# Pain in upper buttocks/lower back- Bad gearing/form/setup?



## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

I have been adding miles this summer on my roadbike (up to 70-80 a week which isn't much I know, but I also play pretty intense tennis 3X a week).

I have noticed that after some longer rides (for me this means 20-30 miles) I have some pain and soreness at the top of my buttocks or lower back where they meet the next day.
The pain almost seems like aggravated nerves or something.

Where I really notice it is when I play tennis the next day ( I am a tournament level 4.5 player). It hurts to push off hard. I get some noticeable pain. It loosens up after about twenty minutes.
It actually does not bother me when I bike on the rides, even two longer ride days in a row.
Just afterwards.

It seems it may be from one of the following, but since I am kind of inexperienced I am not sure:

1) My gearing may be too hard on climbs or I am using too big a gear on flats too often?
2) I am seated 95% of the time on hills and can feel the pull at the spots where I have pain later on a tougher or longer climb.
3) Maybe my bike setup is not quite right? I have LeMond Zurich which I really like. It seems to fit very well. I ride with my hands on the hoods mostly, and sometimes in the drops.

This weekend I had a tournament and did not ride all since last Sunday. I played tennis everyday instead this week. By the end of the week and today in the tourney, I had no pain at all in my back and it did not hurt at all to push off hard/change directions/etc.

Any advice on this one?
I am really happy with my increased bike miles and my fitness has improved a lot from last year. My tennis has improved also from the increased fitness.

I want to continue to be able to do both 6 days a week (3 biking/3 tennis) with a rest day thrown in.
Thanks for looking


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## QuiQuaeQuod (Jan 24, 2003)

It is really hard to give you advice, because all sorts of things could be going on. A couple things come to my (not a medical doctor) mind.

First, if you can take a picture of your position on the bike, riding in profile, it would help diagnose any position problems. Actually, have someone ELSE take the picture, that will be easier. 

Second, when you are climbing, you might try spinning the pedals faster in a lower gear, and try to keep your upper body quiet. I have back problems (disc), and climbing OR pushing big gears can cause it to act up AFTER a ride. It seems like what you are describing could be that. 

Third, it also sounds like what my wife suffers from, which is bursitis. And guess what? Cycling actually makes bursitis WORSE, unlike most problems where cycling is good for you. For her, it is worse on one side, and if that is the case for you that might be an inidication. There are stretches and other physical therapy you can do to make things better if this is the case.

BTW, she also has one leg slightly shorter than the other, which made the problem worse. It never bothered her until we started to do long rides. MTBing did not do it, but sitting and spinning for 2+ hours set it off. You might check this too.

My guess is that it is a position issue, perhaps combined with a lack of flexibility and perhaps something going on in your technique when you climb. It might be that combined with bursitis. 

That's my non-medical guessing.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Dr. Hoo- 

Thanks for the reply.
On my ride today I tried to use easier gears and spin faster going up hills.
I even used the granny gear today on a bigger hill which I had not used ever.

Seemed to help. My ride today was pretty easy as I played 3 hours of tennis yesterday in high heat/humidity and it was already 90 degrees at 9:30 am this morning. I am still somewhat dehydrated from yesterday which was not a lot of fun.
It is going to be 106 degress here today.

I just wanted to ride to flush the soreness out of my legs from yesterday.
Only rode about 15 miles at 15 mph avg and 73% max HR avg.

Anyway, maybe learning to use my gears better and spin faster will help.
I think I tend to stay in too big a gear too often sometimes.
I have checked my cadence once in awhile and seem to be around 80 a lot.
From what I read, maybe I should work at spinning a bit higher which I rarely do.

No aftereffect soreness today that I can tell so far.


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## QuiQuaeQuod (Jan 24, 2003)

Well, that's the cheapest and easiest solution then! Spin a bit more rapidly in a smaller gear for a given speed, especially when climbing. The body adapts to longer rides over months and years, and you might be able to turn bigger gears without the pain after you have a few hundred more hours in the saddle. Or maybe not, since every body is different and reacts differently to riding. The important thing is to stay healthy and have fun! Good luck on staying pain free.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Dr hoo-

Well, we will see. You make a good point that my body has to adapt to more miles over time.
This pain started to happen when I put in about 125 miles one week and a couple of the rides were hard, hilly, and fast (for me).
I remember on one of those rides trying to use a big gear more often to build power (or so I thought).
I have since learned that controlled intervals is the better way to build power to start going faster.
Compared to most people here, I don't ride very many miles so I guess I do need to consider the adaptation element.

