[Closed] Arm pump

Have you changed anything? New compression top or elbow armour? Too nervous and holding on too tight? Thicker grips? Too much low speed compression damping?

Correct brake lever reach position and one finger braking can be a help.

Thin grips, carbon bars, and adjust your levers so that your hand and wrist are in a straight line when braking.

That said, all the above are personal preferences, might not suit you.

there was a good video with a few exercises to combat arm pump.

It was rynos gym with aaron gwin. Vital mtb website seems to be down for me though atm?

anyway.. the botttom line aside from the exercises was ride long rough descents more.

Don't grip the bars so tightly and don't feather your brakes! Just rest your hands on the bars, you don't need to grip them, you're trying to control a big gyroscope that wants to go in a straight line, so don't grip tight and fight it!

Also riders tend to 'feather' the levers, just taking up the 'slack' before the bite point. Adjust the bite point better and let them go and just brake when you need to!

All the above suggestions can work, but they are not THE solution, you need to try and find yours. I have never had arm pump and use thick grips, Ali bars and two finger braking coz that's what suits me and what I'm used to my MTB's and motorcycles.

^^^^ what 100mphplus said. also try to brake on the smoother bits and give the bike it's head on the rougher bits. IMHO braking on the rough bits screws it all up.

cheers guys, just never suffered with it before

a power ball sorted it for me,

[url= http://www.nsdball.com ]power ball[/url]

Lift some weights.

strength, positioning, clothing, pads etc can all be factors, solution may be a combination of all those things.

Get stronger but look at how your bike is set-up

Is it simply that you are going further?

adjust your levers so that your hand and wrist are in a straight line when braking.

I disagree. If you do this then you can only grip the bar with a small amount of your palm medially. Lift your levers up and it enables more contact across your palm, spreading the load across the muscles and giving less fatigue. Worked wonders for me. Other opinions my also be valid. Horses for courses.

honourablegeorge - Member

Thin grips ... and adjust your levers so that your hand and wrist are in a straight line when braking.

and hey presto! - arm pump.

+1 ahwiles

Spent most of my adult life in the gym so strength isn't the problem only the last few months suffered with it that's y I find it odd

Death grip

Avoid dragging brakes, try releasing completely over obstacles and then braking harder afterwards. When braking, resist with your feet not with your hands. In general balance completely on the pedals and only push the bars when needed e.g into corners and drops ,and don't lean on them. Use your feet. Helped me loads with balance, tech, and saving energy.

I have arms like TRex BTW

Thing here is that there's no one thing that causes arm pump- in fact there's no one "arm pump", it gets used to describe loads of different things. Mate of mine gets it if he wears elbow pads with straps on the forearms. I used to get it on hard braking on the motorbike, fixed that with lot of slow pushups... But another mate of mine ended up getting surgery as the explanation he was given was that it was overdeveloped muscles in the forearm, caused by- hard braking and slow pushups! Sometimes it's the action of the hand braking, sometimes it's the pressure on the arms, all sorts.

Mess around with your contact points and riding position, try things that you don't think will help as it's all a bit counterintuitive, something might help. Fat grips can help, thin grips can help, flat or dropped or raised brake levers can help too.

true arm pump is when your muscles "pump" up to the point where the membrane around them can no longer expand so the muscles start to strangle their own blood supply by compressing the blood vessels.
no amount of weight training can help it in fact it often makes it worse, top level MX riders have been known to have surgery to cut the membrane and let it regrow slightly larger.
most people aren't getting arm pump in the true sense of the word though, its just fatigue usually from death grip and bad riding positions.

Here's some good info regarding arm pump
[url= http://www.dirtbikemagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=BC2FF52C2DC146249FF42F763671CCAB ]Arm Pump info[/url]