and how do I avoid it? I’ve never suffered from it before, however went out on the roadie again today to explore my new surroundings in the Welsh Valleys and just coming up to a climb, not an especially big one just an incline, spinning quite merrily, no extra effort really, I got an incredible ‘stitch’ which had me bend double and nearly made me stop, managed to ride through it, but it got me wondering what is it, what caused it and more importantly how do I combat/avoid it? I was fully hydrated and fuelled, using my usual drink/foods so no dietary change, and the weather was a combination of cool wind and slight rain but nothing extreme. Cheers all in advance for any hints or tips.

I think it means you’ve not digested your food enough – too much blood around stomach?

It’s one of those things where it seems there’s no real agreement on it’s cause.

I think there are several explanations from diaphragm cramp to a bouncing liver pulling on muscles. Try to breathe shallow, don’t concentrate on the stitch, stop, or press with your fingers just under your ribs hard to make the contraction go away. If you’re running alternate the foot that you breathe in with the foot that you breathe out.

Spasm in the (here goes) diaphraghm (?) isn’t it?

Usually caused by a sudden drop in air temperature combined with a sudden increase in volume of air intaken.

Stop me if I’m wrong…?

You just pinched a bit of lung between a couple of ribs. Maybe.

Most people I’ve talked to (when I used to run) agree with me, that you can just carry on doing what you’re doing and “run it off”. A case of MTFU, then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_stitch

Sometimes you can run off a stitch, sometimes you can’t.

Iminent death, basically..

DrP

(By iminent, I mean within the next 80 years)

I did just MTFU and carry on through it although I did ease back slightly, was just curious as to if the STW massif, had any ideas or theories about it….

Go with whatever works for you seems to be about the best advice for stitch

when running, you can avoid stiches by coordinating foot strike with breathing in and out.

not sure how that translates to biking tho!

The only thing that sometimes works for me is at the first sign of a stitch I do 5 full inhales and exhales (forcing all the air out). No clue why it works but just stopping exercise and trying to control breathing doesn’t have the same effect so it’s doing something to help, that said if you try and go at a really high intensity straight after then it can return.

It’s a cramp of the inter-costal muscles. So…as with any cramp, backing off a bit and allowing your body to remove the built up-lactate that’s caused the cramp in the first place will cure it.

Interesting advice on the ‘footfall-breathing’ hpothesis above. Translating that to cycling would mean…choreographing breathing rate with cadence and power output in order that you don’t exceed your body’s lactate threshold… at a guess.

(By iminent, I mean within the next 80 years)

PMSL!! 😀