Issues with Hand Pain - not sure what to do?!?

[blueeyesaz]

Hi All,

So the run down is this...I got my Trek Madone 5.2 WSD a little over a month ago (I am new to cycling). I had some minor adjustments made when I first picked up the bike from LBS, have ridden 2-4 times per week (5-30 miles each depending), just had another more complete fitting on Wednesday and am still experiencing hand pain. I have searched all over several forums and it seems as though most people say "if your hands hurt then your fit is all wrong." Before I jump to that conclusion, I would just like to understand if some hand pain in the beginning is normal just because I'm not used to riding a road bike or if it really could be something more serious.

Saddle? Started with a Selle SMP TRK with a huge channel which after a couple of weeks I took off because I am convinced cut-outs/channels may not be for me, was putting way too much pressure and pain on the girly parts up front. Now I have the saddle the bike came with back on, a Bontrager Inform RL WSD. This saddle isn't horridly uncomfortable, little hard on the sit bones but maybe I could get used to it...but it is 160mm wide and when I went in to a LBS to measure my sit bones the other day they said I should fit the 143mm. Anyone think a narrower saddle might make a difference?

Stem length? At my fitting on Wednesday the lady at the LBS switched my stem from an 80mm to a 90mm as she said I looked a bit off with the shorter. Hand pain didn't increase, nor did it decrease.

Riding position? Since most people start telling you your fit is wrong or something needs to be adjusted...could it just be that since I'm so new to all this that I don't know proper form with my body? I try to change hand positions frequently (every 30-60 seconds or so) but maybe I'm not doing it enough or maybe I'm not making a conscious enough effort to shift my body weight back or relax my arms?

One last thing, the LBS I bought my bike from said I could trade out the 160mm saddle for the 143mm if I like but the shop is an hour's drive from where I live so I would hate to go all the way up there with my bike to switch the saddle just to find out that I hate it or it makes no difference.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!! Thank you.

[Biciclista]

your hands shouldn't hurt. your hands aren't designed for weight bearing, so 'toughening them up' is not possible.
One thing you can do is move your hands around A LOT. make sure you are not locking your elbows. Make sure you are not leaning on your hands.
Are you doing core exercises? That's what is holding your body up so your hands don't have to do it.
Now, do you have the shallow handlebars? shorter shifters?
do you know what you are doing that hurts (like applying the brakes, maybe?)
I don't think getting a smaller saddle is going to improve your hand problem.

[Biciclista]

ps on long rides i get some hand pain too. I think it's poor posture and age..\
pps bontragers are famous for not being comfortable.

[blueeyesaz]

your hands shouldn't hurt. your hands aren't designed for weight bearing, so 'toughening them up' is not possible.
One thing you can do is move your hands around A LOT. make sure you are not locking your elbows. Make sure you are not leaning on your hands.
Are you doing core exercises? That's what is holding your body up so your hands don't have to do it.
Now, do you have the shallow handlebars? shorter shifters?
do you know what you are doing that hurts (like applying the brakes, maybe?)
I don't think getting a smaller saddle is going to improve your hand problem.

I have caught myself locking my elbows on occasion but I'm trying to make sure I'm not doing that when riding, it's never for more than a moment or two. I am doing core exercises and I play tennis A LOT, hopefully that will get better with time? I do have the shallow handlebars and the shifters are shorter as they are designed for smaller hands being the wsd. Braking and shifting doesn't hurt as I'm just extending my fingers when doing that, it's mostly just when riding, when I'm "resting" my hands on the handlebars.

What throws me off so much on trying to figure out the cause though is that I have had a couple of 25-30 mile rides where my hands haven't significantly bothered me, but for instance the other day I went out and not 10 minutes into my ride my hands were hurting so bad I had to cut it short and head home.

[Biciclista]

be patient. People wiser than me will respond.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I'm certainly not wiser than Mimi, but I'll respond anyway!

I find that when I don't pay attention, I tend to sag my weight down on my hands because it's the lazy thing to do when daydreaming along. I can get almost all the weight off my hands when I tilt my pelvis back (as in tipping my tailbone down and belly up). This makes me more aware of distributing my weight more evenly between hands, feet, and seat. I also sometimes make a game of riding with just my fingertips lightly touching the bars, sort of training my core to do more to hold me up.
Perhaps this might help you.
Sounds like with all that tennis and such, your hands should be quite strong enough already. Good to avoid the elbow locking thing at all costs though- as soon as you lock your elbows, all your torso weight tends to go right onto your hands.

Good luck!

[Loraura]

My hands used to kill me. And go numb. To the point that I have permanant (I'm guessing?) numbness in my pointer fingers.

My bike was TOO BIG.

Also, my core was weak, so all the upper body weight fell straight to my hands, rather than my abs and back muscles supporting me.

Also, in desperation I switched to Giro Xero gloves that have no padding.

The combination of a smaller bike, core strength, and less padding has just about eliminated my hand pain.

I also have to remember to move my hands around a lot, and sometimes ride with one hand while I shake out the other and restore bloodflow.

[Thorn]

Not wiser, but different experience. After my bike fit I was having problems with my hands and wrists.

Prior to the new bike, I had almost all my weight on my butt--the bikes I was riding were too long. My current bike better distributed the weight between my bit and hands.

