Effective Ergonomics in Cycling & Finding Your Fit
Improving bike saddle comfort – with SQlab
by Robert Thorpe & Til Drobisch
In terms of the three main contact points for cyclists, the saddle is probably the most important to get right – albeit that they all matter. Most of us spend a lot of time seated – at home, at work and when cycling. Making sure that your bike saddle is comfortable and that it is the correct saddle for you, is more important than we usually give it credit for. It’s important to ask yourself the question: ‘am I sitting comfortably?’ After all, you’ve maybe spent a great deal of money on your bike, and in too many cases the saddle was probably – and incorrectly – low on the list of priorities. Yes, get it wrong and it will cause you pain, discomfort and maybe even some long-term health issues.
Ergonomics in cycling is important; in fact, it’s critical if we are to fully appreciate how our own unique body interacts with our own individual bicycle. Whether you are a simple leisure cyclist or commuter, or a keen racer or an adventure cyclist, we guarantee that you’ll spend time seated on that all-important saddle; and we can guarantee that if it doesn’t fit you properly or isn’t designed around your own body shape and requirements, then you’ll be feeling the pain in all the wrong places.
Thankfully, SQlab from Munich, deep in Bavaria and Germany, have been looking at cycling ergonomics since their inception over 20 years ago. The comfort and health benefits of getting the right saddle fit are critical to their way of thinking; which is why I recently spent a whole afternoon listening to and talking with Til from their technical team. It was enlightening to learn about how each of us use the bike saddle, how we need to use it and how to ensure that our bike saddle is the best possible fit for our own unique body. There’s a science to it, and Til and the team at SQlab have been studying it for over 20 years, developing saddles that are at the top of the curve in terms of innovation and excellence and support to riders of all shapes and sizes.
When we look properly at saddles and finding the right bike saddle for riders, there’s a whole lot of information for us to take in; which is why this blog is the first in a new series that we’ll be writing this year, in partnership with our friends such as Til at with SQlab. This first blog rightly focuses solely on the process measuring and fitting the best bike saddle for you, and why this is important. It covers the issues that can arise, how they can arise and how they will affect you as a cyclist – and so, if you’re sitting comfortably, we’ll begin.
Pelvis
The perineal area must be relieved.
The sit bones are made for sitting!
Don’t saddle yourself with long-term pain
There are some key aspects to think about when saddles don’t work as intended. A cheap saddle or an incorrectly fitted saddle on your bike can lead to neck pain and pain in your hands, as you shift weight around and those important nerves are pinched between the pelvis bones. If most of your contact with the saddle is with the sensitive parts of the pelvic area – those soft tissue points between the pelvic arch – then things are going to get very uncomfortable very soon indeed. SQlab founder, Tobias started to think about how he and other riders were getting pressure from perineal and to sit bones, after his own experiences and a serious accident some years ago, where he crashed and broke vertebra. It required a whole new style of thinking for him, and the ideas that now form SQlab were borne.
In effect, what happens when you sit on a badly fitted saddle is that your pelvic sit bones don’t take the pressure that they are designed for. Instead, to narrow a saddle creates discomfort at the pubic bones and increases the pressure on the perineal area where lots of tissues and nerves exist. The pressure put down onto the saddle by our bodies, needs to be matched for the different sit bone widths we each have, so that the saddle gives pressure only at the pubic bones. Initially, this may feel uncomfortable as the sit bones adjust the feeling. However, after only a short time it feels natural and aids your cycling and general health. This is how Til and the people at SQlab developed their ‘sit fit system’, and it ensures that you, the cyclist, have the best possible way of finding the saddle that fits your own unique needs. Best of all, it’s a simple and easy to understand system, and one that makes perfect sense.
Getting the measure of saddle comfort
There are 3 stages to getting the measurement for the saddle, and whilst pressure mapping is used by many, SQlab have shown that their own technique is generally more accurate, whilst also being quite simple. It’s based on those all-important sit bones and how they protrude and can mark a sheet a paper – yes, that simple! You can visit an SQLab fit partner, or you can get their home fit kit and carry this out home yourself.
For home users, or on a measuring stool with the nub plate on top at your local dealer, sit with your back upright on a stool with the SQlab measuring paper, placed on the stool and pull yourself towards the stool with both hands.