Is there any general rule about seat positon up or back contributing to certain ailments in general like with a seat too high or low creating certain knee problems?


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## QuiQuaeQuod (Jan 24, 2003)

There are lots of general rules, but there are plenty of exceptions to those rules.

Pain in the front of the knee means the saddle is too low. Pain in the back of the knee means the saddle is too high. For forward/back adjustment KOPS, knee over pedal spindle, is the general advice, but some people like to be more forward, others further back.

Here is a link, check the table for causes of knee pain. http://www.physsportsmed.com/issues/2004/0404/asplund.htm

No huge need to over think this stuff. If you keep having pain, then think about it more. If using smaller gears and spinning a higher cadence keeps the pain away, you are golden!


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Ok, it is now Monday the day after my short (15 miles) pretty easy ride.
I have some irritation again. Nothing major, but it is slightly inflamed where the lumbar erectors meet the upper glutes; or small of back. I could easily ride today, but I know it would bother me playing tennis and pushing off hard/sprinting until warmed up. 
I have about 1000 miles in since April and have noticed this since May when I upped my miles a bit. 

The articles below suggest that seat angle may have something to do with it.
I recall setting my seat flat with a level when I got my new seat.
The article seems to suggest a 10-15% rise.
Obviously I should also consider a professional bike fit also.

Any other thoughts?



http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=3003


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## QuiQuaeQuod (Jan 24, 2003)

Changing your saddle angle might create other problems. Like numbness in your nether regions! Try small changes, and realize that if you tilt the saddle up or down you might have to slightly move the seatpost up or down to maintain the same leg position. When changing positions, make small changes, one aspect at a time.

Also, maybe what you are feeling is affected by your ride before last. Inflamation that did not completely go down that you re-aggravated. It might take a few weeks for a more spinning style to get rid of the problem.

Plus, if it is bursitis, position won't change things. On my wife's bursitis, which is located right where you describe, it feels like a bag of tapioca pudding under the skin. Not exactly, but a lumpy fluid filled area. It feels the "grittiest" when it is most inflamed. So when you get that inflamation feel under the skin and see if you can feel a physical change from when it does not hurt.

I have pretty much exhausted my input on your problem. Maybe others will have more to say. If you post a pic of your body position on the bike, that might help too, or at least give me more to go on for positioning advice.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Dr. Hoo- 

Thanks for your input-you have been very helpful.
I am pretty sure I don't have bursitis. 
When I took 3-4 days off from cycling I was still playing tennis 1-2 hours a day this past week and the irritation went away completely by the 4th day of non-cycling.
I only rested one day last week.

I have decided to get a professional bike fit scheduled this week with a reptuable bike shop owner who is an experienced road racer.


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## carver (Aug 15, 2002)

*I know this issue...*

I know that pain. I'm 41, for years, I played a lot of tourney tennis 5.5/open. 2 summers ago I got tired of what I considered the incompatibility of tourney level tennis and road biking, mostly 90min to 3hrs rides with a good deal of climbing). At the end of the day, the combination of the pounding my body took on the court (lower back/buttocks, hips, feet) and the stretched position on a road bike, made it difficult to recover well for either. I decided to take time away from the court and focused on the cycling. I have not had that pain in the spot you describe in two seasons. Too big a gear, lack of flexibility, not enough recovery, etc - its all part of it.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Carver- 

Wow, 5.5 is some serious tennis. You must have played some Division I ball somewhere.
Yes, I feel like I am having to plan my rides and tennis workouts in such a way that I will be able to do each without too much extra irritation. The tennis seems to not aggaravte anything-the biking definitely does.

This weekend I played my best match of the summer after taking five days off the bike-no doubt my movement and first step were better with absolutely no pain at all.

I hope the bike fitting helps and using gears more effectively.
If not, I have problems as I love both tennis and road riding.


