Knee exercises

I've read all the other threads about knee problems, so I have indeed tried adjusting my riding position in various ways, taking glucosamine and riding in a low gearing.

But I was just wondering if anyone knows any specific exercises you can do to strengthen the muscles supporting your knees? I have quite a bit of pain in one knee at the front under the knee cap, probably due to snowboarding and skating and stuff. Does anyone know any good exercises to help?

Knee exercise?
I ride a bike.
:-)

Guess this is worth reposting: http://www.cptips.com/knee.htm

Glucosamine is a good shout..
I do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Q8FKO7Ueg
which i feel has strengthened my knees recently

(sorry the she's chatting shit in the vid - haven't got audio)

cool, thanks. I'll try that and read up on it too. I'm wondering if I need shorter crank arms

A class of yoga for cyclists at bethnal green on a friday night looks good (starts tonight I think), wish I could make these but work won't allow it.

Cold pressed flax oil or fish oil as well as glucosamine, also worth thinking about.

that looks good. Apart from the fact its a Friday night. Beer beckons...

get in to the west end tonight, coupla bevvies and give this a go

Loosens the lateral miniscus whilst re-aliging the patella

if you go to bikeradar they have a load of tips and advice for looking after your knees.
pain at front under kneecap sounds like tendon strain (something im juts recovering from) this can be caused by straingin your quadracep and then this pulls on your tendon thus moving your kneecap uot of line slightly and this then rubs and causes pain. well this is what happended to me, i was advised to rest up and massage my leg to help it recover, also to do stretches to keep my knee mobile, after a couple of weeks im nearly back to normal and im able to ride my normal daily distances without any trouble.
If in doubt go to the doctor or sports injury clinic! dont wreck your knees!

All about the WD40..... Man Up!

I'd recommend a slow steady ride round to my place so you can pick the colours for your ninja...;)

good plan. I'm off on holiday tomorrow though. How about the week after? Or why don't you pick the colours for me?

Check out dynamic stretching before riding.. I recon a quick warm up is always good..

Try a bike with gears and brakes, as someone who dislocated their knee, I feel I should warn you all

A class of yoga for cyclists at bethnal green on a friday night looks good (starts tonight I think), wish I could make these but work won't allow it.

Cold pressed flax oil or fish oil as well as glucosamine, also worth thinking about.

that looks good. Apart from the fact its a Friday night. Beer beckons...

This is now on Thursdays at 8:15, same venue. Rebecca is on here now (her username is bogue) but hasn't posted yet, so you can't PM her. I go all the time and can recommend it very highly.

Pain just under your knee cap sounds more like a tightness problem that a strength problem. google stretches for you quads and your illiotibial band. also try squatting with your back against a wall, make sure ur knees go over ur toes. Then put a ball or something inbetween ur knees and squeeze this as you squat...this is designed to try and isolate specific muscles around your knee.

^thats massively simplified but covers the basics

http://www.londonfgss.com/search.php?searchid=4024063
I posted a similar thing on this thread. Not sure if it is exactly what you are looking for, but your symptoms do not sound like iliotibial band. Generic advice like glucosamine, stretching, strength programme are all valid. The initial advice is going to be rest, ice and elevate. A sports physio/doc should be able to help diagnose. hope this helps. doc_si

• sometime lurker; first time poster -
  
  

don't know what your predal set up is but if you are riding with pedal/ cleat combo that can really screw your knees - if there is the slightest twist of pull of ligaments etc going on then at 90-100 rpm cadence imagine the amount of repeated strain involved. if you like being cliped in I would recommend pedal / cleat combo with maximum (lateral ?) freedom to rotate - speedplay are awesome in this respect.

i dont know if they do mtb pedals and if its just road shoes you're lumped with external cleats but on my racing bike its the best thing i ever did for my knees - pricy but perfect - very nice sennsation of freedom too but with all the "connectedness" of clip in pedals - and certainly cheaper and imo a better solution than those "perfect position" sessions you can book.

• sometime lurker; first time poster -
  
  

don't know what your predal set up is but if you are riding with pedal/ cleat combo that can really screw your knees - if there is the slightest twist of pull of ligaments etc going on then at 90-100 rpm cadence imagine the amount of repeated strain involved. if you like being cliped in I would recommend pedal / cleat combo with maximum (lateral ?) freedom to rotate - speedplay are awesome in this respect.

i dont know if they do mtb pedals and if its just road shoes you're lumped with external cleats but on my racing bike its the best thing i ever did for my knees - pricy but perfect - very nice sennsation of freedom too but with all the "connectedness" of clip in pedals - and certainly cheaper and imo a better solution than those "perfect position" sessions you can book.

Speedplay frogs have a massive 20 degree float. There are mtb pedals, I wouldn't use em with road shoes but plenty of people (including me) use em on road bikes

Probably the best thing you can do though, is lower gearing and mucho spinning - polls on other bike forums, this comes out top with helping with knee pain

Thanks Oliver! Here I am, hello everyone...

Hello Dood!

Right, whos been UTFS'ing ?

In terms of knee exercises Ive done them blugarian split squats before and they are intense.

I did the 'speed skater' variation which involves a half rep between every full rep, its fucking brutal.

I'm getting a set of these for the winter through work, built in knee support in the tights.
awesome concept.
http://www.cw-x.com/ExploreProducts.aspx?gender=mens&product=tights&by=collection⊂=performx

after three weeks my knee is actually starting to get better. I slowly developed a dull ache in my left knee which at first I attempted to ride off.
I had never had an injury that didn't go way by itself after a couple of days and especially one that didn't arise from a trauma. It got to the stage where I had to leave my bike at work after riding in. There was no swelling, just an ache that seemed to be at the joint surface...I got quite emotional at points, I worried that my cycling had come to a rather mediocre end. I was jealous of every cyclist I saw mashing away without giving it a second thought.

The recovery has been painfully slow but I can feel that I am making progress. The Physio thought maybe it was knee cap tracking or bruised cartilage. I still feel scared to put any kind of power down though and am attending a yoga for cyclist class tonight to work on my flexibility as recommended by the physio. Root cause of it though is almost certainly my hip, an untreated injury in Taekwondo (felt like I ripped my groin open attempting a kick) means that something is 'impinging' (I took this to mean getting trapped) in the joint, it's not really a problem for me but it means the hip doesn't have full range of motion approx. 95%) and is generally a bit tight.

I'm not really sure of the point of this post but when I was injured I trawled through the forum to find out if anyone else has experienced anything similar and how bad the news might be.

ps I can highly recommend the physio who advertised on the forum - bluerip