Knee pain

tifferz

over last 6-8 weeks I have been getting a bit of pain in my knee particularly if I crouch down it is then really painful when I first stand back up straight, although this then eases after a few steps.

However last weekend I did 100 miles on the road bike & by the end was in considerable pain to the extent that I could not put any pressure on the down stroke - although pain goes once my foot reaches bottom on the pedal stroke.

I went to the doctors this week to get advice as it is too painful to cycle but dont want to have a long rest period off the bike & risk losing fitness. However Doc's only advice was "come back in a month & lets see how it is".

Pain is in the area to the side of my knee cap on the inside. I have never suffered from knee problems previously.

Any advice from anyone who has suffered similar injury appreciated on :-
- what the injury might be
- best treatment (hopefully something other than "rest")

Bronzie

I don’t recommend diagnosis on a forum – try and find a good sports physiotherapist that can offer you a bit more useful advice than your GP. But if they say rest it as well, then you’d better take notice!

However this sounds very similar to problems I had about 15 years ago. Like you, the onset followed a century ride which left me feeling very sore around the knees and rather than heed my body’s warnings, I carried on ploughing away until it left me nearly unable to walk at times.

After the best part of 2 years with various physios, osteos and consultants later (including a knee arthroscopy and “lateral release” operation), it seemed to settle down. I still get occasional problems if I overdo things and suspect the whole thing was triggered by trying to increase my mileage too quickly (one phsyio explained that muscles increase in strength far quicker than the tendons do, so gentle increase in mileage week on week is essential to avoid problems with muscle imbalances and tendonitis).

From personal experience I found some muscle imbalance exercises suggested by one physio were the most helpful – everything else was just a waste of time and money.

tifferz

cheers Bronzie

i suspect that i am going to have to go to a specialist to get it solved but just haven't got the cash at the moment.

Really dont want to spend weeks off the bike as was really hoping to use this winter to build a good base for next year as for the first time in years I have actually got the time to commit to a proper training routine over the winter

Guess I'll just take it easy for a couple of weeks & see how it goes

huuregeil

Strongly second the advice about getting it seen to by a decent physio. One session (roughly £30-40) might be all you need just to diagnose the problem, if you're on a budget, and you might be able to cobble together a rehab program yourself. Suboptimal, but better than doing nothing - the danger of not getting it looked at that there is some more serious underlying problem that gets missed, and you reinjure yourself down the line.

Alternatively, you should push your GP to refer you to physio. Some GPs are more receptive to this than others.

Finally, the golden rule of sports injuries is that, if you have pain, rest and deploy tactics such as regular icing, anti-inflamatories, to get the pain and inflamation down, because this lessens the damage and allows you to move on to rehab sooner. So, for now, rest and ice, lots of both!

bahzob

My knees are totally knackered from football injuries, I cant run more than a few yards. Luckily this doesnt affect my cycling.

One thing I have found though is that getting seat height right is critical. Early days of riding I did have knee pain and thought it would put the kibosh on my riding. However moved seat up and pain went. I found to get rid of pain move seat as high as possible until you start rocking from side to side when you pedal.

So if not already done as well as of physio is get bike fit. I'd include in that investigating foot wedges. Most people have one leg longer than another + dont have perfectly aligned legs and wedges can sort this out reducing risk of long term injury and btw making riding easier.

Slimbods

tifferz wrote:

Pain is in the area to the side of my knee cap on the inside. I have never suffered from knee problems previously.

Any advice from anyone who has suffered similar injury appreciated on :-
- what the injury might be
- best treatment (hopefully something other than "rest")

I had similar, and it's about tight hamstrings and weak glutes. Try lots of hamstring stretches, particularly ones that stretch the inner thigh and some core strength stuff concentrating on the glutes.

monkeyjo

Slimbods wrote:

tifferz wrote:

Pain is in the area to the side of my knee cap on the inside. I have never suffered from knee problems previously.

Any advice from anyone who has suffered similar injury appreciated on :-
- what the injury might be
- best treatment (hopefully something other than "rest")

I had similar, and it's about tight hamstrings and weak glutes. Try lots of hamstring stretches, particularly ones that stretch the inner thigh and some core strength stuff concentrating on the glutes.

