ARM PUMP

Edited Date/Time 1/27/2012 2:34pm
So, after a 10+ year hiatus, I am finally back at it. The bike feels good, and so do I...EXCEPT for massive arm pump. I go out and putt the first session to try and get loosened up. When I go out for the second session, my arms pump up after half a lap (1.2 mile laps). I concentrate on breathing a lot but...

Any advice?

Thanks guys!
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2/10/2011 9:33am
Squeeze with your legs and relax.


Beyond that, the only thing that really helps is more seat time.
Zycki11
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2/10/2011 9:37am
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due to lack of oxygen and too much blood flow. So if you do more cardio, when you ride your body is more at ease naturally, and you will feel better. Also remember to make breathing points on the track. Deep breathes over every jump as well as before a turn. This will help you explode off and out of things instead of hanging on for dear life with your tongue in your spokes
2/10/2011 9:52am
Zycki11 wrote:
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due...
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due to lack of oxygen and too much blood flow. So if you do more cardio, when you ride your body is more at ease naturally, and you will feel better. Also remember to make breathing points on the track. Deep breathes over every jump as well as before a turn. This will help you explode off and out of things instead of hanging on for dear life with your tongue in your spokes
I was afraid of that. I hate running! lol But, if that's what I have to do to get fater, that's what I will do. I feel great otherwise, it's just my arms.

Thanks for the tips guys.
2/10/2011 9:53am
TripleFive wrote:
Squeeze with your legs and relax.


Beyond that, the only thing that really helps is more seat time.
I ride pretty relaxed actually and, I know about squeezing with your legs. I grew up riding and racing, it's just been a bit.

Thanks!

The Shop

fencepost
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T.O., CA US
2/10/2011 9:56am
Zycki11 wrote:
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due...
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due to lack of oxygen and too much blood flow. So if you do more cardio, when you ride your body is more at ease naturally, and you will feel better. Also remember to make breathing points on the track. Deep breathes over every jump as well as before a turn. This will help you explode off and out of things instead of hanging on for dear life with your tongue in your spokes
Are you saying that arm pump is lactic acid that biulds up in the arms?
MBBadgers
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Madison, WI US
2/10/2011 10:03am
Zycki11 wrote:
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due...
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due to lack of oxygen and too much blood flow. So if you do more cardio, when you ride your body is more at ease naturally, and you will feel better. Also remember to make breathing points on the track. Deep breathes over every jump as well as before a turn. This will help you explode off and out of things instead of hanging on for dear life with your tongue in your spokes
I was afraid of that. I hate running! lol But, if that's what I have to do to get fater, that's what I will do. I...
I was afraid of that. I hate running! lol But, if that's what I have to do to get fater, that's what I will do. I feel great otherwise, it's just my arms.

Thanks for the tips guys.
I do hear handle bars make a difference too, also banana's (least riders have told me this).
TeamGreen
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2/10/2011 10:06am Edited Date/Time 2/10/2011 10:07am
Get a bit farther forward on the bike, when possible, and try to spend more time with the bike "pushing" you...via your legs and feet, and a LOT less time with the bike "Pulling" you via your hands/arms.

Balls of your feet as much as possible, too.

Good luck.
flarider
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2/10/2011 10:16am
In my experience and observations about arm pump;

Some riders (circle which applies to you):
- Grip too tightly and don't relax their arms when riding. They ride stiff. Loosen your grip slightly and relax.
- Have bar set and then grip at an odd angle. If you look at the relationship of bar height, bend, grip and elbow up position, it creates an odd bending angle at the wrist, a near 45o angle bend right at the wrist. Sit on the bike, elbows up, and look at your wrist. It should not be bent to the side. Adaptation of the grip, where you are gripping more with your outer fingers (small, fourth and middle) can fix this.
- Don't grip bike enough with legs, this will allow you to relax your grip
- Don't drink enough water.
- Are in poor condition
- Need to get an early pump-up and then be over it. Pumping up expands the blood vessels in your muscles, like stretching your muscles before you ride. With many people, once you get a good arm pump and recover, you're good for the whole day. So when you go out in your first practice (or before you get to track), get your arms rock solid pumped, then allow to recover and you probably will not pump up again that day since your blood vessels have expanded and can allow the needed blood flow required under exertion.

