Tight shoulder

[eyko]

So I woke up this morning with a very tight, achy, shoulder/shoulder blade on the left side of my body. Yesterday was my first ride on a road bike and I was wondering if the tightness could merely be down to moving from the wide bars on my mountain bike, to the small and narrow bars on the road bike?

I was a little tense during the ride (road bikes are twitchy as hell compared to my MTB) so it took me a little while to relax. Not helped by a low speed fall off (gears on the down tube are weird

) where most of the impact was taken by my left arm.

Now I've written this down, it seem quite obvious that all the above it probably accountable to the stiffness. So I'll more onto question 2, any types of stretching that might help to avoid this in the future? I generally do arm across the body and hold, and the arm behind the head pointing downwards. Any others?

 

[Arsen Gere]

I think your diagnosis is probably correct. The shoulder is a complex joint that is easily injured and can take a long time to repair so be careful with it. I would not start to stretch it until it feels comfortable again and make sure you do the same thing with both arms. Physios have taught me to stretch the good side before doing the bad so you know what it should feel like.

As you become more proficient on the road bike you will find you don't need to use your arms much at all.

You can ride with just your finger tips on the horizontal part of the handlebars to reasure yourself and steer with your hips by moving your weight around. Its easier if you are moving quicker.

Good luck with the recovery.

 

[eyko]

Cheers for the tips

. Feeling much better today, with just a hint of soreness. Interesting idea about stretching out the good side first, will give it a whirl.

 

[cyco2]

When I have got a muscle problem I have found that having somebody else move the limb around helps. They are able to move the limb further than doing it myself because the muscle is relaxed. Physio's do this all the time if you can get to one.