sore knee this morning

mudcow007

i didn't ride at all this weekend so my legs felt fresh an strong this morning

About three miles in to my commute, i started getting a dull ache on my left knee right behind my knee cap but only when i was putting power into my pedal stroke from that point i took it easy an the pain eased

have I broken/ pulled something? :shock:

my knee feels fine walking around etc

rubertoe

A trip to the vets for you my boy.

SmellTheGlove

Ice.

With the vodka.

UndercoverElephant

If this happens to me, it's usually a problem with saddle or cleat positioning.

exlaser

any more advice on this subject would be great.

i also have had this problem for three months, since doing mont ventoux in the summer.

mickbrown

Sounds like how my cartilage started playing up.

mudcow007

well im finally picking my new "ride" up tonight so i will see if its still the same on the commute tommorow

the pain is similar to a bruise being pressed, if that makes sense

mickbrown

Definitely sounds like cartilage.

Do you feel it walking up and down stairs?

exlaser

do not know about mudcow007, but with me. YES.

flimflam_machine

My knee recently gave me some serious grief of a similar nature. I recently started commuting again and did 3 consecutive days (~6 miles each way) with no prior conditioning. A couple of days later just walking around I suddenly got an appalling pain just above and to the outside side of my kneecap (where my quads insert into my knee). I was pretty much unable to climb stairs and had to take a couple off days off work because I couldn't get in.

I've had similar injuries in the past and thought that it was due to some sort of muscle imbalance caused by poor pedalling alignment (or something similar in other sports) leading to my knee "running rough" causing cartilage inflammation. If anyone has any more specific ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.

UndercoverElephant

I'm no expert, but here's what works for me, position-wise:

1) The centre of the pedal-spindle should be roughly 7mm behind the ball of your foot.
2) The cleat should be aligned in such a way that your feet are in the position they fall in when they dangle.
3) Your saddle height should be such that you can stand on the pedal with your heel (just) when the pedal is at 6 o'clock, without moving your hips.
3) With the pedal at 3 o'clock, the fleshy part behind your kneecap should be directly over the pedal spindle. Use a plumb-line to check.

Everyone's different, though, so exercise caution, and do go too hard, too fast after positional changes, sometimes different muscles are required than the ones you've used and it can take a while to get new ones up to speed.

flimflam_machine

A quick bump to this thread and also to link to this guy, a physio who's into road racing, who seems to make a lot of sense about cycling biomechanics and knee pain particularly:

http://www.youtube.com/user/cyclingphys ... F-1qGEe6lE

http://www.youtube.com/user/cyclingphys ... hO51VrPdk8


Here's a trick that might be worth trying for relieving knee pain:

http://www.youtube.com/user/cyclingphys ... NgEm-grSZQ

Anonymous

I found that my left knee was causing me all kinds of misery after a long ride (I literally couldn't walk - stairs was a whole new world of pain) and I think it came down to 2 things.

1) Conditioning - if you hammer it too hard (especially your 1st time with cleats, where you can be tempted to go nuts with the extra power!) your knees can fill with liquid, which can make them hurt, but that can be cured just by taking it easy. - no need to come off the bike

2) And far more likely is the left cleat has slipped. I do lots of clipping in/out on my shortish commute, and I realised that my cleat have moved on the shoe, so my knees were under some undue stress. After 170 miles, it was pretty damn sore, but absolutely fine the next day. Straight back on the bike, and been commuting fine. Not done any particularly long distances yet, so I will see...

As per the advice above, just double check the cleats are in the right place!