3 steps to improve your overhead position
– A better overhead position will reduce your risk of injury
Our overhead position is very important to us, and should be a simple task. Our arms should be able to fly overhead with no pain or discomfort easy peasy.
Cyclists as you probably know spend a lot of their time adjusting their bikes to find the most comfortable position for themselves. When cycling you are in that fixed hunched over position for quite a long time no wonder why we get a lot of cyclists coming in complaining of upper back and neck ache. You can keep on adjusting your bike but we are going to give you some quick easy exercises to follow to hopefully ease your discomfort. Cyclists suffer from neck pain at relatively high rates with research showing this is linked to athletes having deficits in thoracic (upper back) mobility (Wilber et al).
Our thoracic spine compared to other portions of the spine is already a lot stiffer due to having the ribs joining onto it. Due to the thoracic spine being stiff in general it’s important that we keep the little movement we have in this area to avoid us loading other areas of our back and neck.
Thoracic mobility affects…
Good upper back mobility vs. poor upper back mobility
When we sit on our bike the typical cycling position is sitting on the seat and then bending forwards.
This is a picture taken of Elanor Cadzow who is member of Bishops Stortford Cycling club. In the picture you can see Ellie is in a comfortable neutral position, this is a typical cycling position where you sit on the seat and bend forwards. Her back is nice and straight and she looks comfortable.
When we pick up speed we bend a lot further over the bars to get more power output through our legs and this also make us more aerodynamic.
Good vs. bad positioning…
Here Ellie is able to see straight forwards without putting too much tension on her neck, as her load whilst sitting on her bike, is evenly spread between her neck, thoracic spine and lower back.
Benefits of this position:
(Bicycling Australia)
With poor upper back mobility here you can see Ellie is in a more rounded position.
Disadvantage to this position:
Performance
Upper back mobility for cyclists is very important. You want to be as streamline as possible right? Looking at the pictures above you will see that Ellie in the poor positioning looks uncomfortable. In the position she is placed in, the poor positioning isn’t down to her bike. It is actually due to her upper back. She will be feeling this a lot also in her neck. Our aim is to get the load through the spine equal when cycling to ensure we aren’t putting too much pressure on certain areas of our back. When we put too much pressure on certain areas, the obvious happens… we feel pain. Feeling pain whilst cycling will decrease your performance due to your physical and mental state being affected.
Breathing is vital which we all know, but in sport it is important that we allow enough oxygen to be able to expand our lungs to give enough oxygen around our body to therefore, be able to perform the exercise as efficiently and effectively as possible. Try sitting on a chair now then slouch forwards then take a deep breath… difficult? Now sit up into your neutral normal sitting position and take a deep breath… easier? The stiffer the thoracic spine or the more rounded the posture affects how much the ribs are able to expand. We want to allow cyclists to get in the best position possible which in this instance will be done by improving thoracic mobility to allow themselves to breathe freely which will benefit their cycling performance.
Feeling less pain and able to breathe easily means a happy cyclist, decreased risk of injury, improved performance and increase longevity in their sport.
Exercises to improve upper back mobility
Try to rotate as much as you can towards your body and away from your body.
With this exercise try to rotate you head towards your hand. Think of this as a mobilisation not a stretch. Keep it moving!
Check out the link below to see Ellie perform this exercise. She is concentrating on the upper thoracic but you can work your way down the thoracic spine ensuring you are keeping you core tight to ensure your lower back doesn’t extend as we are trying to improve mobility of the upper back not the lower back!
Begin with the back in neutral then arch your upper back then repeat this, again keep the upper back moving.
Aim to repeat these exercise 10-12 times with a couple of repetitions.
It is important to highlight; these exercises don’t have to be just for cyclists. Upper back mobility is important for everyone!
Thank you for reading!
Happy cycling
Jessica Woodhouse
BSc Hons Sports Therapy MSST
Mobility is the ability to perform functional movements without having any limitations or restrictions within the range of motion of that specific task. Take the squat for example, done in its simplest of forms, the air squat. This movement should be performed with a perfectly upright torso, with heels on the floor, knees tracking out of the toes and most of all pain free. If we look at a toddler squatting then all of these points will be adhered to, they have not yet had the chance to tighten up and create limitations. Sadly most of us find that as we age and our lifestyles change we start to create these limitations, which then carry over to functional movement patterns. This is when the importance of maintaining mobility becomes apparent to us. So, in essence, mobility is moving as nature intended us to.
Why do we need good mobility?
Quite simply, without it we cannot perform movements efficiently, properly and most importantly safely. For example, when striving for the perfect overhead squat we need good ankle, hip, back, and shoulder mobility; a fault in any one of these could prevent us from hitting depth, having our weight in our heels, or maintaining active shoulders without ‘cheating’ in another area. If you have poor shoulder or upper back mobility you may find that your weight comes forward during an overhead squat. Your body will then try to get you to depth but it will do this by ‘cheating’ which could be by going up onto your toes. Not only does this look awful, it is also incredibly unsafe. Moving like this puts an enormous amount of pressure through the anterior portion of your knee and overloads structures such as your patella tendon. This may seem ok at the time but it will no doubt cause you problems further down the line.