I highly recommend a Dynabee (or Dyna-Flex) for early morning pump up as well as forearm training.

Dynabee is a handheld weighted gyroscope that you hold in your hand and keep moving by flipping your arm/wrist, as you do this the Dynabee not only gains speed, but also builds resistance, making it harder and harder to keep flipping your arm/wrist.

Or the more complicated explanation;

How it works


A DynaBee gyroscopic wrist exerciser.
The device essentially consists of a spinning mass inside an outer shell. The shell almost completely covers the mass inside, with only a small round opening allowing the gyroscope to be manually started. The spinning mass is fixed to a thin metal axle, each end of which is trapped in a circular, equatorial groove in the outer shell. A lightweight ring with two notches in it for the ends of the axle rests in the groove. This ring can slip in the groove; it holds the spinning gyroscope centred in the shell, preventing the two from coming into contact (which would slow the gyro down), but still allowing the orientation of the axle to change.
Since the spinning mass is balanced, the only possibility to speed up the rotation is for the sides of the groove to exert forces on the ends of the axle. Furthermore, the normal and axial forces will have no effect, so tangential force must be provided by friction. If the axle is stationary, the friction will only act to slow down the rotation, but the situation is very different if the axle is turned by applying a torque.
This can be accomplished by tilting the shell in any direction except exactly in the plane of the groove, and results in a shift of the axle ends along the groove. The direction and speed of the shift can be found from the formula for the precession of a gyroscope: the applied torque is equal to the cross product of the angular velocity of precession and the angular momentum of the spinning mass. The most important observation here is that the direction is such that, if the torque is large enough, the friction between the axle and the surface of the groove will speed up the rotation.
This may seem odd. After all, if the axle were shifting in a horizontal groove, the friction on one end that acts to speed up the rotation would be cancelled by the friction at the other end, operating in the opposite direction. The difference is that a torque is being applied, so one end of the axle is pushing against one side of the groove, while the other end is pushing against the other side. Likewise, it doesn't matter in which direction the torque is applied. If the torque is reversed, each end of the axle will then be pressing against the opposite side of the groove, but the direction of precession is also reversed. The only restriction is that the relative speed of the surface of the axle and the side of the groove due to precession, ΩPRgroove, must exceed the relative speed due to the rotation of the spinning mass, ωraxle. The minimum torque required to meet this condition is , where I is the moment of inertia of the spinning mass, and ω is its angular velocity.
Since an acceleration of the rotation will occur regardless of the direction of the applied torque, as long as it is large enough, the device will function without any fine-tuning of the driving motion. The tilting of the shell does not have to have a particular phase relationship with the precession or even to have the same frequency. Since sliding (kinetic) friction is usually nearly as strong as static (sticking) friction, it is also not necessary to apply precisely the value of torque which will result in the axle rolling without slipping along the side of the groove. These factors allow beginners to learn to speed up the rotation after only a few minutes of practice.
By applying the proportionality of the force of friction to the normal force, Ff = μkFn, where μk is the kinetic coefficient of friction, it can be shown that the torque spinning up the mass is a factor of smaller than the torque applied to the shell. Since frictional force is essential for the device's operation, the groove must not be lubricated



Trust me, a Dynabee will kick your ass.