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## carver (Aug 15, 2002)

*It's Hard to Tell*

which activity irritated which - one is repetitive and consistently stressful, the other is stop start, push. A proper fitting, higher cadences, may go a long way to helping you. Diligent, but not excessive, stretching of the upper back, lower back, hips and pelvis keeps me loose. The spot that got me was just above and to the left of (pardon my french here) the crack. Not a whole lot of meat there, but there is a criss/cross of tissues. Obviously when we ride on the hoods or in the drops the muscles around this area are getting fired up. After hard tennis, I found that was the area that I needed to rest and let recover well. I am a die hard serve and volley hardcourt player, but without the grace of Edberg or the atheticism of Rafter or the serve of Sampras. As fun and exhiliarating as it is for me (think a rat pressing the lever in the cage for sugar water), s & v just beats on the body. So I am taking a break and damn if my back, hips and feet aren't as fit as they've been in 15 years. I'll get back on the court soon to workout and have some fun.

Once upon a lifetime, played some hard hitting tennis, when the competitive juices really flowed. A couple years ago when the nagging injuries wouldn't go away, I began to be almost ambivalent about winning or losing matches, and that sort of took the wind out of my sails. You know how that goes. I think a balance can be struck between fairly serious tennis and fairly serious riding, but it does take patience and the willingness sit out for a few days. 

Later---





Lkdog said:


> Carver-
> 
> Wow, 5.5 is some serious tennis. You must have played some Division I ball somewhere.
> Yes, I feel like I am having to plan my rides and tennis workouts in such a way that I will be able to do each without too much extra irritation. The tennis seems to not aggaravte anything-the biking definitely does.
> ...


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## Jesse D Smith (Jun 11, 2005)

Lkdog said:


> I have been adding miles this summer on my roadbike (up to 70-80 a week which isn't much I know, but I also play pretty intense tennis 3X a week).
> 
> I have noticed that after some longer rides (for me this means 20-30 miles) I have some pain and soreness at the top of my buttocks or lower back where they meet the next day.
> The pain almost seems like aggravated nerves or something.
> ...



There's a possibility your arms are fatigued from the tennis, so you're using your back to hold yourself upright, off the handlebars instead of using more of your arms/triceps.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Jessie/Carver-

Well, you bring up good points that my back issue may not be as unrelated to tennis as I want to think.

I did get a Bike Shop bike fit today. They did not use any high tech system, but did some seated observation and measurements/adjustments and riding observations.
They lowered my seat 1/8" as they felt it was a bit too high after having me seated stationary and and also watching me ride; upped the angle of the seat slightly which had a slight downward tilt for some reason (maybe over time had slipped down a bit), and adjusted my stem (reversed it) and handlebar angle. He felt all of these very minor changes should hopefully relieve some of the pull and work by the lower back.
I rode home (3 miles) and noticed that the changes seemed to isolate my quads more for lack of a better way to put it and seems to have changed the angle of how I am sitting.
We will see how it works out.
They also want to me to check back with them next week after a couple rides to monitor how the changes seemd to impact me.
Will report back.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Brief preliminary update.

I did 25 miles last night and worked pretty hard (avg 80% Max HR), lots of intervals, and included three shorter but tough hills.
Did not feel the typical "pulling" in that lower back area when doing hills or when I did a couple interval sprints in big gears.

I did feel, again, that sense that my legs were more isolated. Specifically the quads.
After the ride my quads felt a little rubbery and I was really beat. I had only ridden once in the last ten days so my system was not used to a harder ride or any ride for that matter.

No pain afterwards last night.
This morning only a slight twinge at times in that area as compared to before where every time I went up steps or got out of the car the next day I would feel some irritation in the back and down the leg, on the right side especially.

This seems promising. I play tennis tonight. Will see how that feels, but I am hopeful that I don't think I am going to have to go through the twenty minutes of warmup and hobbling before it loosens up and I can run normally.


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## QuiQuaeQuod (Jan 24, 2003)

It sounds good so far!

It sounds like the bike shop raised your upper body a bit by flipping the stem (higher I assume). Raising the torso and lowering the saddle WILL work the quads more. I feel this on my MTB, where I do more work with the quads because of a more upright position. Give it a few rides and you will stop noticing it.

Sometimes lowering the saddle can lead to knee pain (front of the knee) if it is TOO low. Just something to keep in mind. Chances are it won't hurt for you, but if it does you might need to re-raise the saddle just a bit (I would start with 1/16th an inch first). But if your knee did not hurt after the hard ride you did, it will probably not hurt at all.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Yes, they flpped the stem to make it lower actually I think, but on the other hand they raised the way the handlebars were setup to get me more upright.
Combined with raising the seat angle- I do feel "more upright" as you say.
It feels like there is a curve in the small of my back now where as before there was not.
Yes, the quad thing will take some getting used to! 
I had to laugh about how rubbery my quads felt last night.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

So far so good.
Tennis Thursday-minimal discomfort.
Biked Friday.
Tennis today-minimal pain.
Seems like the adjustments are a big step in the right direction.
Moral of Story I guess----get a bike fit and stretch.


