The most common cycling injuries sustained from overuse are iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome, patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) and lower back pain (LBP). What are they?

ITB syndrome

ITB syndrome is perhaps more common with runners, however, it is also associated with cyclists. The ITB is a tendinous connective tissue that runs down the outside of your thigh. This condition is usually characterised by pain located around the outside of your knee where the band runs over the bony prominence of the femur. Pain usually occurs during exercise and gradually worsens until you are forced to stop. As well as overuse, a number of other factors such as, muscle imbalance and cycling posture can contribute to ITB syndrome. If you are unsure whether you have the correct or incorrect posture and muscle imbalance, you can get assessed by a local Physiotherapist.

PFPS syndrome

PFPS is described as an aching sensation around the knee joint, most commonly found on the front of the knee – either behind or at the bottom of the patella (knee cap). Quite often, you can experience pain when palpating the medial border of the patella. Symptoms are usually provoked by long periods of walking, sitting with your leg bent and ascending or descending stairs. If you have any of these symptoms, book an initial assessment with a Physiotherapist and have your body examined. They will work out what the problem is and why is occurs – making sure a reoccurrence doesn’t happen.

Acute/traumatic injuries

Acute/traumatic injuries sustained are most commonly fractures, acromio-clavicular (AC) joint sprains or rotator cuff strains/tears. What are they?

AC joint

AC joint sprains are usually caused by falling onto your outstretched arm. With these types of injuries, the pain is initially more widespread around the shoulder, however, this becomes more localised to the end of the collarbone and there is often swelling around this area. Also, depending on the extent of the injury, a deformity may be noticeable at the top of your shoulder joint/ end of the collarbone. With this injury, pain usually increases when performing overhead activities.

Rotator Cuff

Rotator cuff injuries are caused by over stretching/rapid twisting of the joint, characterised by a sudden onset of pain in the shoulder region and on occasions, the pain may radiate down the arm of the affected side. Again, with this type of injury, pain is increased through overhead movements and activities. On most occasions the pain gradually worsens over time, leading to restriction in movements and a loss of muscular strength.

Treatment for common cycling injuries

Any pain, swelling and reduction in movement and function will require some treatment. Initially, for any of the above injuries, the RICE format (rest, ice, compression, elevation) should be applied for the first 48-72 hours post injury. Following on from this, Physiotherapy is always encouraged. Operations and medication should always be a last port of call as both are unnatural forms of healing.

The aim of Physiotherapy is to reduce pain, accelerate the healing process, and restore normal movement and function to achieve your rehabilitation goal. Your Physiotherapist will provide you with a home exercise programme and expert advice to aid rehabilitation. In addition, there are various other treatment options available depending on your injury, such as, acupuncture, electrotherapy, soft tissue techniques, taping/strapping and joint mobilisations.

If you are unsure about an injury you have suffered from cycling, please use our FREE Ask-A-Physio service on our website at www.physiofusion.co.uk

OR, if you prefer, call us at any of our clinics on 01282 453 110 where we’d be happy to help!

Read more common cycling injuries from Cycling Weekly.

Rotator cuff injuries

What is a rotator cuff and how serious can an injury be? Rotator cuff injuries are extremely common due to how frequently we use them. The most common injuries tend to fall into one of three categories – these are either strains, tendinitis or bursitis. Click for more.

Identifying sprains

Sprains are commonly used to describe an injury but what are they? How do we know when we have a sprain? More importantly, how do we best recover for sprains? Click for more.

How to help back pain?

There are lots of reasons for getting back pain: poor sitting posture, excessive driving, heavy lifting, lack of stretching – even the wrong footwear! These activities put a strain on the back muscles which can cause them to tense up leading to pain. So, how does Physiotherapy help? Click for more.

Joint pain

For those that experience joint pain, we often feel that our symptoms are worse when the weather becomes colder, right? This is a phenomenon which has been extensively researched, however there is little consensus in the evidence linking colder weather to joint pain. So why is it worse in cold weather? Click for more.

Lower back disc bulges

One of the most common concerns and questions asked by patients with lower back pain is whether their injury is coming from a disc and if their disc is ‘bulging’ or has ‘slipped’. The thought of a damaged or bulging disc is a concern for many people and therefore it is important to outline what the signs and symptoms are and when it is important to get your symptoms assessed and treated. Click for more.

The benefits of Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a form of treatment practised by a qualified Physiotherapist that has a variety of benefits. It involves the use of specifically designed needles being inserted into points on the body that help to stimulate and speed up the recovery of injury muscles and tendons. Click for more.

Runners knee – patellofemoral pain syndrome

Runner’s knee (patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) is a general diagnosis given to people who present with pain at the front of the knee joint. Pain is the predominant symptom which is usually located around the knee cap. Click for more.

