Help with knee troubles please...

cusimar9

Where to begin...

I suffer from ITBS, so I'm doing all the stretches I can and I don't think there's more to be said about it.

However, the last few weeks I've had a bit of soreness behind my left knee. It feels like one of the ligaments connecting my calf to my knee is being pulled. Its not massively uncomfortable, but I'm going on a 430 mile tour soon and I'd like to help it as much as possible.

I read that if the back of your knees are sore, you should lower your seat, so I lowered it about 6/7 mm and forward about the same. I thought it helped slightly but now I'm not sure and I think I was getting soreness at the front of my right knee (which until I changed the seat had always been fine).

Does anyone have any suggestions?

fizz

If its really sore, you need IMHO to rest for a few days, you can try putting ice your knee to and see if that relieves the inital pain.

Fiddilng around with the seat height is a good start, but also have a look at your cleat / shoe position if you are using clipless pedals. You might find you are forcing you feet and knees into an un-natural position and thats what is causing the pain.

Also you could try using cleats with more float as well as that give some lateral movement to your ankle an knee.

Also do you grind / push big gears ? If so try using a lower gear and spinning a little more as that will relive the pressure on your knee joints to.

HTH

ride_whenever

Or, seeing as you're going on a 430mile tour and presumably would like to be able to walk for as long as you are living, why not go and see a good physio with a bit of experience who can help with your set-up.

andrewjoseph

cusimar9 wrote:

...
I read that if the back of your knees are sore, you should lower your seat, so I lowered it about 6/7 mm and forward about the same. I thought it helped slightly but now I'm not sure and I think I was getting soreness at the front of my right knee (which until I changed the seat had always been fine).

Does anyone have any suggestions?

What do you mean by 'I think I was getting soreness at the front..." is it hurting or not? is this at the same time as the back of the knee was hurting?

Are the back of the knees sore after lowering the seat?

Why did you move the seat forward? you may need to move it back again to ensure the knee is not too far forward over the pedal axle.

There is a good online book you can buy from www.RoadBikeRider.com, written by Andy Pruit (of Specialized Body Geometry fame), only costs a few dollars and may help a lot.

andrewc3142

It may sound flippant, but go and see a good sports physio, preferably one with experience of cycling injuries, but if not one that works with a sports club, football team.

Also, go to a good bike shop (a really good one) and see if your bike fits and, if so, whether there are adjustments that you should make.

Knee injury is probably the worst type of problem for cycling and generally won't go away by itself, but often easily sorted. Been there, done that.

Hope this is helpful.

felgen

Sounds to me like you were getting irritation at the gastroc (calf muscle) origin possibly as a result of significant effort/loading in the near fully extended (straight) position (Gastrocnemius works through the achilles to plantarflex (point the ankle down) but its origin is above the knee so it is also a weak knee flexor). Then when you lowered your seat your leg doesnt go as straight and gastroc gets offloaded hopefully giving relief a little which should have helped. The trade off is that now the anterior part of your knee (patellofemoral joiont) is getting loaded more heavily loaded in a more flexed position as a result of your saddle being lower, and I suspect your pain is at the front of your knee as a result of getting patellofemoral joint irritation.

Anyway thats my 2p worth. HTH, but if course I could be way off tack as I am just hypothesising I havent asked any questions about your symptoms.. see someone who can both take a history and examine. A good sports physio is a good place to start

on the road

Are your cleats worn? I had knee problems not so long ago and looked down as I was clipping in and noticed I was actually twisting my foot to clip in, which resulted in me twisting my knee.

cusimar9

Felgen I think you've probably hit the nail on the head.

I think I'll move my seat back a bit and up a few mm's. I'm doing about 80 miles on Sunday and going to Scotland on Saturday so as you can see its a bit of an urgency!

felgen

I would also make sure you carefull stretch your calves before riding. Best stretch is to plant your foot up against a door fram or similar so the ball of your foot rest on the frame about 6-8 inches off the floor and then lean in towards the door frame.. this really stretches the calf. I was taught that one by Aussie rugby league club physio

Yeah I think if you can sort the calves that would be better than mucking up your knees - anterior knee pain is a bugger to treat and if you get any chondral changes (cartilage damage), well then you are on a slippery slope after that. So get the seat up again as you had already planned.

cusimar9

I think I may have (partly) found what the problem is. My knee troubles seem to be linked to how hard I push on the bike. I also moved my seat back to where it was.

This weekend I decided to go out and push as little as I can, building up my speed gently wherever possible. Of course, there's still only 1 way to get up hills but some new gears I have on order should help with that as well.

The result? Did 20 miles on Saturday and 90 miles on Sunday and I feel great. Legs are a little sore today but nothing unusual. Did the 90 miler in 8:15 which considering how slowly I was cycling isn't that bad at all.

Its lifted my confidence enormously and I'm really looking forward to going to Scotland on Saturday.

Incidentally, I have a blog about my LEJOG attempt if anyone's interested:

http://rick-lejog.blogspot.com/

Cheers for the advice