I've actually been wondering about this. When I got my fit done (by a reputable FIST and Retul certified fitter), I was super comfortable, but I didn't feel like I was generating enough power from my core. So he had me lower the saddle (mind you, this was after I'd raced with this setup and without my being in his studio at the time, so I may have overdone it), which seemed to help.

But at last weekend's Rhode Island 70.3, I got a shooting pain in my right lower back, kinda where everything feels like it "connects." Had been happening on long rides sometimes, but not this bad.

Calling him today to schedule a time to come back in. There has to be a balance between generating power/hip rotation and not making the saddle way too low. Or am I confused?

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Couple of thoughts come to mind here....but lowering saddle may have just caused you to ride more slack which will get you behind the bottom bracket more giving you power in the form of leverage from your glutes...but sounds like you could be bending and not rotating your pelvis....if your pelvis actually rotates you will feel like you want to ride steeper to get on top of the pedal stroke....your seat shouldn't feel to low and you also don't want the force of your pedal stroke pushing you off the back of your seat.....lower back and hip pain at high efforts would certainly be a concern here......I wasn't saying lower yor seat for the purposr of lowering it....but to start the process by giving your pelvis a chance to roll foward and start the fitting process from there....this is a big reason I see people not getting areo or riding to steep for the amount of drop they have.....minor tweaks make a huge difference functionally even if all your angles measure out....

There has to be a balance between generating power/hip rotation and not making the saddle way too low. Or am I confused?

Relaxing and extending the stomach and relaxing the lower back, is what you want to achieve I think. At least I do... it's the only way for me to deal with back pain. Keeping the core relaxed feels *less* powerful, but it isn't when you get used to it.

^^^^Yes this...The relaxation comes in the form of pelvic stablity and balance with respect to center of gravity...key for any athletic sport/movement...Sometimes pushing towards the back of the seat helps people relax their pelvis foward and down with out being jammed and/or sliding down onto the nose of the saddle...This is why some saddles and or riders tilt the nose up a touch...See Chris Lieto's saddle...Rider aren't not tilting those up to sit ON them, but to sit towards the back of the seat and let there pelvis rest (lay) into them when they rotate...

Have you actually felt you Pelvis Rotate?


that is the key phrase in Penn state showers

I was waiting for a good ol' fashioned 'that's what she said' but that's just over the top.

ouch
i ?bent? my pelvis when i ran out of conditioner

I thought I'd bump this.. Big in my topic you mention to get the selle smp composit tilted down quite a bit 5 degrees is maximum. I have gone with 1.5-2 degrees down I feel more stable and planted and I feel I the rotation more then with it tilted down more then 2 degrees I also use glutes more.. The only thing now is that the saddle is very far back and climbing doesn't feel smooth, feels as if I have to reach for the pedal I may need to lower it untill I feel fluid, I hope this doesn't close my hip angle even more as I may hit thighs to chest .

Heck yes you Big knucklehead! You helped me through that a few years ago when I stumbled on the Adamo and my body let me rotate on my tuberosities naturally. I was so amazed it suddenly wasn't a matter of trying to lower my stem for aero's sake, but rather I HAD to lower it to get comfortable in the shoulders. Adamo was the key, you helped the rest. Insane eureka moment for me after over 25 years of agony in the tt position.

For all the amazing innovations I have seen since the 80's I feel saddle options and fitter knowlege on how/where to sit are the single best things to happen to tt positions. My tt position on a 25 pound, steel tubed frame with training wheels and an Adamo would be faster than my old position on a 10k super bike with the wrong saddle.

I was so amazed it suddenly wasn't a matter of trying to lower my stem for aero's sake, but rather I HAD to lower it to get comfortable in the shoulders.

I had agony in every position. Back trouble. It was a bit less with a high position, but that was all posture and how I was engaging muscles. I never understood "rotating your pelvis". That just made it worse.

Then one day when I was experimenting, I finally "got it". You can't just rotate the pelvis and pedal like usual. I was accustomed to using a lot of core tension to brace against, and that was the problem. When I relaxed my stomach and lower back I had to pedal differently. It felt like I was losing all my "power", but I adapted quickly. It immediately felt fine to go very low in the front, and I've been doing it ever since.

It has nothing to do with flexibility. It has everything to do with posture and core tension.

Yup there was a disconnect with me forever. Big definitely helped me in spades unnerstan what I was after. It was also a revelation in finding out just how narrow the effective hip angle was for my best power(this is where having a powertap was huge for me). I had maybe 3cm of spacers under my -10* stem on my P3al and it was painful.....and ended up having to find a lopro dust cover, -40* stem and a completely different cockpit to get low enough to release the tension in my shoulders. It was the first time I ever felt my glutes in my pedal stroke akin to doing a squat rather than just a little section of my vastus medialis working.....everything just became relaxing.....then I realized it was time to put the hurt on but in a GOOD way now.

Preach

Although, I have encountered maybe one or two people over the past few years who have, literally, NO hip mobility.

You have to think of the bike saddle as - "An implement of postural alignment or change"

It's just like a pair of shoes, ski boots, skates, etc. And better ( or worse) the saddle acts like ART (active release therapy) and alters your pelvic structure by application of compressive forces while your body/legs are moving through a range of motion.

So it's key that whatever the fit, it works with the skeletal structure of the body, balanced and not against it.

