The palms of my hands really hurt

Question

I understand that the pressure on my hands causes it. I also understand how the nerves run through my hand.

What I don't understand is how to implement the advise of, "Take the weight off your hands"

A fellow told me, "Put 90% of your weight on the pedals, 10% on the seat, and barely touch the bars with your hands." I dunno how to do this!

With the seat up in order to get a full pedal, the angle of your body is going to naturally push down on your hands. The only way I know to "put weight in the pedals" is to stand up.

Short of getting a raised handle bar or lowering my seat, how do you get the weight off your hands? Is there some kind of posture magic I can't figure out?

Answer 1

You are correct that a leant-forward riding position will naturally tend to make a rider support some of their weight with their arms and hands. The more rotated forward the rider is, the more weigh the arms tend to have to support - which is one reason tri-bars have forearm rests.

Good core strength is what allows a rider to take weight off the arms. Strong lower back and abdominal muscles support the torso, taking weight off of the arms. You can try doing some core strength building exercises (which will likely make you a stronger rider and help prevent injury as well).

You should look at your fit on the bike, you may in fact have the bars too far forward and down. Raising and pulling them back may help while you build core strength.

Answer 2

You use your glutes (and maybe a bit of your erector muscles) to hold your torso up. If you're significantly forward, like an aero posture, then your hamstrings will probably be engaged too. The more pressure you keep on the pedals the easier it is.

Stand with your feet planted. Lean forward 45 degrees from your hips. You'll get tired eventually, but you can probably hold that for at least a few minutes. If necessary you can do exercises to strengthen your glutes.

One of the show-off things I used to do is run at a hill, then charge up it with my hands clasped behind me. It looks impressive, but it's actually easier to ride (bent over) without your hands on the bars if you're working harder, and especially if you're going uphill. :)

Answer 3

Fairly hard to answer and probably requires a play with bike fit - a visit to a bike fitter could be worth considering.

Geometry and size - some bikes are more likely to force you into a position that loads the arms than others. You can look to address this though adjustments such as bar height, seat position, stem length. Swept bars can also help reduce the effective cockpit length. Note the current MTB trend of super wide bars effectively lengthens the cockpit. Narrow bars might help - you can trial this by moving the grips (if the style allows it) and controls inboard before cutting bars down.

Riding style - When you ride are your shoulders and arms relaxed and guiding the bike, or tense and controlling it. Is your position correct (attack position, bent arms, torso level), allowing the bike to freely move around under you, or is it upright and tense, forcing you to move with the bike.

Fitness - whats you upper body stamina like? Hows you core strength? If you riding style is perfect, you can do a lot of riding without relying on brute strength, but few riders (I do not include myself in that group) have perfect style and a bit of fitness helps a lot.

One thing that will sap arm strength is gripping the bars - either holding on tight or brakes - poor brakes and over use of brakes. Either way the hands need to be relaxed on the bars, holding on enough to guide the bike and keep the rider connected (both physically and mentally) to the bike. Braking should be gentle and controlled (Ideally with one finger), not jabbing them on with the whole hand. If you holding too tight, it saps energy and you loose feel for the bike on the trail. Think of it as a soft touch in partnership with the bike rather than a firm hand fighting and controlling the bike.

Answer 4

Something that isn't mentioned in the other answers is the attitude of your saddle. If it's tipped forwards (front lower than back), that will tend to shift weight onto your arms. You might want it at a slight angle for, ahem, comfort down there, but it should probably be within a few degrees of level.

Answer 5

If you have the correct sized bike, correctly set up, with a pair of decent gloves, you'll need some saddle time so your body becomes accustom to riding.

However; if you really want to ease the pressure on your hands you will need to start engaging your core, you need to work on your abs/glutes and supporting muscles. While riding on a flat, even, quite road, make sure you're in the correct riding position and put your hands behind your back keeping your body where it is. See how long you can hold this for.

If you want to take this exercise to the extreme, use a stationary indoor exercise bike (spinning bike). Make sure you've got enough resistance to support your weight(need to look after the knees), stand straight up on the bike as if you're on a tough climb and slowly remove your hands from the bars, your abs should be supporting your upper body, you should maintain a proper pedal stroke. This exercise, if done correctly, will do two things; point out flaws in your pedal strokes and will force you to use your abs. If you have an 8/10 resistance and can transfer from a seated position to a standing position with no hands, no wobbles and no messed up pedal strokes you'll notice how much better your hands and shoulder/neck feels after long rides.

Answer 6

Go down to your local friendly bike shop and make sure that the bike is fitted correctly to you. There are so many variables at work here that it is difficult to pinpoint any one cause. The best place to start is at the beginning. After you have made sure that the bike correctly fitted to you, than you can work on a solution (if your palms still hurt). There are also many articles on how to fit a bike, if a bike shop is not readily available, perhaps they can help.