Knee pain when using turbo trainer

KeefP

Hi everyone,

I got back into cycling again after riding a couple of sportives at the end of last year. Decided through the winter to use the mountain bike and put the road bike on the turbo trainer.
I have never had any knee pain when using the road bike or mountain bike out on the road but since switching to the road bike on a basic turbo trainer I have pain behind both knee caps.
The sessions I am doing are on medium gears for 30-45 mins (2-3 times a week) Bike is set up the same and is level.
Is it maybe because my cadence is much higher than when Im on the road?
I have heard that if your quads develop they can pull up your knee caps and cause friction?

I would be welcome any help on this as I may have to revert to going out in the bad weather like did many years ago!

Thanks.

GavH

I began getting the same problem a few weeks back - first 10 mins were excruciating under my left knee cap and more towards the outside and right from teh very instant I applied pressure on the crank. After 10 mins I was ok. Stupidly I just grizzed it out and kept thinking it'd be ok. Eventually it hurt so much I went to the Dr. Turns out her husband was a cyclist so she understood terms like turbo and cranks.

She put my knee through various range of motion - all with no pain. Just as I was beginning to feel like a fraud she told me that I had perfectly described the symptoms of a FIBRILLATED PATELLA. Basically, through either overuse or too much/too soon I had worn away tiny bits of the underside of my patella. This meant that from a cold start (ie insufficient warm up) my patella was effectively sticking to the joint, hence the pain and hence once it warmed up (after the 10 mins) there was no pain.

Treatment was actually pretty simple. Rest first and foremost to reduce and inflammation. I was also told to take some kind of fish oil to help keep the joints lubricated and whilst this has already shown an improvement within a couple of weeks I was told that taking it regularly for a month was required before it effects would be felt. I was also told to warm up properly and to try and vary my training if possible, rather than using the bike all the time.

May not be what you are experiencing but the moral of the story is simple - Go see the Doc!!

KeefP

Thanks for the info, I had'nt considered the warm up at all. Because of the temperature in the garage I have tended to go for it to warm up.

stevewj

I have the same probs doing intervals on the turbo I think because of the resistance so I use very low resistance and only use it for easy recovery rides. I do the intervals on the road (find motivation much better there anyway) and have no probs despite sessions of one and a half miles x five up a hill in 53 x 12 seated all the way.

BUICK

If you have ramped up the amount of training you are doing significantly (ie more than the 10% rule of thumb) you may have simply overstressed your joints? It would be worth backing off and giving them a rest either way I'm sure.

Alternatively, I was suffering knee pain and it was solved eventually by simply adjusting my left cleat position. I used to have both cleats positioned the same and it had never caused me any problems before but I guess that once I was fitter and putting more power down it was more of an issue and started to take it's toll on that joint. My legs are exactly the same length but my thigh is longer on one side by a fraction (this was only spotted by my physiotherapist and isn't visible to a layperson) which means the leverage differs on each side - combine that with slightly different foot size/shape (and I'm talking small differences here, I'm no freak!) and you have enough leeway to create an injury