Originally Posted by
albrt
It seems to me that lowering the bars can only work if you already have an extremely strong core (or as Kontact says your weight is being supported by your hamstrings, which seems to assume that you have a strong core between the hamstrings and the arms). If your core is strong enough to support most of your weight and the rest of the bike is proportioned correctly, then lowering the bars could take weight off the hands. I don't see how it could work any other way.
The hamstrings support the upper body, not the arms. And they do that for the same reason people can't touch their toes. It's just tension, not strength There is a mechanical limit to how low you can bend over the bars and it is incremental.