During my bike seat fit session I "argued" with the fitter about power on the bike. He said "The road position is most powerful" which I was setup up as. Sure I go but watch this.... So then I jump on my commuter aero pads, lean on my elbows and start churning in aero position without contact on the seat. I was pushing the same or better watts. Fitter says "you can't sustain that" I said "what time do you close?" He says "you can't do 5 hours like that" Ok... let's not get ridiculous.

I was pretty dialed into Tri and aero riding, if not for the saddle imbalance left/right taking me out. So that is the next challenge. Perhaps for Tri fitting we start at the bars and move back, opposite of the road fit, where they start at the seat & pedals then set the bars. So from that "semi-climb" in aero, just scoot a saddle underneath in the right height and position <>.

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You have to think of the bike saddle as - "An implement of postural alignment or change"

I never did anything with the saddle. It's tilted up a bit at the nose like usual. I tried an Adamo briefly but didn't like it. I never do TTs for more than 40k, and on the road I'm never super low for very long at a time.

I still have some arch in my back. The big change is how relaxed my core is and how easy it is to get low.

I feel like if I were wearing a belt, the buckle would be facing somewhere in the vicinity of the bottom bracket.

The statement about the saddle is just a general one for the purposes of this thread. That if you do spend a lot of time, or even short times but on a regular basis with a bike position, it will be modifying your posture/pelvis in some way. So it is a highly important piece of equipment.

Biking is pretty balanced if done correctly - riding cross country, touring are all examples that it is. I just learned to ride this way like yesterday.

But is the TT/Tri position in that category? Not according to my fitter - "TT riders are not comfortable and can only last like that for around an hour" Which is a perfect observation because that is what the pros do. Ride bike all day long, TT for a short stages here or there.

Can a Tri position be balanced?

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Another thing that resonated with my postural muscles was ensuring I was bending at the hips and not the waist. For years with my tuberosities not wanting to rotate due to soft tissue pain on the saddle my option to rotate was bending at the waist effectively turning off the potential of the kinetic chain. Pretty much any athletic endeavor we partake in doesn't fare well mechanically with 'slouching' or bending at the waist. When I was going through rehab after back surgery this was ingrained in my noggin, but I was never able to facilitate the movement on a saddle.

Big if you read this thanks for dumbing it down for me.....never clicked until you went full 1st grade on me!

I held too much tension in my low back.. I have grown some muscle mass there from the burning sensation from pushing through the pain.. until I learnt how to rotate pelvis I feel more glutes and it somehow relaxes low back more.. although I'm still playing around with my fit..

tigerpaws I need your help!! I am a new road biker, and I think I am experiencing the same issues that you had, I have been desperately trying to find the solution and I hope you can help me (and my future generations lol) since Big doesnt seem to be here any longer.

I came from weight lifting background, so I understand hip rotation + good posture = more glutes. This is the reason I bought a bike slightly bigger because I felt squeezed in when im in the aero position with the slightly smaller frame when i rotate my hips. But after a couple of weeks riding this new bad boy, I get the "numbnuts" caused by too much pressure in my sensitive area. My friends told me to actually bend my back, which I did not like but it relieves the pressure. This position made me over reach the handle bar, so I got a shorter stem because of that. But now I dont feel my glutes when im in aero position, and this bothers me soooo much because it is my strongest muscle, and just bad for my posture i think.

So how did you solve this perineal pressure issue when rotating your hips? I just started thinking of getting a new saddle with a channel or cutout in the middle and also the noseless saddle, what do you think? and which saddle do you use? and how about the tilt of your saddle? Please help me... I dont want to stop biking but I dont want to bike without my full potential either.

Hey Denny. First off I am not a bike fitter, but I do have close to 30 years of saddle time under my belt and I have experienced just about every discomfort imaginable on two wheels!

At the end of the day it finally came to a really bad situation of prostatitis several years ago and I switched to an Adamo Road. The way I sit on it and set it up: I don't pay attention to rails or the back 2/3 of the saddle. I put a level finder on the front 10cm or so from the nose and get it at level or a fraction up. The way I sit on it is to move so far off the front you barely put any butt cheek on it, falling off. I back up until my nuts hit the front of the saddle and voila that's my perch. The key for me to to never ever bend at the waist, but at the hips. Since you are comfortable with not only that thought, but how the kinetic chain works the rest will sort itself out for you. That part of your sit bones will toughen up quickly, but of course if it's soft tissue ouch you have to be aware of that too. I think you will know the difference.

Once I got that basic sit bone position figured out it was easy to set it up for road and tt. My tt has the saddle nose directly over the center of the bb which is super steep for a noseless saddle especially where I sit on it. On a road bike I sit extremely slack and have it 11cm behind the bb. Here is the freaky part: my hip angle at bottom dead center is within 1* on both bikes. So, it's the same position essentially but I'm rotating around the bb for the tt application. This completely revolutionized cycling for me b/c I truly tapped into my power sources. Pretty much feels like doing mini squats. Hope that helps, sorry I'm not very gifted at translating my thoughts to text so lemmie know if it's clear as mud.

Do you have a road or tt setup? In a perfect world if it were me I'd like to sort this out on a road bike first. Starting off with the saddle as far back as possible and slowly bring it forward. Get that dialed in and then work on rotating around the bb for a tt setup. That's just my 2 cents and how I worked the problem. The tt setup was a breeze after that, but of course is always a little more complex b/c of the static fixed hip angle we have to deal with once we get aero. On a road bike it's easy to manipulate the hip angle with a simple expansion/contraction of the arms.