I'll second that. I had a very similar sounding knee pain earlier this year while I was training for a marathon. I went to a physio and was told that my hamstrings were very tight. Now If I get out of the habit of stretching properly after exercise it comes back within about a week.

I'd definitely make a visit to a physio and get their opinion on it.

milese

I also get knee pain, that I got when training for a half marthon. Went from no exercise to loads in no time at all.

Diagnosed as tight calfs and ITBs (outside of thigh between hip and knee).

Its fine when cycling normally, but when it gets cold or my saddle is too low it can be a bit sore. So make sure you keep them warm and get your saddle height right.

You're going to have to rest for a while.

General advice is to make sure you warm and down properly, and spend some time stretching before and after rides. Stretching on non cycling days is good as well.

iain_j

I'd definitely recommend seeing a sports physio rather than the GP. Early this year I was having considerable ankle pain while out hillwalking. Went to the GP, his advice boiled down to "don't go hillwalking". Went to a physio instead, best £30 I ever spent, got it sorted in one hour. He recommended a pair of off-the-shelf orthotic insoles which did the trick.

As far as your knee pain, check your saddle height. I've been having similar trouble, and have been going by frontal knee pain = saddle too low, but it seems I've actually had it too high. Lowering it has reduced the pain.

And finally, +1 for rest. It's a bugger, but the way I look at it is now, a week off the bike now might prevent more trouble and time off it in the future.

paul kimmings@ntlworld.co

have got same injury been on afrotek 50 for a month to reduce sweling,knee is healing but it is slow, been off the bike now for 8 weeks but rest is the only way in the end ,doctor said as expected over use ,trying to do too much, and if i had the money i would be going to the physio as doctors dont seem interested at all.

milese

As for not being able to afford physio, try your local college. My local one does physio sessions for £8 an hour. So they're not fully trained, but they're supervised and you might get an 18 year old girl. (I can got an overweight lad).

At worse you'll get a decent massage and have any problem muscles identified, as correctly diagnosing of knee problems seems to be more of an art than a science.

msw

I had a similar problem (although on outside of the knee rather than inside) and managed to avoid a long period off the bike, but it did get to a stage where I had to lay off for 2 weeks. These 2 articles were helpful:

http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/articl ... ance-17010
http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/articl ... rt-2-17445

But the thing that really sorted it out was actually getting a professional bike fit, as part of which they moved my cleats so that I had some play in both directions (heel-in and heel-out), whereas before I'd had almost none in the heel-in direction. It felt very wrong at first because I wasn't used to it, but it made an enormous difference straight away, from not being able to walk after a ride to no pain at all.

My problem was on the outside of my knee so could yours be in the other direction (i.e. not enough heel-out play)? It's also worth mentioning that at the same time they recommended moving my saddle back quite a long way, so changed the pedalling action somewhat.

Best of luck
Martin

oldwelshman

I have had several operqations on both knees following years of playing squash and rugby, so now I cycle and have no problems
I did oncee however have a problem in my earlier cycling career one winter where I had a horrible numb feeling behind my kneecap and the only cure for that was rest.
I learnt from that and now I ensure I keep knees warm and do not use too high a gear as I did that winter.
Physical damage such as cartlidge, ligaments etc can be repaired once diagnosed, unfortunately over use or strain injuries need rest and in future more care so once you get correct diagnosis you will know.
Go back and hassle your doctor if it's not ok within 2 weeks!!

paul kimmings@ntlworld.co

been back to doctors who refered my for physio straight away as the afrotek 50s did nothing for the problem last ride was 11 oct and i am still having knee pains on and off
just wondering what to expect from physio,as doctor cannot seem to diagnose it,although he thinks it might be that ligaments arnt pulling in the right direction or something like that ,looked at my bike set up and have noticed that the seat was set about 1cm to high which meant that i was i believe the term to be ankling.

ex-pat scot

My inside knee problem is patellar femoral joint. PFJ. had it since London marathon in April, and it's still not gone away. Sounds similar to yours, but internet diagnosis is dangerous and likely wrong. Knees are really complex things.

Get a proper diagnosis.

Then you can self-rehabilitate if cash is tight. Stretching and strengthening exercises are good, if you know what is wrong and what you need to work on