A recent shoulder injury (partial dislocation) and a visit to a physio got me wondering about the links between the two. The physio says I'm hypermobile so my joints stretch further than normal and this can increase the risk of dislocations and the like.
I was told that bike setup may be worth looking into as I could be stretching too much and putting the shoulder in a position that is less stable and more prone to these incidents.
There's obviously plenty of other things I need to do, exercises, shoulder position etc... but I was wondering if anyone else had had similar issues and if they you made any amends to your bike setup or even how you rode.
I'm bookmarking with interest ...
My shoulders are screwed... I have to click them back in 20 times a day.... (usually decreasing away from last riding so I think riding does aggravate this)
I recently changed to a shorter stem and that seemed to help also raised it 10mm.... (65-50) The bike also felt nicer to boot... unfortunately I fractured my Radius 2 weekends ago before I can give a longer term feedback and the shoulder now hurts more than the fractured radius by a fair lot... and needs clicking back loads...
But I only got 3 weekends testing (and the shoulder does get better/worse anyway) before the accident (nothing to do with stem) so I can't really say except to try ??
Try some swept back bars - more natural angles might stress your shoulders less.
One-One OG are are cheap/good place to start.
When I spangled my shoulder last year (ACJ separation) I put some NC17 trekking bars on the commuter - sweepier, higher and further back. Much less weight through the hands, much less painful. Nice touring/pootling bar, wouldn't want to push it too hard downhill, though, but that's mainly because it was too sort and upright, and hardly any weight on the front. Bars might fine on the right bike though - Jones? 😉
Bars was my first thought when it comes to bike setup, the stem is already short. I recently increased bar width by 20mm but thought change was minor. Not sure on sweep change between bars so could check but I had considered that too yeah.
I'll add that it is my posture that needs the most work but any small changes that will help me keep this posture while riding can only be good.