Recumbent back

“RECUMBENT BACK” BYGEOFF SEARLE

suspect many of us convert to recumbents because we find stick bikes uncomfortable – or in my case unbearable. Over the course of about 10 years I slowly moved to a more & more upright position to avoid my hands going numb along with pain in my neck whenever I cycled more than a few miles. Moving over to a recumbent meant my neck flexed [i.e. chin to chest] rather than extended and I didn’t have further problems with my neck when cycling for a long distances – although I have recurrent problems with my lower back giving me spasm [occasionally] & sciatica [usually]. Recently my wife, who is a physio-therapist, decided to intervene. We have had articles in the last few issues querying whether the lack of hip extension [knee away from chest] in a recumbent reduced power output, but she had a different query. Does the seated position lead to shortening of our psoas muscles? Never heard of it I hear you cry, which is unsurprising because it’s invisible running down the inside of your lumbar spine over your hip joint behind your abdominal contents. I

If you look at that image for a few moments you can see that when it contracts it flexes your hip bringing your knee towards you. Alternatively if you are standing up it may instead curve your lumbar spine giving you a pot belly/ hollow back look. Like the photo of me below.

Well certainly black isn’t making me look slim, but you can clearly see that my back is curved & my front definitely prominent. However the real issue is the curvature of my lumbar spine makes me more prone to back trouble.

You may be brave enough to say that your problems is that you are fat rather than your posture is affected by “recumbent back”, but happily there is a test that will tell you if your psoas may be causing trouble. I always thought the stretch shown bottom, centre was for my quads and it never made much sense that I couldn’t feel much tension in my quadriceps but my knee would not go back very far since I rode recumbent. I am generally quite flexible, so this was a bit of a shock, & checking with my neighbour who is an enthusiastic upwrong rider about my age he can bring his thigh to vertical in this posture without any difficulty. Note how trying to extend my hip is actually pushing my belly out [sigh].

If you look up psoas stretches on the net there are a variety of them to choose from – mostly pretty athletic, but this (bottom right) may be an appropriate exercise for the “mature” athlete as it’s basically lying down:

You will note the carefully cut piece of 2 by 4 [or 5 by 10 in metric], wrapped in an old towel. The arrow is pointing out that my hip bones are off the ground and they shouldn’t be…. If you do this stretch regularly your hip may eventually hit the deck & then you can go further by lifting your shoulders up by resting on your elbows. The final issue I will mention is that recumbent seats often are shaped to provide “lumbar support” but this may actually make things worse at it will encourage psoas shortening. I arrived at the 2018 “Worlds” in poor shape and I was surprised that riding my Ratcatcher actually eased my back considerably and that is definitely not a design with any lumbar support.

So, in conclusion, although recumbent bikes are mostly much less stressful on our joints there are still potential problems that you need to consider if you are having back trouble or your belly appears to be growing but your girth is not.