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Hand Trouble FAQ
A. Note: I have no medical qualifications. The text written below is merely an honest account of my own experiences as a long-time motorcyclist, interpreted with a small amount of knowledge about anatomy and certain relevant pathologies, and countless anecdotes told me over the years about others' experiences. Do not count on this as medical advice.
What are the most common types of hand problems, on a bike?
There are three principal types of problems hands have, when riding a
motorcycle:
- Circulation trouble
- Nerve Trouble
- Pain
What conditions affect the severity of hand trouble?
How bad hand problems are is dependent on the following aggravating factors:
These factors can turn a non-issue into a serious annoyance. They can also mix together to make it so you wonder if you should stop riding. I am here to tell you that you can probably improve the condition of your hands a great deal, by addressing the aggravating factors. You may even relieve your hand problems completely. Read on.
How is your ride messed up by these conditions?
Here
are how the aggravating factors work against you, and how you can relieve
them.
Vibration:
Vibration causes fatigue by feeding your brain a continuous stream of neural noise, which it must spend energy to interpret or ignore. This can make you tired earlier than you would have been.
Vibration decreases the subjective availability of power from your bike, because your body will automatically short-shift the bike to avoid the buzzy spots, unless you internally yell at it to rev higher. You will see in the comments section a guy whose Yamaha SR500 seemed to turn into a sport bike when he installed our weights, because it was comfortable to operate at higher revs than before. This also happened on my fiancée's 1979 KZ 400.
Vibration over extended periods of time can damage circulation to the extremities. I have not experienced this, but I have read about it happening in people whose job involves certain power equipment like jackhammers, chainsaws, etc. Some motorcycles can out-vibrate a chainsaw, don't you think? And one could hardly get more exposure to it on the job, than by holding on for 10 hours straight down the highway!
Vibration can aggravate the effects of diseases. Anyone with arthritis will tell you how they'd like their swollen joints to be buzzed with an endless back-and-forth movement, while under the stress of holding on and controlling the bike. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome occurs when the tendons going through the tunnel in the middle of your wrist move so much that they inflame the surrounding tissue, causing swelling of that tissue. The swelling can get so bad that it chokes off the tunnel, causing even more friction to the tendons, and compressing nerves, interrupting their function. Guess what happens if the tendons, the swollen tissue and the rest get jiggled back and forth for hours? Right. Arthritis and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome are diseases where the proximate cause of the trouble is inflammation. Anything that is inflamed becomes more inflamed, if you irritate it. So sufferers from these diseases can experience a vicious cycle of inflammation, and a worsening of their condition, if they do not protect themselves from vibration.
Vibration can cause discomfort after you get off the bike, because the nerves themselves can get a bit traumatized, and keep sending noise to the brain, even after the vibration is gone. Have you ever gotten off your bike to eat lunch, and your hands still felt like they were vibrating when you had eaten? That's what I'm talking about.
The single most effective treatment for vibration is to buy a bike whose engine was carefully designed to be smooth. The second most effective is to buy a bike where the vibration is isolated from the rider by rubber engine and handlebar mounts. In any case, if you happen to own a bike, and want the bars to vibrate less, weighting the ends of the bars is a good idea. That's where our products come in. There are also special viscoelastic and gel handgrips and gloves that can help isolate your hands from the vibration. Some of these methods are complementary; rubber-mounted handlebars make weights even more effective.
Disease:
Whatever you are doing, there are health problems you can have, that will make it more painful or difficult. When it comes to your hands, there are several diseases that make your hands a great deal more fussy about their circumstances. Here are how the diseases work against you, and a few ideas what to do about them.
Arthritis
Arthritis can make your joints swell and hurt, even if they aren’t
moving. Motion can be very painful, or even impossible, in the extreme
case where bone spurs and other inflammation products eventually lock
up the joint. If your joints are inflamed, excessive stress or continuous
movement can worsen the condition, or at least hurt a lot.
Aspirin or Ibuprofen are perennial favorites for acute treatment of this disease. They are not just painkillers. They are Anti-Inflammatory drugs. They actually make the disease less severe, and reduce the damage. A Rheumatologist can prescribe other more powerful, more expensive treatments, if that doesn’t work.
As for your motorcycle, your goal is to minimize your need to grip the bars forcefully, minimize vibration, and avoid hand and arm positions that are particularly painful. Throttle rockers and throttle locks can make it so your right hand can get rest, and minimize stress.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is when the tissue in the tunnel through
your wrist gets inflamed by excessively stressful hand movement. It then
swells, and compresses the nerves and tendons that go through the tunnel.
This can cause so much friction in your finger motion, that you start
dropping things, because the swollen tunnel sucks up all the energy you
were trying to use to move your fingers. It is very common among people
who type or use mice, and people whose job is to exert a lot of power
through their fingers. Overcoming the friction and using your hand anyway,
is a mistake. This can aggravate the swelling very quickly. The swelling
can pinch nerves, causing phantom pains both sharp and dull, and numbness
and tingling. The tension of gripping handlebars, and the motion of vibration,
can make this worse.
For acute treatment, anti-inflammatory medications like Aspirin or Ibuprofen help a great deal. Also, periodic icing of the wrist is good. For extreme cases, there is a pretty effective surgery for it. But that’s definitely not my territory.
As for your motorcycle, minimize the need to hold onto anything, or move your fingers. Minimize vibration. Set up your handlebars that put your wrist at an angle where using the hand causes the least irritation. In my case, my carpal tunnel condition affected my index and middle fingers of my right hand. I found that if I kept my wrist at an angle where those two fingers were in a straight line with my arm, I could use my hand without trouble. Test braking and clutching action in different wrist positions. Try to arrange so your levers and bars are in a position where your hand is still strong. Often, flexing and moving the wrist can be irritating with this condition, so throttle control is problematic. Throttle rockers and throttle locks really help here, just like with arthritis.
Diabetes
Diabetes, Frostbite and any other disease that harms circulation
to the extremities, can make it much harder to ride a motorcycle safely
and comfortably. Your hands can go numb, get too cold, or both. Sorry
guys, I don't know what to do to make this better. Just keep watching
that blood sugar, so it doesn't get worse.
Take care to keep your hands warm, and unconstricted. Heated gloves are a godsend. Look at Gerbing for these. Look at Widder, too, but I like Gerbing's better. They heat your hands evenly, do not compress your fingers, and do not require you to grip the handlebars hard, like heated grips. You will need a heat control, these things will roast you!
It might help to keep your hands lower, to increase blood pressure there. Lower your handgrips. Minimize the need to hold onto anything for long periods. Minimize the weight on your wrists. This means you need to find a balanced riding position, where you do not require your wrists to hold your body up. You can do this with an upright riding position and a good windscreen. If you use less wind protection up front, you will want bars lower/further forward, so you lean further into the wind. Use throttle lock or throttle rocker on long trips, so the right hand can be relaxed more of the time.
Ergonomics:
Note: There are a great many things to consider when it comes to ergonomics. Your back would prefer to be at a healthy, natural curve, most of the time. Your knees would prefer not to be bent too far.
Your feet would prefer to be relaxed, not straining to avoid touching the controls unnecessarily. Your neck would prefer to have your head balanced on it. Your racetrack performance would benefit from keeping your weight solid, low and forward, unless you are braking. Your long-distance effectiveness would benefit from minimizing any stress or fatigue at all on your body and mind, and allowing you to maintain circulation continuously. However, this piece is about your hands. When it comes to your whole riding position, you will have to work out your own compromise, to serve yourself the best.
If you carry weight on your wrists, this tends to interfere with blood circulation to your whole hand. This aggravates diabetes and frostbite trouble. It also forces you to use your arm muscles, both to hold yourself up, and to keep your wrist in a somewhat bent position, so you can move the bars, grab levers, or twist your right wrist either way at any time. This action aggravates Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Consider pulling your bars back/up to weight you wrists less. If you have a windscreen, get a smaller one. If you can, sit further forward on your seat. You don't have to do all these things, just enough of some of them to get rid of your problem.
If you have to pull on your wrists to hold yourself up for long periods, it tends to interfere with blood circulation to your fingers. It also keeps all your tendons working full time, aggravating carpal tunnel. Your finger joints are under stress the whole time, aggravating arthritis. Install a windscreen, sit further back, or move the grips farther from you somehow.
If your arms are near straight and under tension when you ride, this can mess with your nerves. You may find just the outside or just the inside of your hand going numb, due to a stretching or compression of one of the two sensory nerves that come from your hand. It is also a really bad position for powerfully and precisely controlling direction and lean angle. Bring the grips closer to you, so your arms can be bent. When I did this, my bike suddenly turned from a slow-handling lump to a skittish, instant-leaning fly of a machine. Just cause my arms were in a better position to turn the bars. Magic! You can also relieve the pulling on your arms and hands by installing a windscreen. If the numbness is your problem, not the handling, this is just as effective as getting the grips closer to you.
Some day, in a quiet moment, ask your hands if they really LIKE twisting your throttle and grabbing your levers. Different hands have different optimum handlebar angles, due to the individual differences in the length of the long fingerbones that define the palm of the hand. Hold a broomstick, perfectly balanced, in your hand, and put it where you wish you could have your handgrip. Is that the angle your handlebar is at? Find a way to make it so, and you will be happier. As for your levers, the optimum angle is dependent on the angle your wrists prefer, plus the angle of your arm coming toward the grips. Find a way to make the angle of your levers convenient to grab, yet easy to avoid. This is also a way to compensate for different problems you may have with your hand.
If your hands are up high enough when they are holding onto the bars, it reduces the blood pressure there, and inhibits circulation of blood. This can cause numbness and coldness. Unlike the numbness of a nerve, which usually affects only one half of the hand, numbness of bad circulation will affect the whole hand, and will come on with a duller, possibly warmer sensation. The highest you should expect to be comfortable holding your hands for a long period, is at heart level. If you have circulatory trouble, you may need to keep them lower. Do something to get your handgrips below your heart.
