sensitive question

[OakLeaf]

A lot of people bring their own seats (and seatposts) to spin class, too. There's a lot of discussion on this board about saddle fitment - check it out.

And +1 to what everyone else said. But if you've been spinning for a year and only started having trouble in the last month, what changed? Have you lost weight? Or is something else going on?

[tulip]

How is your position on the bike. I noticed a big improvement (no more pain) when I raised the bars pretty significantly. I thought that the bars needed to be below my seat, but that's not good on a spin bike. Raising the bars puts less pressure on the parts because I'm not leaning forward so much. It also feels better on my back. Same good workout, without the hurt.

Also make sure your seat isn't too high that it causes you to rock side to side. Speaking of rocking, when you spin fast, do you bounce? Alot of people do and it's not good. Good form is more important than cadence of 120+. Keep good form under control. Hopefully this will help.

Oh, and I do wear cycling shorts.

[herzy]

Thanks for all the replies. I do have a pair of cycling shorts, but have never worn them to spin class - I will definitely give it a try. My handlebars are already as high as they go and I don't bounce or rock when I spin, so I don't think its a position or form problem. I have lost a pretty significant amount of weight since I started spinning (40-50 lbs.). How would this affect my comfort level, and what do I do about it?

Thanks again for all the input. This has been causing me a lot of stress lately, so I was excited to find this forum and get some ideas on what to do about my problem!

[OakLeaf]

Congratulations on losing so much weight! That's a good reason for a change in the way your saddle feels. The shape and size of your "contact patch" has changed. I just didn't want us to be overlooking something, since you'd only started having trouble recently. Hopefully a good pair of shorts will take care of it for you, but if not, try some of the other suggestions.

To expand on what Zen said, she's still wearing tri shorts, not regular gym shorts. The amount of padding is a matter of personal preference/fit; what is pretty much undisputed is that you want a seamless, non-cotton, non-bunching surface, whether it's a thick "road" chamois or a thinner "spin" or "tri" chamois.

(And I hate to keep repeating this here, because I get the feeling I'm the only one in the world who didn't figure it out after my first ride... but keep your hair very short )

[Zen]

ouch

[Starfish]

(And I hate to keep repeating this here, because I get the feeling I'm the only one in the world who didn't figure it out after my first ride... but keep your hair very short )

You know, it is the opposite for me! LOL We are all so different!!

But, along the lines of stating the obvious...make sure you are not wearing underwear under your biking shorts...

[Miranda]

O... I have had much discussion of my lady bits on this site! And thx gawd so for these wonderful understanding female souls... sometimes the boys in the bike shop are not so easy to talk to.

I had this issue for the road bike. Lots of discussion on fit, saddles, etc. As already posted spinning is the same on bike fit in theory... weight on sitz bones, not lady bits. Hopefully you have a good teacher, they should be able to reasses your bike fit.

Perhaps if you have lost alot of weight (Kudos btw, been there, done that too, feels awesome) that could affect your posture.

One other thing that never occured to me to evaluate (until I read it on this site) was gyno related issues. Sometimes as our hormones change post kids, and age, our vaginal tissue thickness, and moisture levels change. Thus all plays into saddle comfort.

So, prior all fit well etc... if the parts themselves are changing, then that could be the culprit. Lots of great info on that in threads here. Just a consideration if a trip to the gyo is anywhere near due.

[latelatebloomer]

If you're doing really high cadence work, some lube might help, too. In the race-training spin class, the trainer put out a big bucket of free samples on the night we started to aim for god-awful numbers and strongly suggested applying it. A female trainer who was taking the class made a little joke about how none of the women would be gettin' busy that night!