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## elvisVerde (Jul 17, 2005)

*While it is true it could be a number of things, here is one more...*

I had a similar sounding problem for years, and I offer this tale just one more possible solution to your situation. You want to make sure that you are not heading down my path by taking care now with your movements, activities, and stretching (and I don't mean more is better, either).

For me the condition was sometimes worse, sometimes better, but always there. I thought that it was muscular, and the vagueness of medical diagnoses didn't help find cause or cure. Ultimately, it spiraled into a situation that demanded surgery.
I believe it was always the same thing, just a question of degree. What was it? What many people with "back pain" have, but which seems to go undiagnosed or where symptoms are treated hopefully, and the cause remains obscured. 

Humans don't have a very well designed lumbar section. We screw up the discs, the bone, and surrounding nerve and other tissues. It is a difficult region to diagnose problems in: some people have few problems and little pain with full-on disc ruptures, others have pain without major rupture. I have some pretty torn up stuff down there, the worst being a ruptured disc. I had some pain in the lumbar area, but a big pain in the butt, and ultimately weakness in the leg.

They went in, excised the protruding disc (which was smashing the hell out of a nerve), cleaned out the intervertebral space, and the pain and debilitation were gone. Ta-da. Things are not 100%, but they are better and I am starting to ride again. Many people are teetering on the edge of similar back incidents. They get "sore" or "stiff" or "a pain in the butt or leg" and its very likely the same general thing thing that got me. Take care of your back. Like the saying goes "bend at the knees, not with your back".


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## carver (Aug 15, 2002)

*Good News...*

Small adjustments on the bike will be the order of the day. Sounds like as you get more comfortable with the tennis/biking routine, you'll get fitter, that is to say - you're body gets less sore, as its adapting to different stresses. ElvisVerde mentioned it, worth mentioning again, more stretching is not better, stretching with a purpose is the ticket. Keep it short and sweet and the results will show in no time. He also mentioned the disc issue, I know of several friends in their late 30's and early 40's who suffer through the pain of torn/ruptured/heriated disc. It's amazing how one very small part can have great effect on the entire body, forcing it to compensate every which way. 

Cheers--





Lkdog said:


> So far so good.
> Tennis Thursday-minimal discomfort.
> Biked Friday.
> Tennis today-minimal pain.
> ...


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## AlexCad5 (Jan 2, 2005)

Jumping into the middle here. Not a tennis player so I can't comment on the cross training aspect - it seems to have been covered. But why don't you ride in the first part of the week and play tennis on the weekend (or vice versa.) Alternating may be making the problem worse.

Couple of thoughts.

Cycling requires very strong back muscles. It is likely that you just need to build them up. Most immediately go to the gym and do some back extentions. This should help. A strong back is great for sex too! As an added bonus.

I ride almost exclusively for excercise. In the gym I am relatively week in all areas (I don't work out my legs at the gym) except for my back.
On a back extention machine, I can do three sets of reps, 15+ time each, with the FULL STACK.
Cycling will ultimately make your back very strong, but in the meantime, it can make it very sore.

Also with cycling, Lactic Acid is a major factor in pain. Now, you aren't working that hard at 73% but lactic acid could be a culprit here. When I have back pain, it is always lactic - but I ride much harder and longer than you are discribing.

As your body learns to flush lactic better, the pain from lactic acid will subside. 

Get your bike fitted. Find a shop that really knows their stuff. Ask about this in the local boards in RBReview. Well worth the money. Don't mess up your back because you want to save a couple of bucks.


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## Lkdog (Oct 6, 2004)

Thanks for the input.

I did a fairly long easy (72% Max HR avg) ride Sunday (30 miles) with no real issues the next day.
Last night after a rest day on Monday, I did an interval workout of 4X7 minutes @ approx lactic acid level (88-92% Max HR) with three minutes of 70-75% HR in between. With warm down about a 55 minute ride total.
A couple of the intervals had some tough shorter hills that I rode pretty hard to keep my HR at around the 90% level.
Happily, I feel very good today.
I do think that there is no doubt a general adaptation issue as I ride more this summer, but the bike fit seems to have really helped.


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