Bicycles + (Bodies in motion) = Bicycle Fitting
injuries? What issues have your previous bikes given you? Your current bike? What medical issues do they have? Any surgeries in the last decade? And on and on, until we've got a complete picture of them as an athlete and as a rider. 2. Movement Screening
limitations lie. This is where I can bring my 13 years as a PT into the mix even more. It's important to be able to assess, for instance, if that joint restriction into external rotation is quantifiably large enough to cause a problem later. Even more important what is the quality of movement in that hip? We also employ the FMS or Functional Movement Screen into our assessments. The FMS was developed by Gray Cook, PT in order to get a fuller picture of an athletes movement patterns, and find the relationships between weaknesses and restrictions. The FMS is a very powerful tool, but takes many years of practice to effectively grade and accurately interpret. 3. Gross pedaling evaluation
there may be a "hitch" or some asymmetric movement pattern -- I'm again looking at quality of movement. I can't claim to be able to accurately quantify it (yet -- see the next step) at this stage of the process.
pictures/video are a terrible way to measure on a bike -- just something to show the client.
metetarsal joint, heel, lateral maleolus (outside ankle bone), knee joint (extremely important to understand the difference between the center of rotation at the knee joint and other landmarks), greater trochanter of the hip, shoulder joint (again, center of rotation), elbow, and wrist.
the wiring harness, flash infrared light, of course, and these are read by the infrared "eye" or receiver nine (9) times a second. The receiver picks them up with an accuracy of within 0.2 millimeters -- equivalent to the thickness of about 2 sheets of paper.
straightening for example), but because of how quick and accurate it is, it can also tell when, for instance the knee LED is even fractionally closer or farther away from the receiver, which gives us a depth measurement -- the 3rd dimension. It renders this as "Knee Lateral Travel" which tells us how much wobbling that knee might do during the pedal stroke, so we know whether it is diving in at the bottom of the stroke, and out at the top? or the opposite? And also, it tells us how many degrees from the vertical this angle is.
there must be a skilled fitter who can assimilate all this data and first of all decide what is a problem. This is harder than you would think. With all this great information, there are a lot of red herrings in there. If you weren't skilled in anatomy, injury science, and you don't practice and work with movement analysis every day then it will be exceptionally difficult to wade through the data effectively. You can be taught some of the basics (at Retul's University -- weekend course on how to use the Retul), but that will really only scratch the surface. Even the Retul folks will tell you, the way to become an expert is to do it hundreds and thousands of times, and each time you get a small piece you can take with you. If you're knowledge base to begin with is great and you "practice a lot (as a full time PT, ATC, or equivalent would), then the pieces you get are a little bigger. If you're knowledge base is smaller (no post-graduate study and no real day-to-day practice) then your pieces will be pretty small.
through the data, make changes to the fit, and retest. Then repeat until the results start to show up. Changes we make may entail moving the saddle, and bar position, but also very specific shimming and canting of the cleats. We have to take the rider as a whole, because of Regional Interdependence, which basically is that something at one end of the body can affect the quality or quantity of movement at the other end. This is the difficult part -- knowing when solving someone's neck pain on the bike may be predicated on changing the orientation of their cleats (yes, it does happen -- a lot more than you would think). 5. Zin
then it's time to record the bike setup. After all, if we're going to such great lengths to measure the body, we better be able to get a super-accurate measurement of the bike so that if the saddle or bars are moved for any reason we can get them back into the "perfect" position again.
sequence of touching the wand to all the parts of the bike. Each time you do so, that part is logged in (again, same accuracy - 0.2 mm) to it's exact point in space (and in 3-dimensions). We can print out these dimension into a user friendly page that even gives little pictures and descriptions of what is being measured. This way the client has something to refer to if they ever need to move or replace a bike part. 6. Wrap-up
did. I've also identified certain limitations the client has that, if they get worse, could negatively impact their fit, so most clients also get some specific exercises tailored to their needs and limitations. I guess it's the PT in me. Lastly we make plans to follow up (everyone gets a follow up, and they are free for the first 12 months after the fitting on that bike). |
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