Bernal, back pain and the dance of thicknesses

Really a strange story about Bernal, the thicknesses under his right shoe and his back, which suddenly started to hurt him at the last Tour. He retired at the 17th stage, let the pain go away, then they took him to Germany to the same biomechanic who was taking care of Froome. It would seem that everything is resolved, but his back is still being talked about. So we went back a bit in his history, starting from the words by Paolo Alberati, while we were studying together right the Colombian's Strava profile to understand how he was training for the Line of BusinessBut in the meantime, look at the opening photo and the detail below: see how thick it is?

«About his back – Alberati's words – a memory came to me. Or rather, it came to mind Giovanni Stefanìa, who when he went from junior to professional, noticed a little posture problem and put a spacer on him under the shoe. I don't want it to have been removed and the back pain started from there. That would be strange, because once you have an athlete in balance, there is no point in putting him back into play. But if that had happened, the cure would have been to restore that thickness…».

The first thickness

Well, things are getting interesting. So the first thing to do is to hear from Giovanni Stefanìa, very Tuscan with Apulian parents, very good biomechanic and collaborator among others of Bartoli in the center of Lunata. Which is why, during the period in which Michele followed Bernal's preparation, Giovanni also happened to have to deal with it.

«I gave him a postural examination – he recalls – and I confirm that I put a spacer on it. Among us biomechanics, anyone who resorts to certain solutions is a… criminal (smiles, ed.). In Tuscany it is said that the shims are placed under the legs of the table, when it rocks.It is only used if there is a real discrepancy, which perhaps occurs due to injuries. Egan had a problem of this type and The first thing I did was give him some postural exercises., the effects of which obviously need to be verified over time. The spacer I put in was probably 2-3 millimetres and it went into place.I remember that when he won the Tour we continued to hear from him and he didn't have any problems. From what I understand the pain came out later, in the following winter.. Did he really train too much? The body grows up to the age of 25, too heavy workloads are not good for it. I hope that thickness hasn't been removed, though. Runners who are comfortable shouldn't be touched. It reminds me of when they tried to straighten Sagan out and got the only result that he didn't go any further».

A message from Genoa

At this point, we invite one of our loyal readers to join us in the discussion: Davide Podestà of GenoaFormer rider, with a degree in Sports Science, a masseur... A very attentive person, in short. Who, in reading our articles from the Strade Bianche, one day he sent a photo highlighting Bernal's right boot. «There's a thickness underneath there – he wrote in the message – it would be interesting to know if Bernal solved it that way».

In reality, the thickness is there and it's not that thin. The team doesn't say much about the previous one, but the one placed now is almost a centimeter highThe question, if anything, is why the discrepancy between Bernal's legs, which initially did not seem so marked, has now come to be 17 millimeters, as stated last year in the team bulletin?

The Pantani case

We refer to it in passing a well-known case involving another Tour winner, who actually won the Tour after the terrible accident for which his left leg remained 8 millimeters shorter than his right: Marco PantaniHis re-education was supervised by Fabrizio Borra, the same man who recently created Nibali's wrist brace. Speaking of other re-educations, a few weeks ago he told us again about the water work done with Marco to give the body the necessary balance and he emphasized that perfection was not achieved just because the leg was shorter.

«We had studied different solutions – he recalls – but in the end working frequently on the body's compensatory capabilities, we did not use any thicknessMy job when I went to follow him to the races was precisely to manage these things..."

There is no rule

At this point, however, curiosity grows about Bernal's leg and why it was decided to increase the height of the thickness.

«Those 17 millimetres are a lot – says Borra – and there is no precise rule… The mistake that many make is add thickness without properly evaluating the body's compensation capabilitiesFirst we work on the maximum potential for physiological adaptation and then we see how much is missing. In these cases it is essential that the Posturologist, the Osteopath and the Biomechanics all work together on the athlete's responses».

Let's not exaggerate

While the next step will be to try to understand what kind of work there was before that high thickness, that is whether Bernal is also following a postural work program that allows his body to live with that severe asymmetry, from other information gathered it emerges that the use of thickness is not the final solution. And above all that you never go to correct the whole differenceIf we are talking about 17 millimeters, given that in cycling the leg never reaches full extension and you can also count on the play of the ankle, the thickness can be much lower (such as the starting 3-4 millimetres) since the difference will be spread across the entire length of the leg.

«Those few millimetres – says Paolo Alberati – are a “signal” for the athlete's biomechanical structure and they serve to compensate for even larger differences. Experience and science say this."

Balance at risk

In other words, by adding together the collected voices and the changes, that going to compensate so much at 24 years old with thicknesses, after the athlete has been building balances and compensations for all this time, it could mess up your biomechanics.

In 2017, he used Stefania's thickness, the same in 2018. The following year, 2019, he used no thickness. In 2020, he used a small thickness, which resembled a wedge. In 2021, he used a very large thickness. Did he really solve the problem like this, as Podestà asked?

Egan worked hard, again subjecting himself to significant loads, as we told you. During the Giro, comparing yourself with your opponents will provide all the answers. At this point we will follow his path with one more reason for attention.