Measure the sit bone distance from center to center and add the value for the respective sitting position (taken from the sheet in the home measurement kit). SQlab add a value to the measurement, based on how upright you sit. This then gives you the right fit saddle.
Select a saddle from the SQlab range, based on your individual cycling discipline and in the correct width.
By doing the measurement this way, only the sit bones point through and make the necessary indication on the sheet. It is quite interesting to learn from Til, that dependent on the cycling discipline you normally ride, the saddle size needs change slightly to take this positioning into consideration. It’s due to the pelvis rotating further forward and using the narrower part of the sit bones in a stretched position and the wider part of the sit bones in an upright position plus having more of the buttocks on the saddle the more upright I am, which needs more support. For example:
Triathletes tend to stretch out forwards extensively;
Road racers stretch out, but not as much;
Other riders are classed between being moderate, slightly bent or upright – this usually being city cyclists.
Getting the measure of saddle comfort
There are 3 stages to getting the measurement for the saddle, and whilst pressure mapping is used by many, SQlab have shown that their own technique is generally more accurate, whilst also being quite simple. It’s based on those all-important sit bones and how they protrude and can mark a sheet a paper – yes, that simple! You can visit an SQLab fit partner, or you can get their home fit kit and carry this out home yourself.
For home users, or on a measuring stool with the nub plate on top at your local dealer, sit with your back upright on a stool with the SQlab measuring paper, placed on the stool and pull yourself towards the stool with both hands.
Measure the sit bone distance from center to center and add the value for the respective sitting position (taken from the sheet in the home measurement kit). SQlab add a value to the measurement, based on how upright you sit. This then gives you the right fit saddle.
Select a saddle from the SQlab range, based on your individual cycling discipline and in the correct width.
By doing the measurement this way, only the sit bones point through and make the necessary indication on the sheet. It is quite interesting to learn from Til, that dependent on the cycling discipline you normally ride, the saddle size needs change slightly to take this positioning into consideration. It’s due to the pelvis rotating further forward and using the narrower part of the sit bones in a stretched position and the wider part of the sit bones in an upright position plus having more of the buttocks on the saddle the more upright I am, which needs more support. For example:
Triathletes tend to stretch out forwards extensively;
Road racers stretch out, but not as much;
Other riders are classed between being moderate, slightly bent or upright – this usually being city cyclists.
Unisex Saddles
The anatomy of men and women is obviously different. For the male anatomy, they have steeper upward pubic bones. Females have a lower pubic arch, although to a large extent, the pubic arch doesn’t really matter, as pressure is correctly placed on the sit bone and not pubic arch, when the saddle is correctly measured and fitted. Yes, different problems arise from men to women; however, they can be solved by the same saddle. Most female specific saddles – from brands other than SQlab – simply constructed to be wider and softer, which is nonsense. It takes us back to that old phrase: ‘pink it and shrink it.’ They deserve better.
Getting the saddle width wrong and the pressure and power goes to the pubic arch area, instead of on those important sit bones. Using the measure technique from SQlab ensures that the correct width of saddle creates space between the pubic arch/soft tissue and the saddle and relives the problem. When you first use that correctly fitted saddle, the sit bone feeling against saddle may be strange. However, this passes in a short time. It’s difficult to show to people, as riders often press onto saddle and think that it’s hard and they feel the sit bones – and ironically, they don’t want to feel sit bones – even for that short time.
Myth of the soft saddle
Soft saddles are only suitable for short distances and up to a maximum of 45 minutes! Muscle and tendon attachments are irritated by soft pads, due to shear forces that occur. Sit bones get used to the load, albeit that the sit bones on a soft saddle are not properly looked after. It´s not really the movement in the pelvis that causes problems, more the shear forces and friction on the sit bone itself, which leads to irritation of the bone and tendons. Plus, the sit bone sinking into the soft material leads to higher pressure in the perineal area because the sit bone is lower than the middle part of the saddle.
We need to get used to hard surface and a hard saddle, as we don’t usually sit on hard surfaces. Our chairs and sofa at home are soft and we like to sink into it. However, on a bike we are moving whilst seated and we need our sit bones to remain stable. Thankfully, once we get used to the hard saddle surface, it’s super comfortable. A soft saddle, conversely, as explained, will not give you that all-important sit bone support, leading to your pelvis being mobile on the saddle and pain being felt after a few minutes riding, and those health issues that we mentioned earlier being caused.
