Knees...

Hi All, I've signed up just to post this.
I suffered 6 months of knee agony and really sympathise. I hope this helps.

During my injured period (walking up and down stairs were a problem) I believed at first it was down to:
[ulist]
[li]Having young kids (on my knees most of time)[/li]
[li]Rapidly ramping up my riding (to 18 miles x 2 per day x 4 per week)[/li]
[li]A couple of knocks when falling off (off road).[/li]
[/ulist]
However, had consultation and x-rays. Docs said there was nothing wrong with my knees, I think they thought I was wasting their time, so I quickly gave up on professional opinion!

I have over the last few months worked out what's best for me:
[ulist]
[li]set seat height so that my leg is straight with heel of shoe on centre of pedal at bottom of stroke. Then raise seat an extra 5mm![/li]
[li]raise bars if you can. If you're not very flexible, this can help stop your tight tendons pulling your muscles/bones out of line if you've got a high saddle (see below *).[/li]
[li]set seat horizontal.[/li]
[li]set cleats on shoes so that weighting the shoes doesn't cause my foot to rock either inwards or outwards, for me that's slightly inboard of the centre line of my foot. I guess this depends on the width of your hips, and the type of pedals/shoes/cleats you have.[/li]
[li]set angle of cleats so that my heels can almost touch the chainstays (5mm away). My feet are slightly overpronating and stick out slightly. I believe this stops my knee coming too close to the crossbar and helps alleviate pain caused by misalignment of my kneecap on the downstroke.[/li]
[li]with cranks level and cleats clipped in, the front of my kneecap is about 10mm in front of a vertical line passing through the centre of the pedal spindle.[/li]
[li]don't crank too hard away from lights and junctions (no matter how tempting it may be!).[/li]
[li]and don't ride too far too soon if you insist on sprinting![/li]
[/ulist]

• I had a colleague who was told the pains down the outsides of his lower legs when he walked (which he thought were to do with bow-leggedness) were all to do with his posture over many years. He had a course of physio where they taught him how to walk better for his condition. He started to feel improvements in weeks. His leg problems were to do with tendons in his back!
  
  

Good luck.

BTW, all this was on a geared bike. I ain't got a proper bike yet!

wayne_f14 [quote]hippy Mind if I ask what your problem was and how it got worse?

I say nurse, is that the whole fist!

niggling pain after about 40 miles on left hand side of right knee - feet always go to sleep after about 15 miles. The wedges that were put under the cleat exacerbated the knee pain and the wedges/insole made jack sh88t difference to the feet going to sleep

have tried loads of different shoes as i have reallllly wide feet and northwave seem the best

Any thoughts Doogie Howser MD Hippy? anyone..[/quote]

wayne, know people have said to go see a physio, I would recommend seeing an osteopath, they've helped me in the past, as they deal with skeletal/muscular/postural type things, which is what your problems sound like, also if the cyclefit didn't work go back and get money back, being fitted to your cycle is supposed to make the riding a thing of beauty, if it didn't for you then they should return your money or spend a bit more time and effort sorting it out.
if you want to try the osteopath thing, my friends missus is one, she's based out of west london at this point in time, whisper me and I'll pass on her details...

wayne_f14 [quote][cite]

I say nurse, is that the whole fist!

niggling pain after about 40 miles on left hand side of right knee - feet always go to sleep after about 15 miles. The wedges that were put under the cleat exacerbated the knee pain and the wedges/insole made jack sh88t difference to the feet going to sleep

have tried loads of different shoes as i have reallllly wide feet and northwave seem the best

Any thoughts Doogie Howser MD Hippy? anyone..

[/quote]

i'd wager that the numbness could be from a too narrow shoe. an orthotic can sometimes be helpful in aligning things/evening out pressure. however, if the numbness in the foot is caused by not enough space for a wide foot, an insole might only make that (the numbness, i mean) problem worse, as it will be taking up more space in your shoe. if the insole is not helping your knee, take the damn thing out, and see what else you can do to loosen/create more room in the shoe.

as for your knee, if it is the inside (medial) part of your knee, take a look at your cleat position and see if you might be pointing your toes out; if so, adjust them to point in more. your feet (cleats) may also be too far apart, so you can try to adjust that. try using cranks with less offset.

Bouncing this font of know-how back to top as me old knees are feeling ragged and worn today......

Fixed now for about 4-5 months. Hardly ride a freewheel at all. Pretty convinced I'm suffering from over-use......did a year on single-speed 48x16, 100ish miles a week with no probs (and a good few miles geared too)......but now I'm 48x18, 90ish miles a week I'm finding I get 'tired' knees (not full-on-pain like when I used to run everywhere ((that was just plain crazy)) but a slightly inflamed feeling). I've fiddled with saddle height over the years and have never suffered this problem on my road-bike doing horrendously large miles. Slightly reluctant to get 'fitted' as I've always got more exciting things to spend my cash on, but maybe its time to cough up.

Questions:-

• is 90ish commuting miles per week considered high? (thats 4 days a week, some hills thru R.Park, and I'm an old lightweight git of 42).
  
• and should I maybe do some of those miles with a dreaded freewheel?, and maybe even some gears!?
  
  

your advice please.

