Saddle Height

kennyb3

Have had a pain in the back (posterior) of my right knee on the outside (lateral) for the last few months. Its the ligament attaching to the top of my calf. Took 3 weeks off up to last night and ran 5 days a week with no issues - back on the bike last night and its still at me.

What i noticed was that the pain is much worse when im in the big ring and eases when i switch into the samll one. Does this suggest i need to lower my saddle? i.e the leg is possibly over stretching at the bottom of the stroke in the big chain ring?

Everything i ve read about posterior knee pain suggests lowering the saddle too.

But....

I have it in my head that the pain is occuring at the top of my stroke in the big ring - my knee is bit cramped and jutting out slightly. In the big ring my knee is more cramped but in the smaller ring less so. This would suggest raising the saddle??

I feel this may be the right thing to do as i dont feel fully extended at the bottom of my stroke but cramped at the top of it. Dont want to get highering it and making it worse though.

Thoughts appreciated.....

PS strictly a saddle height issue/question, not a knee pain and medical advice issue.

Coronal

Um, your crank length shouldn't change depending on what ring you're in...

Try moving it up and down, back and forwards by 3 mm or so and see how it goes. Higher/further back will probably do it.

kennyb3

Coronal wrote: »

Um, your crank length shouldn't change depending on what ring you're in...

Does the angles your knee extends to not change though?

Coronal

kennyb3 wrote: »

Does the angles your knee extends to not change though?

How? Saddle to crank distance determines knee angle, and (usually, at least) crank length and position is independent of what chainring you're in, just how far around one revolution you are.

Raam

Go on one of the club spins and get one of the experienced race hands to have a look at your style.

HivemindXX

Coronal is right the circle the pedals follow doesn't change depending on what gear you are in so your leg angle shouldn't change either.

Possibly something else is coming in to play. For example your cadence may be way down in the small ring while climbing. You could try cycling for a while along the flat in the highest big ring and then the lowest small ring and see if you still notice an issue. For example your issue might be with climbing technique instead of saddle height or gearing.

The other thing to do is to take whatever tool is required out with you and adjust your saddle a small amount each way and see which feels better.

cdaly_

kennyb3 wrote: »

Does the angles your knee extends to not change though?

No. You're just pushing a bit harder in the big ring so you notice it more.

kennyb3

@ Raam That was prob the next step. Was thinking a bike fit too but want to save the 100yoyo's till i get a new bike in March.

@ hivemindxx & Cdaly -I think i ll play around with the saddle height next week and see what happens. I generally have quite a high cadence and dont tend to grind. I ve been avoiding climbing because of it, last night was all flat

Frustrating as hell, knee is sore to walk on and extend today. Not the worst time of year to happen though i guess

dave_o_brien

Do you use clipless pedals? Could be that your cleat angle needs rotating...

coastwatch

Might need to be rested, without the 5 days running per week?

kennyb3

@ DOB yep, but havent changed them in circa 6 months and this is only a more recent problem.

I ve been given it more thought and i do remember changing my saddle tilt as i felt it was tilting too far up and hurting my bits when i was in the drops. Problem didnt develop till a month later but might be it.

Anyway thanks for the help, from experience the knee setlles in 2days so will play around and try again monday. If not i ll get someone to look at my setup.

ednwireland

when i got my new bike had the saddle too high, did the same tendon, 10 weeks of physio to sort it out

Ryder

with pain on your outer knee in the big ring sounds like saddle needs to go down and or forward. 5mm changes really make a big difference.......I learned this the hard way.

I think that as you get older/fitter/stronger your 'fit' changes anyway so need to be aware and make small changes regularly. If things aren't getting sorted, you won't go too far wrong with speedplays to eliminate cleat rotation as a cause.

Bikefits are great but depending on the fitter may not make a huge difference if your already in the ballpark. Getting someone to look over you or making small changes yourself is probably better

NeedMoreGears

I began getting a bit of knee pain to the outside of my right knee. I checked the cleats and found that they were not in the same position as I had installed them even though they were quite tight. It seemed that the front of my right foot was pointing more towards the left than it should have been and these was putting a bit of pressure on the outside of my knee. I put them back to the correct position for me and all was immediately ok.

As regards the posterior pain in the knee, I found that lowering the saddle slightly helped a lot. As I got fitter I was slowly raising the saddle but seem to have over done it at one point. Again once I lowered it a bit (5mm or so) all was ok.

Some reading material that might help at http://www.cptips.com/knee.htm

Wicklowrider

Steve Hogg great article here:

http://stevehoggbikefitting.blogspot.com/2011/02/seat-height-how-hard-can-it-be.html

Particularly like his summation where he advises 6 mm below max as the ideal. Why? "Because not every day is the best day of your life"

kennyb3

Just a follow up on this for anyone thats interested - not medical advice just my own situation although it might help someone out there.

