knee pain

jebidiah

i get little aches in my knees after cycling, ive been increasing my distance over the last few weeks, but i keep my gear low/higher cadence so as not to injure my self. aches usually start after an hour, and last about the same off the bike.

i got a bike fit last week to help it. rode the new setup on saturday, first hour was great but then i did howth twice and the ache developed again. (probably shouldnt have done the climbing i know:pac:)

im wondering if anyone else had something similar and what did they do about it

i was thinking of strengthening the leg muscles around the knee, can that be done with cycling or without going to the gym?

avalanche

i would say you dont have your saddle at the right height, i injured both of my knees running and was recommended to cycle to strenghten the muscles around the knee so i would recommend you ensure the saddle is the right height and dont push the gears to hard. from my own experience i have no knee pain cycling although they hurt like hell when i run..:o

Ryder

May be that your inside group of thigh muscles (vastus medialus) arent built up enough. Cycling alone wont help, need specific exercises. My advice would be to go to a physio sooner rather than later to be properly assessed

jebidiah

hmm, good sugestions, ill look into the phisio, and the bike fit should have sorted out the saddle height/position, took 2 hours!

while i was on the turbo, the chap in cycleways, said i had ok technique, so maybe its just a case of poor positioning for too long

short circuit

Adjusting seat height ... is very very hard ... you get knee pains whether you are too high ... or too low.

In in advise section on cycling news, what I read was ... keep increasing your seat height by 2-3mm and go for a ride of atleast 5km each time ... Keep doing this till you feel that you've to rock your hips to pedal ... at this stage drop 5-6mm ... A drop of 5-6mm when you only increase by 2-3mm is to ensure that you don't lose form when you are tired.

Other than that ... spin .. choose a gear which let's you pedal at atleast 70rpm even uphill ... 80 - 100 rpm is even better.

And only increase mileage by 10% every week ... your heart and lungs adapt quickly ... bones and muscles take time to adapt to the additional workload.

zzzzzzzz

What part of your knee is it? Front, back, inside, outside? Both knees?

jebidiah

front, kind of above the knee cap mostly. and its pretty even in both knees

Caroline_ie

I fecked my right knee when I started cycling for the 1st time in 2006. I was unfit and overweight and the physio said at the time I needed to build up the muscle in my thighs and calves. It was too much for my knee ... and at the time i was only doing very short spins on flat.

estariol

almost definitely saddle height/poistion, turbo doesn't really correlate to actual road conditions so you will prob need to bring a multitool along and fine tune both the saddle height and rail poistion of the saddle (this made all the difference for me) also might be worth looking at your cleats.

jebidiah

had the cleats adjusted so the spindle of the pedal is running through the correct point of my foot. fore/aft is aligned so that my knee is above the spindle, height so my knee isnt over extended. got a shorter stem 90mm, but the saddle is still quite far forwards. i feel if i push it back farther, ill have to get a shorter stem again, probably 80mm.

its a 56 frame and im around 5 8 i think always thought it was a bit big, but it was ok to ride, wast until i started upping the distance that it began to ge=ive the aches, dont get any other pain from it at all