbness in one hand - my ring and pinky had no feeling for a few days after long rides. I added gel padding to my handle bars, and invested in very good gloves. On my new bike, I'm using an Easton K-Wing handlebar, with a very wide grip. No more problems. I also make sure to move my hands often, loosen my grip, and shake out my hands as often as I remember.

I wear cycling gloves and I move my hands around a lot while riding but I am losing strength in my right hand to the point where I cannot even shift. The ill effects last and don't go away after the ride. I notice when I am not riding that I have trouble turning doorknobs and the key in the ignition of my car. I just don't have any strength left. After a few days, it does come back. Any suggestions?

[DeniseGoldberg]

Are you leaning on your hands, or are you using your ab & back muscles to help support your upper body? I was told many years ago to use those muscles to support myself and to pull the weight off of my hands.

There was a recent discussion about loss of hand strength that you might find interesting. You can find it at http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...highlight=hand.

--- Denise

[Ninabike]

I had the exact same problem with my right hand, i.e. couldn't turn a key;
couldn't turn a doornknob, couldn't lift a coffe cup; couldn't do anything which caused my fingers to have to push downward - the same mechanism as when we shift gears. It turned out it wasn't related to riding, but was due to the fact that I had tinys fractures across the knuckles of my first and middle fingers. I didn't even know I had them, but I had "jammed" my hand in an auto accident. Six weeks later I had my hand x-rayed. Could you have injured your hand and not realized it? My hand healed up fine and there was nothing they could really do about it.

[BikerJeanne]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I will try the gel padding...thanks Audio-A. It is funny since I don't have any problems at all with my left hand. I really don't think I am leaning on my bars too hard but I could be. I will read the links for that other post...thanks Denise. Nina- it is really interesting because what you are describing is exactly what I am feeling. It cannot think of any injury I have had. I guess about 9 years ago I got hit with a baseball in a bating cage which made me fracture a bone in my thumb, lost my thumb nail...maybe that never healed properly. I thought it was from riding but maybe it might be related to that. If that is the case, I am not sure what they could do now. I will try the gel padding and see what happens before I hit the hand doctor!!! Thanks.

[Lynne]

I had the same problem, but with my left hand. (maybe it has to do w/whichever hand is dominant?) If you see my post, you can see it got pretty serious. Every time I rode, it got back to the same level. I ended up forced to take a number of days off in a row (unrelated reasons) and my hand finally began to improve. I did also buy new gel gloves, move around as often as possible from the top to the hoods to the drop. I've had a little loss of hand strength since then, but nothing that's incapacitating (sp?). I'll probably switch over to gel tape as well. Hope this helps?

[BikerJeanne]

I actually do have the 2.5mm phat bar gel tape from Specialized and I am going to switch it out for the 4.5mm on Saturday. We might play around with the handlebar rotation too to see if that helps. I try to do only one change at a time so I know what works. I will post again if I make any progress.