More (different) knee advice please!

Lowlander

Hi all

Been ramping up the training pretty hard over the past few weeks in an effort to make the Tour of Wessex a viable 3 days in the saddle. Especially been trying to take every opportunity to get multiple big days in, since knowing I can do this should give me the confidence and endurance I need to get through and enjoy it.

Then... had to pull up at the weekend mid-way through a second day of planned consecutive centuries with sharp pain at top/outer side of left calf/back of knee. First day had gone really well, but It built gradually until eventually even soft-pedalling was really excruciating. I live in holland, so everything I do distance-wise is pretty flat and high cadence. The strength and higher intensity stuff I mostly save for the turbo.

I took a day off then attempted a gentle hour on the turbo just to test the waters and after half an hour it came back again with a vengeance. Feel it only slightly when walking/climbing stairs but the pedalling action seems to really bring it on.

So a couple of questions:

- what is it? tendon which connects calf muscle to knee perhaps? everything else I read seems to be more about pain at the front of the knee and very quad focused
- what should I do about it? i.e. complete rest, or keep trying to gently train to keep it moving. very concerned about losing condition/training time with my key goals pretty nearby now
- what can I do to avoid it? my first thought was to adjust my pedals (speedplay) to allow my left heel to rotate inwards more as I pedal for a more natural action.

All advice very welcome!

dennisn

Lowlander wrote:

Hi all

Been ramping up the training pretty hard over the past few weeks in an effort to make the Tour of Wessex a viable 3 days in the saddle. Especially been trying to take every opportunity to get multiple big days in, since knowing I can do this should give me the confidence and endurance I need to get through and enjoy it.

Then... had to pull up at the weekend mid-way through a second day of planned consecutive centuries with sharp pain at top/outer side of left calf/back of knee. First day had gone really well, but It built gradually until eventually even soft-pedalling was really excruciating. I live in holland, so everything I do distance-wise is pretty flat and high cadence. The strength and higher intensity stuff I mostly save for the turbo.

I took a day off then attempted a gentle hour on the turbo just to test the waters and after half an hour it came back again with a vengeance. Feel it only slightly when walking/climbing stairs but the pedalling action seems to really bring it on.

So a couple of questions:

- what is it? tendon which connects calf muscle to knee perhaps? everything else I read seems to be more about pain at the front of the knee and very quad focused
- what should I do about it? i.e. complete rest, or keep trying to gently train to keep it moving. very concerned about losing condition/training time with my key goals pretty nearby now
- what can I do to avoid it? my first thought was to adjust my pedals (speedplay) to allow my left heel to rotate inwards more as I pedal for a more natural action.

All advice very welcome!

-what is it? Calf muscle / tendon - rupture / tear? Just a guess. See a doctor.
-what should...? See a doctor. As for your key goals. They have now changed to let this thing heal before you go out there and make it worse.
-what can you do to avoid having this happen? Nothing that I know of. I was walking across a parking lot at a ski resort when I tore a tendon in my left calf. These things happen in life and not particularly to athletes. Like I said, all I was doing was walking across a parking lot. They say stretching helps reduce injury.

vorsprung

Do see a doctor

I had this sort of injury and I had to spend two months not using big gears or climbing

ut_och_cykla

See a doctor or at least a physio - thought I'd written a long answer abt cleat positions and hamstrings but cant see it now. Good luck!

Mettan

Get a diagnosis off a doctor - complete rest in the interim - not worth risking exacerbating the issue.

SurosaRider

Hello,

I can only speak from experience but for me every time I "ramp up the training" I get some sort of issue with my knees. When this happens I lay off for about a week (way more than just a day) and do only very gentle recovery rides along with gentle stretching exercises (this is horrible I know, once you're resolved to go hard and push yourself, you'll hate the hiatus). After the week, and once I feel absolutely no problems in my knees - when climbing the stairs for example - I go back out and start ramping up again and the knees seem to have had enough time and have caught up with the rest of me and can now hack the pace. In this way my training goes up in 'steps' rather than in a linear straight line upwards.

I have come to think that this is because, while muscle mass is created relatively quickly by the body, it takes more time to build up the tendons, ligaments etc at the joints (maybe because they have to be more dense?). Therefore, you have a newly beefed up thigh pulling on a knee that's not had time to adapt.

In addition I think keeping the knees warm during exercise (tights rather than shorts when its cooler weather) stops them seizing up.

To me this all seems to make sense but I should stress that I have absolutely no medical or phisio training and you should never ignore a persistent problem without taking to a professional.