.
Towelie
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2/10/2011 10:17am
You sure you havnt developed carpal tunnel? I thought I had arm pump too, turned out my hands were not getting any blood
2/10/2011 10:21am
Towelie wrote:
You sure you havnt developed carpal tunnel? I thought I had arm pump too, turned out my hands were not getting any blood
that's a good possibility. I am on a computer all day at work. I worked construction for years and now have been in an office for years. Definitely a good possibility. If I have carpal tunnel, am I pretty well screwed?
Torco1
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2/10/2011 10:36am
The more you ride the more it'll go away. I've been working in an office for years on a computer too and had to take a few years off from riding a while back. When I came back the arm pump was horrbile and I thought I would never get rid of it. I cant really run because my ankle and hip are shot and I dont do any crazy fitness program throughout the week, I just ride weekly and eventually it went away completely. I make sure to go to the track at least twice a week and do a few motos and my arms never bother me at all anymore.
mxcrf34
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2/10/2011 10:53am
cardio, hydration, and use your lower body to grip more.
FLmxer
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Fantasy
2/10/2011 11:01am Edited Date/Time 2/10/2011 11:07am
What we were always taught to do was take a 3 foot length of broom stick, add a four foot length of rope to the middle and tie a 2-5lb weight to the other end of rope. Hold the broom stick straight out in front of you at same width as your bars and wind the weight up on the pole and then wind it down, no cheating. You will feel the exact way arm pump feels on the second wind up. Keep doing this a few times a week and it will end arm pump. Our whole team was using this and it really worked. Ronnie T recommended it when he was doing schools at our private track years ago. It works.
2/10/2011 11:41am
FLmxer wrote:
What we were always taught to do was take a 3 foot length of broom stick, add a four foot length of rope to the middle...
What we were always taught to do was take a 3 foot length of broom stick, add a four foot length of rope to the middle and tie a 2-5lb weight to the other end of rope. Hold the broom stick straight out in front of you at same width as your bars and wind the weight up on the pole and then wind it down, no cheating. You will feel the exact way arm pump feels on the second wind up. Keep doing this a few times a week and it will end arm pump. Our whole team was using this and it really worked. Ronnie T recommended it when he was doing schools at our private track years ago. It works.
funny you mention that...My roommate is way in to fitness and made one of those. It sits out in our garage. I'm going to start using it. Thanks!!!!!
2/10/2011 11:42am
Torco1 wrote:
The more you ride the more it'll go away. I've been working in an office for years on a computer too and had to take a...
The more you ride the more it'll go away. I've been working in an office for years on a computer too and had to take a few years off from riding a while back. When I came back the arm pump was horrbile and I thought I would never get rid of it. I cant really run because my ankle and hip are shot and I dont do any crazy fitness program throughout the week, I just ride weekly and eventually it went away completely. I make sure to go to the track at least twice a week and do a few motos and my arms never bother me at all anymore.
that's the plan. I'm not too keen on running either due to having bad knees from years of skateboarding. I plan to ride twice a week as well. Hopefully, in a few weeks, it will have gone away.

thanks
mxb2
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2/10/2011 11:46am
Torco1 wrote:
The more you ride the more it'll go away. I've been working in an office for years on a computer too and had to take a...
The more you ride the more it'll go away. I've been working in an office for years on a computer too and had to take a few years off from riding a while back. When I came back the arm pump was horrbile and I thought I would never get rid of it. I cant really run because my ankle and hip are shot and I dont do any crazy fitness program throughout the week, I just ride weekly and eventually it went away completely. I make sure to go to the track at least twice a week and do a few motos and my arms never bother me at all anymore.
Any local peeps shows you can go work out your forearms LMAO!
level
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2/10/2011 11:52am
I think it's mostly conditioning and seat time. That's really about it. At least that's the most common reasons. I agree with above poster. When I had it real bad I started running and it got better-not a whole lot better but at least I could go a couple more laps before it kicked in.
Torco1
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2/10/2011 11:55am
Torco1 wrote:
The more you ride the more it'll go away. I've been working in an office for years on a computer too and had to take a...
The more you ride the more it'll go away. I've been working in an office for years on a computer too and had to take a few years off from riding a while back. When I came back the arm pump was horrbile and I thought I would never get rid of it. I cant really run because my ankle and hip are shot and I dont do any crazy fitness program throughout the week, I just ride weekly and eventually it went away completely. I make sure to go to the track at least twice a week and do a few motos and my arms never bother me at all anymore.
mxb2 wrote:
Any local peeps shows you can go work out your forearms LMAO!
Not in my actual town.......but Hollywood is less than an hour away, so I'm good to go.
mxb2
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2/10/2011 11:56am
LOL man, nice drive to kill some time!
wownd out
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2/10/2011 11:59am
There is no cure for arm pump, some people don't get it at all some people get it no matter what they do to try and prevent it, it SUCKS!
Towelie
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2/10/2011 12:33pm
that's a good possibility. I am on a computer all day at work. I worked construction for years and now have been in an office for...
that's a good possibility. I am on a computer all day at work. I worked construction for years and now have been in an office for years. Definitely a good possibility. If I have carpal tunnel, am I pretty well screwed?
Thats my exact same scenario, worked in the field , been running jobs for years behind a desk now, no it doesnt go away. Therapy has helped, the flex handle bars have helped but its getting worse, I have been thinking surgery but it has pretty low success rates. I have found taking nitric oxcide boosters help when I ride, I use ForceFactor, but it doesnt always work either.
Cody24
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2/10/2011 12:52pm
Relax your grip, drink more water, bananas, bar position, and gloves are all factors that can prevent severe arm pump. And of course a regular work out routine.
2/10/2011 1:27pm
Zycki11 wrote:
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due...
Cardio my man, run your ass off during the week. There is a direct path of hear rate to acid building in your arms(arm pump) due to lack of oxygen and too much blood flow. So if you do more cardio, when you ride your body is more at ease naturally, and you will feel better. Also remember to make breathing points on the track. Deep breathes over every jump as well as before a turn. This will help you explode off and out of things instead of hanging on for dear life with your tongue in your spokes
fencepost wrote:
Are you saying that arm pump is lactic acid that biulds up in the arms?
No its not lactic acid, thats something completely different.

