How to Prep and Recover for Every Bike Ride

Whether you’re an avid biker or you enjoy a good ride every now and again as a hobby, it’s SO important to know how to prepare and recover from each and every ride!

Biking without preparation and recovery can cause injuries that we see and treat all of the time here at Physio Room. 

It’s a big mistake to just jump on your bike, go for a ride, and then head home without taking care of your body, prepping it for the ride, and recovering from the ride.

We want to help you avoid the pain and discomfort of a biking injury, so we encourage you to try this exercise the next time you’re getting ready for a ride. 

Activating your posterior chain will help remind your brain to activate the glutes at the appropriate time of the pedal stroke. You don’t need to fatigue those muscles, but give them a little boost to get through the ride.

You can activate and wake up your posterior chain by doing a basic squat motion. Assume a wide stance squat position and do a few overhead squats, slow and controlled. You could hold a PVC pipe over your head or kettlebell/dumbbell to your chest during these positions to activate a deeper stretch.

When you’re doing overhead squats, you’re turning on the posterior chain musculature of your back. 

Don’t do this exercise until your muscles feel fatigued or sore, just do enough reps to get them turning. 

There are other muscle groups and areas of the body to pay attention to when preparing to ride. Like the spine!

When you’re riding a bike, you spend a lot of time in a high phonic posture with a rounded back. When you sit in sustained postures like that, the spine tends to move backwards. 

When recovering from your ride, spend a little bit of time with a foam roller just below your shoulder blades. Extend that foam roller about 5-10 times, opening up the spine. 

You can also maintain a sustained position with the foam roller below your shoulder blades and relax into that position for about 20 or 30 seconds. It doesn’t have to be a long time, and you can do it at various levels of the spine.

But even if it’s just one level, you’re getting the repeated extension that is going to be beneficial to get your spine ready for the ride.

You can do this while you’re unwinding at the end of the night, watching TV, or even directly after your ride so you don’t forget. 
Want to watch and learn more about how to activate your muscles before your ride and how to recover after? Check out our full YouTube video featuring Dr. Nate Henry of Physio Room and Brian Maslach from Enduro Bites.