Reducing Arm Pump
 

Can anyone tell me how to reduce arm pump? Even with gripping the bike with my legs I still get it so bad I can't hang on. Any easy solutions?

There are different causes and solutions. In general, work out to develop arm strength, have your suspension set up so it works and does not cause a death grip on the bars, and try stretching and exercising a little before a ride to "pre pump" your arms and let them relax. An Aleve (Naproxin) before a ride doesn't hurt either. This works for me.

is there a place online where one can talk to a medical expert? particularly one who is familiar with arm pump? does anyone know if this exists?

gascanuck,

Check out this link to the woods racer site. Scroll down and look for
drdirtrider's comments. He is a doctor / rider from Washington and has some links with actual exercises you can perform to reduce arm pump.
There are a couple links in there so check them all out, but really how long have you been riding for and how long have you had arm pump? It's pretty common thing if you do not ride all the time or haven't been riding for very long. Anyway good luck with it.
-Josh
http://www.woodsracer.com/portal/for...ead.php?t=8077

thank you Joshp for the info

I've found that handle bars plays a big factor in arm pump.
With the stock HEBO bars, I did not have any arm pump. I switched to the Hawkins bend Pro Tapers bars I got a lot of arm pump.

Same here,Hawkins bars have too much sweep IMO. '07 Hebo bars and KTM SX bars are nice, not much sweep.

i'm wondering if using something like A-535 or something like that before a ride/race would be helpful.

I take 2 advil 2 hours before I race to help with arm pump. I also try to do lots of stretching and get a GOOD warm up (get a good sweat up and get my arms pumped up) before the race, then let the arm pump subside before the start, then I'm good to go.

This works for me :
make sure you drink enough before the race
eat bananas (or magnesium tablets)
but most of all: try to relax you grip as much and as many times as possible during a race
Well, this is difficult on a MX track, but riding enduro's there are plenty opportunities.