How can you improve on this?
Firstly, find out where your major faults are during simple movements. An easy way to do this is to get a Coach to video a squat, strict press, and a deadlift all using just a pvc. Then get your Coach, or a trained Sports Therapist, to have a look and advise where you are going wrong and why. Some errors may simply be down to technique but a great deal will be down to a lack of mobility in certain areas. If you perform these movements well, then look to increase the difficultly with a front squat, overhead squat and snatch set up position until you are able to find those areas that need improving. Once you have found your main areas of concern, you can start addressing them straight away by implementing a ‘mobility’ programme that you stick to 3-5 times a week. This could consist of some static stretches, use of a lacrosse ball, foam roller, or resistance band to help get you into the positions that you are struggling with. Each tool or technique will have a different impact on the area that you are trying to improve, so I would suggest you don’t just stick to one method before retesting.
Lacrosse ball – These can be used to get into smaller isolated areas that you may have tension in. They are great at releasing tightness that maybe found in the muscles or the fascia that surrounds the muscles once some pressure is applied to them.
Foam Roller – This is another great tool, I tend to use to loosen off larger muscle groups such as the quadriceps or calves. Rolling can help release trigger points in our muscles (specific knots) that could be stopping us from being able to perform certain movements. Releasing these can help restore correct movement patterns.
Resistance Bands – These are incredibly useful for a few things; mainly getting extra pressure through a certain stretch that you could only manage with the use of another person or maintaining extreme sport specific positions for a good length of time.
In conclusion, whether you have hopes of becoming an Olympic athlete or you just want to be fit enough to play with your grandchildren, then maintaining your mobility is the key to success. Ignoring this and you will gradually find movement patterns becoming more and more difficult until you cannot produce them at all. Make mobilising a habit rather than something you may or may not do after work. Set aside time 4-5 times a week, even if it is just 10 minutes, to go through some mobility and you will soon see the benefits paying off!
A huge fan of getting dynamic movement through the hips.
Below is a video posted by Physio Anthony Lo showing a nice little complex for the spiderman with upper extremity rotation and flexion/extension.
GIVE IT A GO before lifting!
3 Quick tips on mobilising your hips before lifting
Our hips are put under a lot of stress especially when lifting. This is when they need to be mobile to allow us to get in those demanding low positions… WITH WEIGHT! With that weight your hips are forced to be able to withstand it and lift it with power. Decreased hip mobility can lead to decreased power output. Increased mobility= increased tension in the joint = increased power output (MacLean 2015) what better reason would there be to mobilise?
Why we mobilise the hips before lifting?
(Rothwell 2014)
Most of you will come from work before training. You have probably been sitting at your laptops, or sitting driving and then you go straight into lifting and you feel stiffness and discomfort in your hips. These tips aren’t going to make you feel like a ballerina however, they will get the hips nice and warm and ready for training. Here are some quick tips for you to get your hips nice and mobile before lifting to decrease your risks of injury, by allowing good technique to be used.
This exercise can involve molbising of multiple joints by adding the spiderman with hip lift and rotation of the torso. Take a look at the video below by Eric Cressey on how to perform this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIkhMWEnDSQ
This exercise is a time saver as it mobilisies the following areas:
2) Pose like a pigeon
Yes the pigeon stretch, we are bringing a bit of yoga into our training. A favorite by many coaches. This is a great exercise to open up the hip external rotators. Hip external rotation is important for that “dropping under the bar” position when lifting and ensuring you are able to go below parallel in the squat.
With the pigeon we want to ensure we keep our torso in an upright position and allow our front leg to be almost at a 90 degree angle to get the best possible mobilisation of our hips.
3) Mobilise that posterior hip capsule
Joint capsule? This is a ligamentous structure which surrounds and stabilises the hip, so yes very important.
A mobile posterior hip capsule is important for normal hip mechanics. Hip flexion is an important part of lifting, during this movement if there are restrictions of the posterior hip capsule then normal gliding of the hip cannot occur or may be restricted, increasing loading onto other areas of the body (Cubos 2010). We see a lot of restrictions in peoples’ posterior hip capsule due to our daily living routine, such as our jobs. I am currently sitting with my lap top writing this blog which will be decreasing the extensibility of my posterior capsule. So if I was to now get up and train these mobility tips would be great to ensure I am ready to train.
Watch the video below, fast forward to 3:58 by Kelly Starrett to see how we can mobilise posterior capsule of our hips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRmT1mja4uk
Now try this… go into a squat before performing any of these, you will probably feel stiffness or/and restricted range. Perform 1 of these or all and then retest your squat. Give them a go and tell us if you found them beneficial, I’m going to guess you will see improvements in your lifting, but if you don’t think so… try prove me wrong!
Hip Hip Horaaaay!
Thank you for reading
Jessica Woodhouse
BSc Hons Sports Therapy MSST
