Chiropractor's role in the Tour

THIS year the recently concluded Tour De France consisted of 21 gruelling stages, amounting to 2,087 miles of cycling in just three weeks. Today, almost every team has its own chiropractor, but why? What does cycling that far do to your back?
The first thing to note is that cyclists competing at Le Tour rarely employ a chiropractor for pain relief. More commonly, chiropractors are hired to make improvements to the way the cyclists’ bodies function to optimise performance.
Nevertheless, being on the saddle for 84 hours, performing 500,000 pedal revolutions, will have some consequences for the spine.
Chiefly, as riders seek an aerodynamic position the spine is bent forwards to relatively low-set handlebars. This forward bending in the low back increases loading on intervertebral discs, and the more the spine is bent, the more pressure increases.
It is no surprise then that scientists have found a positive correlation between increasing bend forward and back pain amongst cyclists.
What is interesting is that there is no such relationship between bending forwards more and sciatic-type pain in cyclists. And there is a good reason for this.
As cyclists bend forward the pressure on the disc increases and it starts to bulge. This puts them at risk of irritating the nerves that pass close to discs in the spine. But being bent over also increases the width of the canals these nerves pass through, meaning there is space for the disc to bulge without compressing the nerve.
Approximately 30 per cent of elite cyclists report lower back pain, which is lower than the general population. Cycling, therefore, is a relatively good activity in respect of lower back problems. But underlying disc injuries are a prevalent condition for riders, and embarking on an appropriate “Pre-habilitative” programme is essential to prevent them from interrupting your progress as a cyclist.