Still haven't rode my bike proper since mid Sept (issue first arose 13 Aug) but getting treatment the last 2 weeks. Turned out id damaged my biceps femoris and this was causing bursitis in my knee. I was still able to get away with running as I was effectively over compensating and running on the other 2 hamstring muscles.

I had splashed out a lot of money on a course so was broke and didnt go see someone early - I decided on rest. Never got better tho and I should of went earlier. Annoyed that I missed an extra month for no reason.

So one piece of advice would be to go see a therapist when you get injured, let them decide whats needed - be it rest or whatever else.

Notwitch

Kenny, sounds like some progress at last - a good thing.

Out of interest what flavour of 'therapist' did you go for. Doc, Physio, sports masseuse etc.?

kennyb3

Notwitch wrote: »

Kenny, sounds like some progress at last - a good thing.

Out of interest what flavour of 'therapist' did you go for. Doc, Physio, sports masseuse etc.?

Cheers. Went to a physical therapist. Gave my leg a good seeing to the twice so far and booked in for Tuesday too. Improving nicely. Once the hamstring losens out (very tense and shortened) the knee should improve.

mick121

had a simillar issue,pain in back of knee near outside.tryed several things,saddle up/down,forward back etc.no good.could feel ok then hop on bike and within 2mins pain was back.finally sorted it by loosening adjusting screw on pedle for cleats.screw was to tight and not allowing any movement in my knee.havnt looked back since,happy days.

doozerie

A bit different to your situation but I've had issues with one of my hamstrings and a knee in the past. The knee has a lingering problem from over-extending it many years ago, plus I'd strained the hamstring in the past too, so I dismissed the problems as not being related to bike fit just lasting injuries. However I eventually (and reluctantly) lowered my saddle and this seemed to alleviate the problems. My saddle was now lower than I'd ever had it and I was sure I'd not have to lower it again. But the problems hadn't gone away, they'd just become very infrequent (and slightly different).

I recently had a Retul fit done (which I'd recommend, by the way - not cheap, but worth it for me) and it showed that my knees were moving about (laterally) far more than I'd thought. It got worse in higher gears because to apply more pressure on the pedals I was unconsciously moving forward in the saddle, which possibly further compromised an already compromised position. Lowering the saddle and sliding it forward too made a noticeable impact in that the lateral movement in my knees was reduced. I've only had a couple of rides with the new position but it feels instantly more comfortable and I don't have that feeling of occasional slight pressure/tug on my hamstring any longer. It's too soon to say for sure that the new position has solved my problems but it is looking good so far.

As I say it's not quite your situation but if your saddle were too high then perhaps the different feelings you are experiencing in high gears are due to your position changing on the bike just like my position was changing. Mind you, I couldn't detect this when I was doing it myself, not sure why I'm suggesting it might be the case for a person on the Internet I've not even seen/met

Civilian_Target

Rule of thumb for me, if you can't find the right saddle height, it's better to err on the side of lower rather than higher - at least this way you don't injure yourself. Generally it's a trial and error thing, start low and edge a little higher (literally, draw a little line and move up just a little bit past that line each time you go out, no more than half a cm), if you feel stretched, go back one line - that's the right height.

But that said, if you're saying your cramped at the top of the stroke, it's quite possible the problem is something else - maybe the angle your pushing down at, or simply not turning the pedals fast enough - whats your cadence (rotations per minute)?

doozerie

Civilian_Target wrote:

Rule of thumb for me, if you can't find the right saddle height, it's better to err on the side of lower rather than higher - at least this way you don't injure yourself.

A saddle that is too low poses the risk of injury too. The general rule of thumb used to be that a saddle that is too high is likely to hurt your back (as your hips rock) while a saddle that is too low is likely to hurt your knees (because of the angle of your knee when pushing). As is the case with many rules of thumb, that general one is an over simplification and therefore very grey but not entirely without merit though.

Interestingly, I was told that in the vast majority of cases US riders that are fitted using the Retul system are found to have their saddle too high, while the vast majority of european riders are found to have their saddle too low. It's not at all obvious why this should be the case but apparently it has held true for Retul fitters both in Europe and the US across many fittings. I've no idea whether other fitting systems have found the same pattern though.

There is a danger of focusing too much on saddle position too, to the exclusion of everything else. Remember that the front end can influence your position on the bike too and therefore your knee position. The most obvious influences are stem length and handlebar height, but even rotating your bars a little up or down changes reach too and can therefore influence your knee position/angle. Plus, the depth of drop on the bars may alter your knee angle by a lot, or not, when in the drops.

Dermot Illogical

kennyb3 wrote: »

@ Raam That was prob the next step. Was thinking a bike fit too but want to save the 100yoyo's till i get a new bike in March.

Just a minor point on this.. I believe that the bike fit data can be retained and used to set up any subsequent purchases at a lower cost. If you were to buy the new bike from the same lbs that fitted you I'm sure they'd set it up based on the stored data as part of the deal.