Knee Pain

Would diet really play a big part in knee pain?

48-19 spinner than 47-19?

47x19 = spinny
48x19 = still quite spinny

Anything else I can help you with, Ed?

Would diet really play a big part in knee pain?

If its making you so fat your knees can't take getting out of your chair it would.

Oh I see what you mean!

Now sitting with a knee brace on at work and it actually feels better.

Part of me is thinking of riding to work on Monday with flat pedals to see how I get on.

How about fitting a cadence sensor and shifting down a gear whenever your are < 90 rpm.

I looked at my diet. I find that big doses of red meat make my knees hurt. Sometimes tomato does the same. And sometimes aubergine. I think tiredness makes me susceptible to some foods with knock on pain in my knees.

Hmmmm...did you look at anything else? I tend to eat more red meat in winter and my knees hurt more in winter. There is a correlation. Is there a causation? No. Its cold so I like chili and spag bol. Its cold so my kness don't warm up as well.

How about fitting a cadence sensor and shifting down a gear whenever your are < 90 rpm.

I try to do that as much as possible. Don't ride with a cadence sensor but make a consious effort to spin.

Cheers for the input guys but to be honest. I've had a MRI and it spotted the problems.

Basically my knees can't handle the strain :( hence tendinitis and the patellar chondromalacia a mixture of bio-mechanics and muscular imbalance.

I was told rest, Physio and that insoles may help which I am waiting for an appointment for. They are gonna cost more than my Melec. My physio told me he can only go so far and unless the biomechanics are sorted with insoles.The consultant was made aware of these issues but didn't really seems to give a shit (general attitude) but maybe the insoles will do the trick.

I do ride with a brake, I'm using pedals and straps. Could maybe switch to clipless SPD SL but I'd like to use my bike for getting about town, but not at the price of my knees.

A bike fitting could help, I'm in Belfast but have been exhausting all the other possibilities. Anyone know of anyone good in Belfast? There is a few floating around from the shops that do the electronic fitting.

then there is This guy

Learn to resist the pedals as its coming up, as opposed to pulling up on the pedal as its going down, and then the force on the knee is exactly the same as normal pedaling

It's easy to overlook the fact that the knee is a very complex joint. Impact, strains, riding position, riding style, cleat alignment, even weak core strength can contribute to problems. I learnt the hard way overtraining which lead to severe pain, injury and torn cartilage damage 7 weeks before a marathon. I found swimming breastroke aggrevated it so much that I had to learn to front crawl really slowly, focus on breathing, plus loads of spin cycling, jump rope skipping and yoga got me to the start line. Okay I posted a really shit time, but I ran a negative split.. It also made me realise that riding a spinny gear with high cadence prepared me for a lot of climbing on the bike and strengthened my legs without putting too much stress on knee joints with a history of injury.

A good diet, supplements for joints, being flexible, not grinding big gears, varying pedal strokes, riding fixed with a front brake to control speed has kept me going. Instead of giving up and missing out on a lifetime of cycling.

coffee hurts my knee ....seems to bring on arthritic problems when i ride single speed / fixed

Joining the club...

I saw a really good physio today. Nichola Roberts at Six Physio Fleet Street, who was recommended by Scherrit of Bike Whisperer fame. It seems that my knee pain is due to reduced flexibility in the key muscles of my right leg. I have various stretches and that awful instrument of torture, the foam roller, to do daily to sort out any discrepancies and all should return to normal. I'm very relieved it's not more serious and I should be back riding distance soon.

Nichola gets a big thumbs up here. Very knowledgeable and a keen cyclist too.

^Hippy reccommended her too? How do you go about making an appointment, just call up as usual?

And how much are their consultations?

Cheers

I learnt the hard way overtraining which lead to severe pain, injury and torn cartilage damage 7 weeks before a marathon.

Ah, glad I'm not the only one then :/

^Hippy reccommended her too? How do you go about making an appointment, just call up as usual?

And how much are their consultations?

Cheers

I just called the practice. Cost is £90 for an hour session.

Thanks TTM, I may follow suit

Does anyone else's knee crunch? Mine sounds similar (not as bad) as this

https://soundcloud.com/alex-trost/this-is-my-knee

It's not related to cycling and I don't feel pain, but i'm a little worried it could develop in to something worse. I only hear it in my right knee and only when I squat below parallel. It gets louder if I squat with any heavy weight on my back. I haven't done any squats in a month or so, stuck to deadlifts instead (easier on knees), partly cos of the crunch but also because I had this odd pulsing feeling in my left knee, it would come for about 10 seconds, then disappear for a minute, then reappear. Wasn't especially painful just a bit off-putting. Angle or positoning didn't affect it, the pain was still there and regular.

