Sport Injuries
Expert care for cyclists
Professional diagnosis & injury management
Sooner or later, most of us cyclists do crash and need some treatment.
Cycling injuries are usually one of 2 types:
Overuse or Crashes (trauma).
Overuse Injuries
For overuse (gradual onset) injuries, I always consider the following factors:
Bike fit (biomechanics or "extrinsic risk factors")
The cyclist & their musculoskeletal system (“intrinsic” risk factors within the body that may contribute to injury)
Training errors (“too much too soon” or in coaching parlance "the ramp rate for training load was too high or ATL/CTL was too high")
You will receive a diagnosis and a plan to address the causes (including how to address the relevant areas mentioned above).
Crashes (Trauma)
The sooner you seek care, the better
As a general rule of thumb, once you are set up correctly on your bike, have worked & maintained your own body's performance, then cyclists often don’t develop too many other injuries until they crash! This is how we try to set things up for clients of Cycle Physio at Milton.
I suggest booking an appointment for treatment within a week of a crash even if you suffer only minor grazes.
Why?
Many times during (even “minor”) crashes your spinal alignment (amongst other things) can be affected, resulting in sitting crookedly on the bike. This often leads to knee or back pain down the track, as sitting crooked can lead to one knee tracking outwards (further from the top tube) and the other inwards (closer to the top tube). Knees generally like moving in straight lines, not crooked ones if they are to remain pain free!
So if you notice that one knee is closer to the top tube than the other, or your pelvis is not sitting straight on the saddle, these are reasons you may need to consider doing something about it (like book an appointment to get your alignment straightened out)! It's also hard to achieve your best performance when things aren't working right.