So, first, a new situation of weight on hands, but, the final fit had a small kink in the bend between my arms and hands. No amount of relaxing the elbows could take it out. The end result was pain in the hands.

I played around with hand positions trying to figure out what I could do that would generate a straight line between my forearms and hands. In the end, I put on slightly wider handle bars and a stem that brought the bars up a short centimeter. No more hand pain.

This may have no relation to you, but I would suggest not just looking at hand position, but the relationship between the forearm and hand--make sure you're not pinching a nerve.

Oh, and glove/handlebar padding? Are you getting pressure points from your gloves? Some gloves really bug me--and, some new models of old favorites are now off the list. Look at where the pain is and then look to see if there are any external factors causing the problem.

[HappyTexasMom]

I find that when I don't pay attention, I tend to sag my weight down on my hands because it's the lazy thing to do when daydreaming along. I can get almost all the weight off my hands when I tilt my pelvis back (as in tipping my tailbone down and belly up). This makes me more aware of distributing my weight more evenly between hands, feet, and seat. I also sometimes make a game of riding with just my fingertips lightly touching the bars, sort of training my core to do more to hold me up.

+1 to all this. I finally "clicked" with what people meant when they said your core should be holding you up. What I found with me is that if I position myself properly so that that's happening, I *can't* reach my handlebars (I can just graze them with my fingertips). So either I need to change my handlebar adjustment, or my bike is just too big. I've got handlebars on their way right now that I'm hoping will help.

Hopefully your bike being too big/handlebars inproperly adjusted shouldn't be an issue since you've had it professionally fitted!

[Kymber]

I've put 200+ miles on my new bike in the first month and have tried all sorts of things to keep my hands from tingling, hurting then going numb altogether. More core exercises helped some, but didn't solve the problem. Finally I lowered the bike seat, which only bought me a strained hamstring and upper glute

On my THIRD bike fitting, a guy at LBS finally looked at my shoulders and said, "your reach is 2 inches too wide on either side, I need to cut your handlebars."

TA-DA! a shorter handlebar and moving my seat back and up just a smidge completely fixed my ride. 20 mile trip w/o so much as a twinge or a tingle!

Bike fitter says clue is that your arms should never reach out in a V to the grips. Now I reach straight forward to the grips with my elbows slightly bent.

I don't know if this works for everyone, but it might b worth considering.

[Kano]

Core strength, Saddle position -- angle, and gloves. Those are the things to think about, IMO.

After fitting the other day, my hands are bothering me again. My saddle (Bontrager Inform that I deliberately purchased, btw, and which has made a big difference in my comfort level in a good way, even if Bontrager saddles are "famous" for being uncomfortable) was too low. Corey raised it about 2.3cm. (almost an inch!) I knew this needed to be done, though I didn't expect that much change, and that it was going to affect the all kinds of other things too, which is why I took it to the fitter. My bar height was adjusted too, by changing the angle of my stem 2 degrees. He says that's it -- put it any higher and downhill will be scary. Living where I do, with hills to cope with on every ride, I don't need descents to be any more spooky.

Anyway, that changes my upper body angle, so I've got to get still stronger in the core to help myself support that change. That's okay. I can do that. I've got a few other muscles to strengthen too, and my trainer is delighted to devise new tortures for me!

I realized something else today though -- my new "favorite" gloves are NOT my favorite gloves anymore! I've been wearing PI symphony gloves for a couple of years now. They've worked well for me for the most part. I wore size large two seasons ago. Last year, medium was better -- the large would slide on my hands and I had all kinds of interesting pain. This year, I needed to buy some in Small. One day, I forgot them when I went on a shop ride, so I figured no biggie, I'll pick up another pair -- I'm at the LBS anyway, eh? I bought the medium. They felt good when I put them on.

Shouldn't have done that. They were pretty blue ones, and until this morning, they've been my favorites because they're the pretty blue ones.

My hands have been bothering me a bit lately, but now, with the change in my bike's set up, and the new body position to get used to, my hands have been BOTHERING me! My gloves are "sawing" into the "webs" between my fingers, the padding is TOTALLY in the wrong places, they're just all wrong. Back to my yellow gloves! I really do like my blue ones, and I did like having two pair, darn it!

Good thing tonight is a shopping night with my daughters. I'll add one more stop to my list, before I meet them, since the bike shop isn't their favorite place to go like it is mine!

Karen in Boise

[Crankin]

The horrible pain I had in my hands when I started cycling was purely from gloves with gel pads. I cannot take even the tiniest amount of padding or gel in my gloves. It is very hard to find gloves with hardly any!

[Seal]

You might want to try a horseback riding store to find gloves w/out gel. They will probably be spendy and have fingers but no gel.

[kenyonchris]

You might want to try a horseback riding store to find gloves w/out gel. They will probably be spendy and have fingers but no gel.

Riding gloves may work, but you might find them too restrictive. The hand position for riding a bike is more open than holding a rein. And, because of the need for riding gloves to take a lot of friction and abuse, they tend to be pretty thick and reinforced in the finger area.
I don't like any gel under my bar tape, and I don't like cycling gloves because of the gel pads in them. I am a full body sweater and that includes my hands and arms...the gel pads wind up creasing in weird ways.
The best I found were driving gloves. They are much, much thinner than riding gloves without the reinforcements that come with riding gloves. They are pricey, tho.