I see a lot of cyclists who report experiencing neck pain as they start to ride longer or harder throughout the season. There are some simple adjustments that can be done to ensure a good fit on the bike and find cycling positions to avoid neck pain. In this blog, we are going to discuss three high-yield bike fit tips to avoid neck pain and feel your best on the bike.

Here are the most important considerations for cycling positions to avoid neck pain:

Stem height

There has been a trend over the years (especially in road bikes) to try to “slam” the stem as low as possible to drop the bars and be as aerodynamic as possible. While that may make you more “aero”, it comes at a pretty steep price for several aspects of your body and performance, and makes it difficult to find a cycling position to avoid neck pain. Here are three problems with a slammed stem:

Low stem and bars forces your neck into significant extension to be able to see down the road/trail. This puts extra stress through your spinal extensors, causing fatigue and subsequent neck pain.

 A low stem and bars also puts your chest and diaphragm at a disadvantaged position. This makes it harder for your body to breath correctly, resulting in decreased ability to take in oxygen and blow off carbon dioxide. This causes the muscles in the front of your neck to have to work harder to try and pull on the ribcage from above to ventilate, instead of expanding from below.

Lower bars put extra pressure through your shoulders. Most of the muscles that support our shoulders also influence the neck. If you constantly have to use more shoulder muscles to keep yourself in that position, the neck is going to tighten as well.

The ideal height of your stem is the height that allows you to have a neutral neck. What that means is your neck should feel fairly relaxed as you look down the trail or road. You shouldn’t feel any pinching in the back of the neck, or significant stretching in the front. Looking from the side, you shouldn’t have a hinge anywhere in your spine; it should look like a gentle curve

Bar width

Relatively speaking, the width of your bars should be similar to the width of your shoulders. Both too wide and too narrow can result in neck pain.

Too wide: If the bars are too wide, you have to reach further out, which puts your shoulders at a disadvantaged position to help support your upper body, puts more stress through your upper trap, and causes increased neck pain.

Too narrow: Bars that are too narrow cause restrictions at the ribcage and result in the same movement patterns I spoke about above; increased reliance on the front of the neck to try to ventilate the chest.

Reach

Similar to a low stem and being “aero”, a common bike positioning mistake I see is a really long reach. This can cause pain in the neck for a couple of reasons.

First, a longer reach requires more trunk stability to keep us in that flexed position. If we don’t have the abdominal strength to hold ourselves there, we will depend more on our arms and shoulders to hold ourselves up. This results in increased stress through the upper and mid trap, and subsequent neck pain.

A longer reach also requires more arm strength and shoulder mobility to remain in that position. If we don’t have that, we risk overusing the neck muscles to augment supporting the shoulders.  

 If you are looking for cycling positions to avoid neck pain, assess these three aspects of your bike fit. Whenever you do change a position on your bike, I always recommend riding it for 4-5 rides before making another change. Your body will take some time to get used to the changes you do make; you want to give it time to adjust.

Additionally, if you make changes to the bike and you’re still experiencing neck pain, it’s a good idea to get assessed by a physical therapist to evaluate where your body may need help in learning how to better support you on the bike. Whenever I have someone in for a bike fit, I am also assessing how their body may be communicating with the bike, not just the bike with the body.

My next steps for you:

1. Download my FREE Essential Bike Fit Checklist below to learn how to fit your bike to your body to get rid of your neck pain. (It’s right below!) 👇

2. Read further into bike fit info with my blog about hamstring pain and saddle height and sciatica on the bike

3. Read my colleague, coach Steve Weller’s blog about cycling and neck pain.

 And if you enjoyed reading about bike fits, your body, or physical therapy, be sure to join my bi-monthly newsletter, where you get all of that and more (think song recommendations, work out routines, and general feel goodness) delivered directly to your inbox!