Why are my hands falling asleep?

Yesterday, I got on my road bike for the first time in 6-months. On the one hand, it was a fantastic ride - the SS MTB riding I've been doing has made me at least twice the road-rider I've ever been.

But, about half-way through my 20 mile ride, my hands fell asleep, and stayed that way. This doesn't seem normal. Any ideas as to why this is happening?

My guesses:

• My Handle Bars Are Tilted Too Far Down
• My Frame's Too Small
• My Seat's Either Too High Or Too Low
• Some Arcane Point of Road Bike Geometry Of Which I'm Unaware

Also, my shoulder and neck muscles are horribly sore today - maybe connected?

I don't plan on doing a ton of road biking, so I'm hoping to avoid going down to a bike shop for a $100+ fitting, but It'd be nice if I could avoid cutting off the blood flow to my extremities thing.

 

For the first 6 months of road riding, my left hand would go numb relatively quickly when on the hoods. And it wasn't my whole hand, just my pinkie/ring finger, and to the point where you could poke my fingers and I'd barely feel it. It was getting pretty scary to how much of my hand would go numb just sitting there.

I ended up moving the hoods up and inward for my small hands and that seems to have done the trick.

 

I had the same issue, found that they were way off in position when I got my bike fit. It was so bad that one was actually lower then another , but both were too low.

 

You're probably just resting too much weight on the palms of your hands which is cutting off the blood circulation and causing your hands to go numb.

 

Ahh - thanks. I'll give that a try.

 

Questions:

1. Is it your whole hand? Or just a few fingers? See carpal tunnel syndrome on WebMD for the differences.

2. What kind of gloves do you use?

3. How often do you vary your hand positions?

4. Age? Ht? Wt?

5. Bike size/make/model (will help with geometry)

6. Do anything else besides ride?

Generally, the hands asleep comes from nerve pressure on the hands...if its only a few fingers then the whole hand, it means you're spending too long in one position. If the whole hand goes, either you're death-gripping (would also lead to neck/shoulder soreness..but you also MTB, so I doubt that), or you need to strengthen the whole hand/wrist/fingers. REI's rock climbing section has a couple of different tools from the putty to gyroballs.

The neck/shoulder is a combo of new riding position, core fitness that's not quite what it should be for that riding position, and probably the vibration coming through the bike that is normally dampened on an MTB through the tire and shock before it even gets to your body.

End of Chapter 1.

 

So, does that mean I need to just adjust my position (try to keep more weight on my butt and feet, and less on my hands) or that I need to adjust the setup of my bike?

 

Rotate the bars lower so your hands fit without sliding forward.

 

My Whole Hand

I bare-handed it.

Well, once the numbness started, I tried moving around - and that seemed to help, but it kept coming back.

27, 215lbs, 6'0" (I wear my fatcyclist shirt unironically )

Bottom of the line Specialized Allez from ~2005-2006. I'll check the size when I get home.

I'm guessing sitting at a desk all day and playing video games for recreation isn't what you're looking for?

If by "not quite what it should be" you mean nonexistint, you're probably right on the money

 

It's hard to say with out seeing you on the bike but you'll probably have to change your set up. It's usually the set up that forces the rider in the wrong position and the rest is technique. Typiclly, with the bike set up correctly the correct body position will fall into place. Go to a reputable bike shop. They should be able to help you with the proper set up of your bike to your body type.

 

Quick fix...try some gloves for the hands. A little padding might delay the problem. And you get that way-cool finger-tan.

For the bars...the part immediately to the rear of the hoods on top should be horizontal...this is a good starting point and allows the hands to rest right where the hoods meet the bars and allows you to shift the hands a little higher/lower on the hoods to find a comfortable spot and still shift/brake.

Here's a too-long article on bike fit for triathletes, but has good info for roadies if you can find it. http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/techctr/bikefit.html

I always follow the rule of if your hands are at the bottom of the drops, arms straight, then they should form a 90-degree angle with your torso...

Long solution...I use a Dynaflex hand exerciser http://www.rei.com/product/787692 10 minutes a day. I had my hands falling asleep even shifting positions and had neck and shoulder pain after long rides...200 mile road rides and 12-hr Temecula put me out of action for a week each. Yeah it looks funny, but no more problems with hands, shoulder, and neck/back after a few weeks of use, and still use it 4-5 times/week.

 

Gloves I can do. Plus, the throngs of decked out roadies that plague Redlands in outfits that cost more than my bike will be impressed with my awesome $6 Jenson Parking Lot Sale downhill gloves.

 

Did you used to ride this road bike alot before 6 months ago? Did you have the same problem then?


:-k

 

When I started going on longer road rides, I had troubles with numbness in the fingers of both hands. I did a number of things to put less pressure on my hands. Nothing seemed to work, at first. But eventually the problem went away.

It was the same on any given ride--once my fingers started falling asleep, I would have problems for the rest of the ride (even though changing positions kinda helped). But if I was changing hand position before the problem presented, it would take longer.

I hope it's easier for you to track down your problem. But don't give up. There are a lot of things to try including double-wrapping your bars. Especially if they are a small diameter to begin with.

PS I love when my Dakine Covert gloves keep my fingers warm on a road ride while my friends freeze in their fingerless gloves. Function>Fashion.

 

I had a similar experience myself. Got a bike and after about a month of riding the tip of my right pointer finger started going numb, felt sort of like "pins and needles" that never went away. Then the sensation worked its way down the whole finger and eventually into my right thumb too. Needless to say, it was getting pretty annoying and was uncomfortable but since I don’t have insurance anymore I had no plans to do anything about it until my whole arm was numb. Luckily I bought a setback seatpost and over the last few weeks the numbness has been going away and now I barely notice it at all. I did not expect a seatpost to fix numbness in my finger but it did. Lucky me!

So anyway, maybe a minor adjustment can solve your problem too. Best of luck.

 

What you want to do is just make small adjustments at a time. a mm, here and a mm here.

Gloves, you might want to consider are the ones that have a channel running down the middle so your ulnar nerve doesn't lose blood flow as this is the most common problem with numbness, or falling asleep.

 

ya wht he said i found tht my hand would go numb be cuse i put so much wight on them, but if i moved my bum back and just relaxed my grip i would go away

 

Try tilting the nose of your seat up a little. It worked for me.

 

A pair of Specialized BG gloves definitely helped with my numb/tingly hands. For $35 at Rock N Road, it was well worth it for me; they even come fingerless or full-finger.

http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCEqProduct.jsp?spid=43323&menuItemId=0&eid=1366

 

Locking your arms at the elbows could cause this - so raising the hoods by tilting the bars up could help bring them closer and prevent you from locking your elbows.

Gloves probably won't hurt - but in general gloves will prevent abrasion on the skin surfaces of your hand rather than cure what seems to be ailing you. Gloves are good if you fall though - so they are a safety feature as well. In my experience the BG gloves from Specialized and other gloves with fairly thick padding make hand pain worse, because you have to squeeze your hand tighter to feel like you have a grip on the bar or to reach a shifter. I prefer very thin gloves like the Pearl Izumi pittards glove but that's just a personal preference.

The shoulder soreness is typically normal for someone just getting back onto the road bike. If you keep at it that should go away. If that doesn't progressively get better with further mileage then it could be a sign of something else that's wrong.

Good luck and keep at it - no better way to get fit than to ride both on and off road!