When to ice and when to heat?

When it comes to pain or an injury, there is often much confusion about when to ice and when to heat. Therapeutic icing and heating are a safe, cheap and easy self-treatment option for many common painful problems, but knowing which one is correct for a particular issue leaves many of us unsure. Click for more.

The myths of stretching

It’s the age-old dilemma… should we stretch before running or not? Do we believe the myths of stretching? For every study that suggests we must stretch before any activity, there seems to be a counter study that suggests we shouldn’t. Our Physio gives their opinion on the matter. Click for more.

Plantar fasciitis

Do you ever experience pain in the arch of your foot that seems to just come out of nowhere? Chances are, you may be suffering with Plantar Fasciitis. So, what is it and why does it happen? Click for more.

Should we sit less?

Should we sit less? Our bodies are fuelled by movement as this activates all of our internal chemical mechanisms that help us to function correctly. If we think about how we feel after a good work out, we tend to feel more relaxed and pain-free. Click for more.

Common pregnancy problems

In this blog, we discuss some of the most common pregnancy problems that we are faced with, offering a professional explanation on why, as well as advice on how we can best deal with the issues. Click for more.

Important tips for running

Since lockdown, more and more of us have started to run, so it’s important that we are aware of 3 important tips that will help reduce the chances of injury. Click for more.

Shin splints

Shin splints (also known as medial tibial stress syndrome) is a common injury, particularly in those of us that are active. So, how can we tell if we have shin splints? And more importantly, what should we do if we ever get shin splints? Click for more.

So, next time you’re thinking of searching ‘Physiotherapy near me’, have a think about your symptoms and hopefully you will have a better idea what to do next. If you’re still struggling as to what you need, you can always contact us using our FREE ‘Ask A Physio’ service where we will be more than happy to help.

Physiofusion will be supporting all the participants at the event before, during and after the race, offering discounted treatment to those that need it.  We aim to raise money for Cancer Support Yorkshire by donating £1 from each treatment to this fantastic charity.

The hugely popular event celebrates the very best cycling the Yorkshire Dales has to offer, following much of the Tour De France stage 1 route.  Starting and finishing in Skipton, Le Petit Depart offers two fantastic routes to cater for all abilities, in both men and women.

The scenic route:

This 38 mile route follows the 2014 Grand Depart route up and back down the magnificent Upper Wharfedale valley, stretching right up into the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.  The Riders will then return via the stunning Bolton Abbey, finishing back up in Skipton.

The sportive route:

This is 80 miles over three climbs and follows much of the Tour de France stage 1, taking you over 3 climbs and along 6 dales.  From the head of Wharfedale, the route goes over Kidstones, the first official climb of the 2014 Tour de France.  It then continues along the Stage 1 route, returning to Skipton via the impressive Ribblehead viaduct, the quaint market town of Settle and the lovely Malhamdale.

This is a community based event, delivered by Craven District Council in partnership with Skipton Cycle Club.  The previous events have raised over £7500 for the club to support the clubs junior programme and other cycling activity.

You can enter individually or as a team entry of 5 via their Team Entry form –  it’s a great way to spend a day with friends, family or work mates while keeping fit AND raising money!

We hope to see as many of you there as possible.  If you would like any more information, please don’t hesitate to contact our head office on 01282 453 110.

Acupuncture is a treatment method regularly used by Physiotherapists to improve a wide range of conditions. Although it has been around for thousands of years, it is only recently that clinical studies have actually proved its effectiveness.

Athletes are always looking for an edge that will allow them to increase their performance, whether they are competing against others or simply challenging their own personal goals.

Thanks to the wonder of British Cycling and Team Sky, we all know the concept of marginal gains. This philosophy naturally encourages you to look for ways to improve that others don’t consider – all contributing to an improvement in performance. This generated a question. Does Acupuncture have a place for the ‘non-injured’ athlete as a method of performance enhancement, rather than just injury-fixing?

Strength, Power and Plyometrics

Acupuncture has been prove to give improvements in muscle strength and power – so, if you’re a sprinter, squash player, or body-builder, then acupuncture could be significantly helpful.

Plyometrics is basically power and strength training. This has been become increasingly popular amongst weight trainers and athletes that focus on bursts of energy and power.

Heart Rate and Blood Pressure

Although, acupuncture hasn’t been shown to have a direct improvement on aerobic performance, it does have benefit both blood pressure and the heart rate. If you train by heart rate, it would be pretty easy for you to judge the effects for yourself.

Flexibility

There are some interesting studies on whether acupuncture improves flexibility. They all showed significant improvements in comparison to non-acupuncture treatment. If you know that you’re particularly ‘un-bendy’ and it’s affecting your preferred method of exercise, acupuncture is most certainly recommended.