The cause of arm pump is unoxyginated blood. The only way to keep fresh oxygen in your bloodcells is to have good cardio, start running or get on a stationary bike in front of the TV.
JB 19
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2/10/2011 1:40pm Edited Date/Time 2/10/2011 1:43pm
Mountain biking is a great way to build cardio without having to run. .......but you have to be serious and always push your self past your comfort zone. Arm pump is kind of the same thing. Pushing into the point of burn. As time goes by it will take longer to get to the burn point, which means your arms are getting in better shape.

You know that point when you feel like there is gasoline in your veins and your arms are going to fly off the bars and wad you up into a van parked beside the track? That's the burn you need to keep riding into...........I ride with a stop watch on my bars and try to go in five minute increments into the burn zone........which will seem like an hour when you are doing it.

That's what I do. Cool
Suns_PSD
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Austin, TX US
2/10/2011 2:49pm
TeamGreen wrote:
Get a bit farther forward on the bike, when possible, and try to spend more time with the bike "pushing" you...via your legs and feet, and...
Get a bit farther forward on the bike, when possible, and try to spend more time with the bike "pushing" you...via your legs and feet, and a LOT less time with the bike "Pulling" you via your hands/arms.

Balls of your feet as much as possible, too.

Good luck.
This is what worked for me. I got a lot more aggressive and now I ride way forward on the bike while standing up. Everything is better, well accept for losing the front because I go face first now.

No more arm pump these days.

Good Luck!
JW381
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2/10/2011 4:10pm
I have always been plagued by it. Maybe it's just me and I ride too tight. But I find even when I'm running and playing basketball during the week, riding weekly, hydrating, riding relaxed, it might not be as bad, but it's still way worse than any of my friends my age. One of the reasons I don't miss riding so much right now. It was just so frustrating..
machine
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2/10/2011 4:46pm
My arm pump has recently returned after going back to lifting weights. It's a tough decision, be skinny and no arm pump or muscular and arm pump.

Oh well, arm pump rules.......Smile
2/10/2011 4:47pm
machine wrote:
My arm pump has recently returned after going back to lifting weights. It's a tough decision, be skinny and no arm pump or muscular and arm...
My arm pump has recently returned after going back to lifting weights. It's a tough decision, be skinny and no arm pump or muscular and arm pump.

Oh well, arm pump rules.......Smile
I'd rather be skinny and no arm pump! That's me though..
YOTMXDAD
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2/10/2011 4:52pm
The more you ride, the more it will go away....
2/10/2011 6:05pm
YOTMXDAD wrote:
The more you ride, the more it will go away....
that's what I'm thinking. I didn't used to have it very bad but it's been a while. After I put in some seat time the next couple of weeks, I will see how it is.

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