Coccyx pain and saddle shape
This is an issue mainly in female riders. It can move further to the inside. We don’t want the coccyx encountering the saddle at all, and the shape of the saddle is critical to this – alongside the width, of course – because if the sit bones are next to the saddle, the coccyx will be closer to the saddle than if the sit bones are on top of the saddle.
Male riders tend to get numbness due to a higher pubic bone. The soft tissue in the centre of the pelvic area has 2 important nerves in the middle. Having the wrong saddle width places your seated position in this zone and gives this numbness. Taking time to correctly choose your saddle will take your seated position away from this nerve are and place you on those sit bones.
Saddle fitting needs to include the front tilt and the surface of the saddle – curved or flat – as well as the front nose are. A poor tilt of the front of the saddle, even by 1 degree, can make a huge difference. Once you the saddle the width correctly known, the next thing to look at is the tilt. You can test the tilt difference in small degrees and assess how your seated position feels between each small incremental change.
Pressure on the saddle fitting and shape (conventional saddles)
For women, the saddle nose on a conventional saddle can tilt upwards slightly or have a straight cut shape. This leads to pressure for women on the pubic arch. Using the SQlab step saddle system, the lowered saddle frontal area works by reducing the pressure on the pubic arch. It gives the correct pressure distribution and frees up the pelvic area, leading to a more comfortable ride.
Numbness, especially for men, can be caused when a conventional saddle shape has too much pressure on the perineal area. Focusing again on the SQlab step saddle design, the pressure is distributed according to medical analysis, freeing up… yes, the pelvic area and focusing the weighting on those sit bones – voila!
Saddle shape and the Step Saddle
The SQ Lab step saddle concept has been developed with medical experts, measuring oxygen supply in the glands, using various saddles and shapes. What SQ Lab found was that ‘gap’ saddles can cause more dangerous pressure peaks on the inside – especially for women, due to the low pubic bone. There can also be aa weakness around the edges of the gap, causing the saddle to curve upwards slightly, and leading to pressure being incorrectly applied in that important pelvic arch area.
When SQlab examined the ‘wavy’ saddle concept, the results were really interesting. The curve reduces the area available for the sit bones and the curved area can also interfere with the wrong areas of the pelvis, causing discomfort and potentially causing nerve pain and other associated problems elsewhere on the body – which we’ll cover in future blogs with SQLab.
Dealing with the unique SQlab ‘Step saddle concept’, it gave far better results in research, which is why it is the chosen design for all SQlab saddles. Fundamentally, the built in lower frontal area of the saddle allows for a better sitting position for our shape and for our sit bone stability, without interfering with other pelvic areas. It gave far fewer problems for more cyclists – and that’s what we all want on the bike. Finally, for now, let’s look at how saddle shape and structure affect the pressure points and those important sit bones and how they are positioned on the saddle.
Pressure distribution
Let’s look at the various saddles on the market, against the SQlab step saddle.
Regular saddle – High pressure in the perineal area and prostate.
Gel saddle – Pressure in the perineal area, increasing with longer riding. Gel moves upwards!
Cut-out saddle – Dangerous pressure peaks in nerves and vessels -good values in blood flow tests.
Step saddle – Pressure distribution according to medical criteria and saddle with a stepped structure, designed to fit more naturally and to give stability to the sit bones and to reduce contact areas elsewhere in the pelvic regions. High scores in blood circulation tests
Hopefully, you now understand why we’ve gone into so much detail about saddle shape, width, fitting and structure. That seemingly simple accessory to the bike is more important than you thought, and it’s important that you get it right. Getting properly fitted for a saddle can form part of an overall bike fit, or you can utilise the SQ Lab home measuring kit – available from their website.
In the next blog, I’ll be writing about prostate saddles and the new SQlab ‘Active Saddle Technology’, which enables a physiologically correct co-movement of the pelvis and thus prevents discomfort in the lower back. For now, though, off you go and get yourself measured for a more comfortable and healthier cycling future.
Road Step Saddle
Gravel Step Saddle
MTB Step Saddle
The next blog talks about the SQlab active saddle technology and saddles to help with prostate problems. Clink the link HERE to read it.
For more information about the SQlab step saddle concept:
