A friend recently wrote a guide about saddle health here which I highly recommend. However, I have the privilege of a Para perspective and tailored specifically to my fellow RaceRunners. Here you go you wee beauties.
EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT and there is a vast array of anatomies out there but if you rely on a saddle to do elite sport you'll probably have some variation of: chafing/skin abrasion, oedema (swelling), saddle sores, blistering and general pressure pain on *your peritoneal area*.
If you weight bear all the time through a saddle like me, there's no complete freedom to saddle complaints but there are ways to manage it. ((Four steps to be specific)) and if you're not doing any of them it's likely you are in for way more relief than you thought possible.
If you have cerebral palsy and if you use adaptive equipment to free yourself, pain comes with the game. Do not grin and bear it with saddle pain though.
No saddle pain, all the gains.
I can clock up training 8 times a week, mostly cycling and then crosstraining on my RaceRunner. That's a lot of wear and tear even with all the alleviating things I do there's still going to be damage. We're trying to minimise it here and make training as comfy as poss. I'll be talking from a RaceRunning perspective. Read Katie's article if you want the cycling perspective.
Even if you don't own a vagina, these tricks can help you too. I've conferred with my mate Rickard (a RaceRuning & tricyclist like me) many a time and even stole his padded saddle cover for my RaceRunner (see below) so this is a unisex affair. These tricks only allow you to manage the pain and the side effects but really, really delay it enough that you can live your life on a saddle. The Biltema extra gel saddle cover isn't in production any more but plenty other brands have one. It never hurts to ask if you can try before you buy, too.
THE STEPS
Step one: WHAT ARE YOU WEARING ON YOUR BUM
Bib shorts/tights and only bibshorts/tights. Wearing underwear with bibshorts causes major chafing. The pad in your bibshorts has all the functions of underpants plus the cushioning effects against a hard saddle.
Bib shorts have been used for years by cyclists looking to alleviate the pressure of the saddle. Back in the day a chamois pad was used made out of chamois leather. That's not the case now but it still has the same name: 'chamois pad'. I will shorten and just say 'pad'.
I use different bib shorts for cycling and RaceRunning. Cycling you go over all these potholes and bumps so you need a very thick pad. I get team issue kit provided by my loving and wonderful Team Storey who uses Le Col.
For RaceRunning I use my longstanding 5 year old pair of Skins Triathlete shorts. These have a very thin pad (which still pressure relieves) because I find the thicker cycling pads get in the way when I want to move my hips very fast.
They also have inner thigh strips that are anti-abrasive so they can rub against my saddle without friction. I need to compliment my rock hard racing saddle (which still has gel in it: diva gel flow) with step 2:
Step two: WHAT IS YOUR SADDLE WEARING
Now everyone has a different preference but my hack was to steal my mum's racing saddle which was still a gel saddle but was too hard and then steal my best friend's gel saddle cover, which the Swedish RaceRunning team swear by. It moves with me when I sprint and still cushions. For cycling you don't want too much saddle movement but for RaceRunning, I think this is different.
Step three: MOVING PARTS NEED LUBRICANT/EMOLLIENT/GREASE
Machine or (wo)man, you need to lube up. Your RaceRunner needs WD40 and you need the human equivalent which goes under the name 'chamois ("chammy") cream'. Did you ever want to know why slugs and snails produce slime? It's so they don't get cut to shreds over pieces of sharp ground and rub all their skin off. Same with you, my friend.
You want something that ISN'T rapidly absorbable and which is non-perfumed and kind to skin. Although if you're in a pinch, you can just use moisturisor or vaseline but it's not as good as it gets. The first time I used real chammy cream I cried with relief sitting on a bathroom toilet seat, in an empty track stadium in Dundee and the caretaker knocked on the door to check on me and I just couldn't explain. I'm explaining to you now, Scott.
Inside and outside are very different things when it comes to our bums and obviously different depending on what you have down there. Speaking from a female perspective you don't want antibacterial anything inside because there are multiple GOOD types of bacteria that keep the BAD away and a natural cleaning system (to learn more click here). If you wipe out the good ones, the bad tend to colonise. Really we're talking external anatomy here which doesn't have the same kind of issues and most chammy creams have elements which are antibacterial. What I'm saying is, I'd never use hand sanitiser down there though, so don't be nuking the poor thing. I know a lot of cyclists who just use pharmacist brand emollients but as I cycle lots I use my Team's own brand chammy cream 'On The Rivet' and I go through a tonne of the stuff. How much you use and where you put it up to you but I go through A LOT.
I apply it to my pad and myself all over externally and put most on the places I feel the most discomfort.
(credits of the above engineering instructional diagram to this page)
Step four: FRESH BIB SHORTS EVERY TIME.
That means no double wearing. This means if you have housemates like I do, serious hogging of the washing machine (use non-bio detergent in ideal circumstances to stop stretching).
If you want to hoard a lot of bib shorts to cut down on washing loads this is understandable, however the older they get the baggier they become and this can lead to more chafing. I get the least pain on the first day of wearing brand new bib shorts. This is my 'I'm wearing new bib shorts' position. Weightbearing fulling through the saddle here. It's a screenshot of a video so really hands were back on handlebars in a second but still.
Good luck out there.
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