MTB Back Pain? Train Your Spine for Long Days in the Saddle

Credit: Sebastian Marx, Unsplash

If you’re joining us from the Mid Week MTB Series, welcome back to our blog. If you’re joining us from elsewhere, welcome – we’re discussing MTB back pain for enduro riders. 

For mountain bikers in every discipline, long climbs are almost always the source of back pain. Sure, only downhill times count in enduro, but climbing is a big part of the sport. At the latest Enduro World Cup in La Thuile, Italy, riders faced 7,668 feet of climbing; Val di Fassa had nearly 11,000 feet of ascending across two days; and Loudenvielle had 9,445 feet in one day. 

Thankfully, we don’t climb 7,000 feet per race in the Mid Week MTB Series. Still, between races, fun rides, and training rides, we’re all racking up serious uphill mileage.

So, let’s discuss why mountain bikers often have back pain and how you can prevent it. Here’s the key: Joints that don’t move hurt, and joints that can’t move break.

When you climb on a bike, your spine barely moves, and your hips move through one repetitive range of motion. Even if you *stretch* (a loaded term), you’re not training your spine or hips to move with strength and control. A spine that gets jolted by rocks and roots for hours – and can’t move – is a spine that will blow up eventually. 

If you want to stop or prevent back pain, you need to be able to do five things: 

1. Hold tension in your trunk while you're breathing hard.

2. Segment your spine one vertebra at a time. 

3. Control your pelvis independently of anything else. 

4. Control the ball relative to the hip socket. 

5. Breathe from the diaphragm while riding your bike. 

For each skill, we’ve linked a video with relevant exercises. 

It takes about 12 weeks to either get a cyclist out of back pain or build a body that is resilient against back pain. If you want to stop the back pain and feel the best you’ve ever felt on a bike, sign up for our Annual Mountain Bike program. We’re offering a free, four-week trial. If you have questions about back pain and training in general, come talk to us at the 100YA tent. We missed Deer Valley (sorry), but we’ll be at the rest of the races.    

Want to read more about cycling and back pain? Check out our column in The Park Record.