Pain Management

Acupuncture can reduce muscle spasm and perceived pain levels. Therefore, if you’re trying to keep yourself in once piece for a particular event for example, then it can help you with injury-management. It is important that you allow the time for any injury to heel correctly after each treatment.

Duration

Courses of acupuncture (usually between 4 and 6 sessions) show to be the most effective, with single sessions on their own having much reduced effects. Get ahead of the crowd and book course of sessions to find out how well it works for you!

If you wish you find out more or you have any queries regarding an injury, do not hesitate to use our FREE ‘Ask An Expert’ service online where you can talk directly to our professionally trained Physiotherapists.

As Physiotherapists, we find that a large proportion of our clientele are people that train regularly for a number of sports. Commonly, the injuries that we see are the consequence of overload to the joints and soft tissues, usually from excessive movement or training – this is particularly common amongst runners and cyclers.

We frequently see patients that push themselves too far, too soon, trying to increase the duration or frequency of their routes. If the increase in training is not combined with regular rest and a thorough warm-up/cool-down, it will soon lead to an overload injury, where the soft tissues reaches ‘breaking’ point, resulting in strained muscles or a sprained ligaments. It is often at this point when our clients come to us for help. One way to reduce the risk of injury is by ensuring a thorough warm-up and cool-down. This applies to any sport that you are involved in. If you have a problem that you are struggling with and unsure what to do next, you can use our FREE ‘Ask An Expert’ service online to ask our professionally trained Physiotherapists for advice.

Professional athletes have no choice but to train hard for their sports, however, they have all the tools provided to them in order to avoid an overload injury from occurring in the first place. This will often include a comprehensive training programme (including warm-ups and cool-downs), and regular sports massages and therapies. For the rest of us, we don’t always have access to such luxuries, so, we must look after ourselves as best we can. A popular way to do so is a Sports Massage – not only will this aid your recovery process, but is also useful for discovering injuries you may not have been aware off, such as, knotted and overly tight muscles. We frequently uncover underlying muscle problems that our patients are not aware off which can protect the risk of a future injury.

Following any period of thorough exercise, there will be an accumulation of waste material and micro trauma, causing slight swelling amongst the muscles. Cool-down exercises in combination with deep tissue massage can be utilised to help the muscles to optimally recover from exercise.

A huge benefit to having Sports Massages is that they can be performed either on a pre- or post-exercise basis:

Pre-exercise massages can be performed a few days or a few minutes prior to exercise. If it is performed a few days prior, the aim of treatment would be to relax the muscles, break down adhesions and increase circulation within the muscles.

If it is performed minutes before, the aim would be to stimulate the muscle ready for action, using a faster pace massage with more superficial strokes, as well as including a bit of hacking (percussion movement using the side of the hands).

The post-exercise massage would include deeper and slower massage strokes to disperse waste products, remove swelling and encourage nutrients and oxygenation to the tissues. This may be performed multiple times depending on the amount of exercise that you have done.

By including massage into your exercise/recovery regime, you allow yourself to heal properly and decrease your chances of injury, as well as improving the health of your muscles, meaning you will be able to exercise more and for longer.

For more information, head over to www.physiofusion.co.uk and ask one of our professional Physiotherapists.

The time spent off the bike recovering is as vital to any rider as the time spent training. If you miss the opportunity to repair muscle damage, you can be left with more than just aching legs.

Recovery has increasingly become a focus of science in sport. We treat so many patients that have over trained and haven’t recovered properly. Their form gets worse and it becomes a vicious circle – it is so easy to think that because of a dip in form, you must train harder. This is the mistake. This method can quite easily cause or aggravate an injury.

Muscles don’t behave normally when they’re tired. If you’re tired, you often over compensate other areas to make up for other muscles. This is when you can aggravate or even cause damage elsewhere.

The reality is, fitting training around an ordinary lifestyle makes you naturally more susceptible to injury. Often we don’t allow correct recovery times and methods because we have other responsibilities. The chances are, if you are a competitive cyclist with a busy social/work lifestyle, you will have already experienced more than one symptom of “over-training”.

There are many tricks that we can use along the way, in an attempt to help recover.

Nutrition is key and can have a direct effect on muscle soreness. Here are a list of useful nutritional tips, all aimed at helping recovery:

• Cherry juice has a high antioxidant potency, along with its anti-inflammatory properties, making it beneficial. It has also been found to have notable benefits on muscle damage. It’s been shown to reduce muscle pain and reduce loss of strength over several days of intensive training.
• Beetroot juice can boost your stamina and VO2max owing to high levels of nitrate. Some are even calling it the new EPO.
• Watermelon is high is glycogen replenishment, something your muscles cells rely heavy on after exercise. Its high water content will also rehydrate you and replenish electrolytes.
• Fish contains oils that can have a notable effect on recovery. The omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are able to increase the oxygen intake of damaged muscles and generally lower fatigue.
• While professional supplements are more likely to provide the correct ratios of carbohydrates and proteins, standard supermarket milk has often been found to be similarly effective.
• Fresh tropical fruits such as pineapples, passion fruits and mangos are known to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potency to reduce muscle damage after a session.
• Tablets containing supplementary antioxidants and vitamins can help the recovery process when used alongside a healthy diet. The antioxidants can help counter the muscle damaging effects of free radicals produced during exercise.