125mi/week, late 20's, 48/19 or 42/16 or 44/17 (all around 70") plus whatever weekend riding (sometimes fixed, often Sunday road run).
I have tired knees at the moment because I've been ss for the last few weeks. Back on fixed and doing a tonne of leg braking due to poor front brake and adjusting to new bike. Are you getting enough of that funky stuff you need to repair cartiledge? It might have been mentioned above? I eat crap and drink too much but for now the body is still working ok. Sounds like it could be over-use. Do you leg brake a lot? Tried fitting front and rear brakes and using them most of the time?
Fitted to the bike properly? What length cranks? I'm sure there's loads more advice above but I'm not reading it again.

Thx Hippy. I think its all about the leg-braking business and no freewheel 'resting'......I will use front brake more, but its not really instinctive on a fixed, even after only a few months. I'll pop some of those Gluc... pills mentioned above. And I'll do some commuting on my sparklingly clean and spotless roadbike and see how I get on. Its encouraging to hear that you do get 'tired' knees too. But they make me nervous, I'd rather ride a geared tricycle forever than not be able to ride/walk without discomfort.

If you let your legs 'go limp' or 'go gumby' I like to say, you aren't putting any pressure on them at all so there shouldn't be any knee problems.
It's all the resisting with skids and braking, plus the harder than usual starts (no downshifting so not being in and easy gear to start).
I mean, there could also be an issue with pedal/cleat/shoe setup or position but I find that causes less issue than heavy leg braking.
Over longer distances or doing loads more kays than usual is where you notice poor positioning and cleat setup stuff, imho.

I guess there's 'levels' of discomfort. I tolerate the tired legs now because I know I'm riding harder than I have been for a few weeks. If it's a long term discomfort or something more painful than a dull ache, then you have to do something about it. I have no issue using brakes being a roadienger. I'd rather keep my knees intact than save brake pad wear.

Glucosamine pills every day and cod liver oil, only way to go if you really are starting to have problems and want to stop them deteriorating even further.
I've always had bad knees mostly from skiing etc, and the hip needs replacing too, but these little tablets made all the difference. Try it, give it a couple of months to start kickin in and you should see improvement.

sol Glucosamine pills every day and cod liver oil, only way to go if you really are starting to have problems and want to stop them deteriorating even further.
I've always had bad knees mostly from skiing etc, and the hip needs replacing too, but these little tablets made all the difference. Try it, give it a couple of months to start kickin in and you should see improvement.

same here for the cod liver oil and glucosamine

Boots here I come.

it's cheaper to get the liquid cod liver oil, and boots own brand of glucosamine....by the way

I'd be more worried about my taint than my knees...

35 miles? Ouch.

hit the suppliments for sure.

Knees are a big problem in my trade (I'm an acrobat...yes I work in the circus... no I'm not a clown!) but I reckon one of the main things is alignment,
i.e. your knee is in line with your hip and your foot is in line with your whole leg. most times I see someone riding, their knees are always closer together than their feet or hips...
It's to do with loads of different things including hip flexibility, core stability, and muscle balance. But I'd suggest getting arch supports and making sure your feet are straight when you pedal, and also that when you push, your knees don't go inwards on the down stroke (do that when you walk up stairs too)... Good alignment should hopefully prevent wear on your ligaments, which are what's behind your kneecap Redeye.

Physio and RICE are always good too. (although I prefer Italian food)

Cycling fucks up your anterior ligaments. You want pain get your partner to put their elbow into your arse cheek. Ouch!

Yoga's a pretty good remedy and your ratio men:women will be better than on here

Healthy lifestyle, hydration and stretching and we may as well all be hill climbers posting on C+

i always thought the pedal (if you're using cleats) should meet your foot around the ball. never heard of pedalling with your heel, am wary of that idea.

seat height helps, position is more important - the whole plumb line from knee to ball of foot while fully extended (fully meaning with a very slight bend to the leg still).

apart from that - my knees hurt when i pushed too high a gear. i did work in the gym to strengthen my leg muscles and now i never get knee pain. i think that straining too much puts pressure on the joint.

(late twenties, now reasonably fit, cycle 10 miles weekdays and anything from nothing to 50 weeknds)

ok what i say has probably been said but im gonna put in my experience/theory.....
first, what is your cycling experience? I have ridden all sorts of bikes all my life, before getting a fixedgear i rode mainly bmx so lots of spinning sprints then rest then sprint, so i got a fix to (1) ride to work on (2) get fitter!
now a bmx gearing is real easy about 60inches but your not seated, so going to a fix with about 64 inches was a real wake up for my fitness as its contsant! but i think it worked out well for me. I rode this for a while and found that i was spinning out a lot on the flat so i went a bit bigger and so on over the space of 6 months, however my route has stayed the same its a good mix of up and down hill with flat at either end of the 15mile trip so my legs have had a progressive workout all over. so despite feeling fooked after every ride to begin with the easy gearing let my legs work up strength rather than just plowing in with a normal but yet maybe hard ratio to begin with. I have always been super paranoid about my knees due to a family history with bad problems so maybe this has helped my approach. eat propperly too! this helps leaps and bounds! and dont be afraid to change things around on your bike, like saddle height/position, i lowred my saddle about 20mm the other day and couldnt believe what a difference it made! hope this helps someone...