5 Ways to Stop Tingling Down Your Leg When Riding a Bike
One of my favorite things to do is to ride my bike. I love to explore new greenway trails. I can cover a lot more ground, and see more of a city when I am on my bike. One of my boys was playing baseball in college, and I would travel alone to his away games. Instead of just sitting around to wait for his games, I started taking my bike on the trips. In almost every city I began discovering beautiful parks, rivers, and greenway trails through nature. I will be blogging on some of them, so stay tuned in to our website. As I rode longer distances, I started getting tinging down my leg in my right foot. It started getting so bad, I had to cut my rides short. I am a physical therapist; I was determined to fix this.
I am sure everyone has heard of sciatica. Well the sciatic nerve runs from the lower spine, through the buttock and down the back of the leg. You stretch this nerve by bending your trunk forward (flexed), your head down, your knee straight (extended), and your foot and toes coming towards your body (dorsiflexed). It does split into different branches around your knee, and turning your foot in or out can also effect the stretch, but that is for another day.
Also the piriformis muscle which is located across your buttocks, contracts and relaxes repeatedly during cycling, which can compress the sciatic nerve due to its location. If your core or hips are weak, this can cause this muscle to overwork and become inflamed. This can put more pressure on your sciatic nerve.
Sitting on a bike or prolonged sitting in general, can cause that tingling down your leg and into your foot due to compressing this nerve. Here are 5 ways to stop this or improve these symptoms.
1.Have a good fitted seat and wear good padded biker shorts. I learned quickly how important this was. The padding or cushioning in the biker shorts is called chamois (pronounced “sham-wah”). You can’t have enough of that padding in my opinion. I try to look for extra padded shorts. Your Ischial Tuberosity (or “sitting bone” or “sitz bone”) serves as the weight bearing point when sitting. The glut maximus muscles covers the sitz bones when standing, but leaves it exposed when sitting. The sciatic nerve passes close to the Ischial Tuberosity when sitting; just a few inches medially (towards the midline of the body). When you ride a long time, the sciatic nerve can become irritated causing symptoms to travel down the leg or in the foot. Also if your seat is not fitted properly, it can cause you to veer off to one side. This can put more pressure on your sciatic nerve on one side, and cause you to overuse your piriformis muscle and further irritated your sciatic nerve.
Here are one of my favorite padded biker shorts on amazon: https://amzn.to/3KZ5fwJ
These are a new biker underwear I just got, and I am so excited about. I can wear regular leggings over them. These are a game changer for me. Check out the video below.
2. Slowly increase your distance when you begin riding. I tend to go all in right away. After not riding all winter, I will go for a 20 mile ride. My body is not prepared for this, so I will get sciatica from the prolonged posture, and my biking muscles are not used to the work load. This caused poor posturing, overfatigue and a lot of issues, sometimes preventing me from riding for awhile. I have learned to build up at a slower pace when I am starting back to cycling. I get less symptoms, and my muscles have more time to adapt to the new activity.
2. Coast at 9 and 3 o’clock. I know the recommended position when coasting is 9 and 3 o’clock. I was in a bad habit of coasting with my right leg extended and almost locked out, and my left left flexed. I also see most of my friends doing the same thing. When you do this, it puts a big stretch on your right sciatic nerve. As I am learning to do better at the 9 and 3 position, I will rotate and extend my left leg and flex my right. This relaxes the stretch on my sciatic nerve. It feels so good when I am starting to get that tingling. I even just gently pick my bottom off the seat when I am coasting. That relieves that pressure also.
3. Change positions when riding. Now I’m sure if you are a Tour de France rider this may not be possible. When your trunk is flexed forward with your leg extended it stretches that sciatic nerve. Nerves don’t handle prolonged stretching well. I will sit up straight and extend my back, or twist my trunk from side to side when I am coasting in a flat area. Of course safety is your first priority, so don’t do anything that makes you feel unsafe. I also don’t have clip-ins. I will take my foot off the pedal and move it around when I am going slow in a flat area. Again use your judgement and be safe. If that doesn’t work, stop and do some back extensions and rotations, and some nerve flosses on a break.
4. Stretch. Stretch before, stretch during and after. If I get off my bike and stretch for less than 5 min when I get the tingling feeling, I feel good for miles after. Focus on piriformis, hamstrings, hip flexors, heels, and then some nerve flosses. The video below shows a few of these stretches. Even getting off and walking around for a few minutes relieves that tension in your back.
https://youtu.be/7LHHky9yKBo?si=Jx9tLyWFblhqPNPv
5. Strengthen your core and glute muscles. A weak core or glutes can cause the piriformis to have to overwork to stabilize the hip joint while cycling. As above this in turn can irritate and inflame the piriformis muscle. This then can impinge the sciatic nerve which runs through or underneath the muscle. Also a weak core puts extra pressure on the low back which can cause pain. Get in the habit of strengthening these muscles along with working on your sciatic nerve flossing exercises on a regular basis. We have a program for this if you don’t know where to start. Go to youthfulphysicaltherapy.com then go to programs, click on the back and find the herniated disc program. This will show you how to do all the nerve glides, and walk you through a core and hip strengthening program.
I never want pain to stop me from doing the things I love. Look forward to seeing you on the trials with me!!