Sleep is also another successful way to recover, with Olympic silver medallist, Rob Hayles, admitting to sleeping well over 12 hours a night. Many Professional cyclists are now looking toward sleep for marginal gains. Team Sky opt to take all their athletes’ beds on tour with them when they compete.

For the average person, we lead busy lives. Therefore, it is important to think less about fitting training around work, and more about fitting life around recovery. If you have a busy life, train less.

Athletes are always looking for an edge that will allow them to increase their performance, whether they are competing against others or simply challenging their own personal goals.

Thanks to the wonder of British Cycling and Team Sky, we all know the concept of marginal gains. This philosophy naturally encourages you to look for ways to improve that others don’t consider – all contributing to an improvement in performance. This generated a question. Does Acupuncture have a place for the ‘non-injured’ athlete as a method of performance enhancement, rather than just injury-fixing?

Strength, Power and Plyometrics

Acupuncture has been prove to give improvements in muscle strength and power – so, if you’re a sprinter, squash player, or body-builder, then acupuncture could be significantly helpful.

Plyometrics is basically power and strength training. This has been become increasingly popular amongst weight trainers and athletes that focus on bursts of energy and power.

Heart Rate and Blood Pressure

Although acupuncture hasn’t been shown to have a direct improvement on aerobic performance, it does have benefit both blood pressure and the heart rate. If you train by heart rate, it would be pretty easy for you to judge the effects for yourself.

Flexibility

There are some interesting studies on whether acupuncture improves flexibility. They all showed significant improvements in comparison to non-acupuncture treatment. If you know that you’re particularly ‘un-bendy’ and it’s affecting your preferred method of exercise, acupuncture is most certainly recommended.

Pain Management

Acupuncture can reduce muscle spasm and perceived pain levels. Therefore, if you’re trying to keep yourself in once piece for a particular event for example, then it can help you with injury-management. It is important that you allow the time for any injury to heel correctly after each treatment.

Duration

Courses of acupuncture (usually between 4 and 6 sessions) show to be the most effective, with single sessions on their own having much reduced effects. Get ahead of the crowd and book course of sessions to find out how well it works for you!

Cycling has seen a massive increase in popularity over the last few years, with the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Tour de France coming to these shores having a huge effect. Of course, this is great for the health of the nation and for the sport itself, as we produce more cyclists to compete at every level. However, it also means that the number of people getting injured as a result of cycling is also on the rise.

At Physiofusion, we have seen a growth in clients who are keen cyclists. As a result, more and more are coming with cycling injuries. Quite often, it is because they have ended up overdoing it or they didn’t prepare correctly for the longer rides. Alternatively, we do see a lot of people as a result of an accident while on their bike, suffering with impact injuries such as broken bones, twists and sprains. However, one of the most common causes for injuries is the wrong bike for your body type – or the right bike, just not correctly set up for you.

Here are 8 Top Tips from our clinical director, Sam House, on how to prepare properly for a ride, avoid common injuries, and how to recover post ride.

1. If you have an injury to the knee or ankle, be careful which toe clipless pedal/cleat system you choose. It could irritate the injury. Saddle height and gear selection can also be critical.
2. Read up about cycling training, finding advice appropriate to the level of cycling you want to achieve and what terrain you have on your doorstep. Better still, join a club or seek advice from those in the know.
3. Consider compression garments to aid muscular force, but also muscle recovery post ride. Protein-based recovery drinks can also help repair your muscles, preparing them for their next workout.
4. Train your glutes – they often get forgotten.
5. Hamstrings are often too short for the ideal bike set up position and will benefit from a stretch, either after a ride or after a gentle warm-up.
6. Alter the height and reach of your bars using a different stem or more/less spacers to balance your weight distribution. Think 60% saddle and 40% handlebars and you won’t be too far out.
7. Core is almost always forgotten about – leg force needs to have a stable pelvis and spine to get the most out of each revolution, making you more efficient. Training on rollers can also help by improving your core/balance and pedalling technique. A rocking torso will fatigue you faster than a stable one.
8. If you think something is wrong, talk to us! We have a FREE Ask-An-Expert service on our website and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Sam House (Clinical Director & Chartered Physiotherapist)