Not sure if it's relevant but since progressing in my squats i've suddenly had the ability to 'pop' my knees - like a knuckle crack - I twist my ankle and rotate my right foot so i'm trying to lower the left side of my foot and raise the right side. I can also do it when standing up, planting both feet and sort of twisting each knee. Bad idea?

Dunno really. I've always been able to crack all my joints, including my knees if I knealt down and then sort of rolled forward onto them. I'm also double jointed here and there, and generally mutated - maybe your popping skills have always been there, dormant, waiting...

Perhaps you should just try a 3 or 4 week rest period and see what happens. I find deadlifts have more potential to stress my knees, or aggravate bike-related niggles, but maybe I'm just hyper-vigilant about form with squats. Are you bouncing out of the hole or creating otherwise unwanted shearing forces in your knees? Are you doing warm-up sets with just the bar, through to target weight? Have you changed the footwear you use? Are you stretching, particularly hip flexors, hamstrings, quads, and ITB? Have you upped the weight too quickly? Are you maintaining weight through your heel when lifting? So many questions...

Ive changed gearing to 48/20. knee pain isnt as bad . but continues.

It's only my left knee as ive said before.

its a dull ache rather than any other type of pain. ive had worse. think i will just ignore it and carry on.

Learn to resist the pedals as its coming up, as opposed to pulling up on the pedal as its going down, and then the force on the knee is exactly the same as normal pedaling

A bit of an academic point, but I imagine the forces would be different here.

Taking the quads as an example

Pushing the pedal down = Concentric contraction - muscle shortens as it contracts to create extension at the knee joint

Pushing down as it's coming back up = eccentric contraction - the quads muscles lengthen as they contract, as the knee joint is flexing on the whole but you're trying much harder than normal to create extension. Not a movement the body is used to.

Also, the movement of the patella over the femur would be in different directions. Up for concentric, down for eccentric, and misaligned traction of the patella over the femur I understand is the root cause of many peoples knee problems, this could lead to an abnormal traction?

This may not be a problem, but in theory I don't believe it would be the same.

^Don't take my speculation as any sort of authority on this.

^Hippy reccommended her too? How do you go about making an appointment, just call up as usual?

And how much are their consultations?

Cheers

It was Scherrit that put me onto her when I had issues late season last year.

Dunno really. I've always been able to crack all my joints, including my knees if I knealt down and then sort of rolled forward onto them. I'm also double jointed here and there, and generally mutated - maybe your popping skills have always been there, dormant, waiting...

Perhaps you should just try a 3 or 4 week rest period and see what happens. I find deadlifts have more potential to stress my knees, or aggravate bike-related niggles, but maybe I'm just hyper-vigilant about form with squats. Are you bouncing out of the hole or creating otherwise unwanted shearing forces in your knees? Are you doing warm-up sets with just the bar, through to target weight? Have you changed the footwear you use? Are you stretching, particularly hip flexors, hamstrings, quads, and ITB? Have you upped the weight too quickly? Are you maintaining weight through your heel when lifting? So many questions...

Yeah i've laid off the squats for a month or so and the pulsing pain has gone away. I was bouncing out of the hole and really trying to push myself, and i'm sure my form suffered. Is it wrong to bounce out? I go all the way down (hamstrings to ankles). As I was coming up a few times my knees were wobbling left and right. I attribute my incorrect form to lack of core strength, I can't 'push' against enough as i'm rising out of it so I think it did something to my left knee, maybe tracked too far forward past the toes. I am generally quite fussy about warm ups and tend to go for plenty of reps with just the bar, and work up. Stretching i'm working on, my hammy flexibility was rubbish but I can place 4 fingers on the floor now so that's improved

I just did a few BW squats now and the crunching only happens when I go way past parallel, as far as I can go and sort of bounce a bit. Not sure what this means - it gets a lot louder with weight on it. I also take cod liver oil which seems to do some good with a niggling shoulder issue I have.

I find deadlifts a lot easier on the knees joints in general, for me there seems to be more leeway if form isn't quite right than with a squat. I was thinking of incorporating front squats, do you find it easier on your body, particularly the knees? I've not done them because my quads are already fairly developed from cycling, it was my hammies that were lagging behind, there was some catch-up needed!

Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe has a lot of discussion on form for squats, deadlifts ect.

http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ:The_Lifts#The_Squat

Some of Rippetoe's advice is a bit idiosyncratic…

I don't think bouncing is a good idea - better to go slow, or gently decelerate as you approach A2G. If you 'fall' and bounce, you're relying on the structure of the joint to trampoline you up again, rather than a co-ordinated neuromuscular process. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

If your knees are wobbling laterally, I'd say that's a signal to lower the weight, or reduce the reps/sets (if it's happening after a few).

As for front squats, they're easier on the lower back, and tougher on the abs/intercostal stuff. Usually less weight than a normal squat due to the lack of assist from the posterior chain.

I'm not a S&C coach, so make of all this what you will.