Pain Above Knee

BexRunner said:

I just starting biking recently and don't have cycling shoes yet. To start out, I've been doing a couple 35-40 milers a week and towards the end of the ride the area right above my right knee will hurt a lot. Is this because I don't have shoes and that I am only pushing down the whole ride, not being able to pull up, or is it simply because I am doing too much to start out? Thanks for any help!

Your shoes and not pulling up would not cause pain. make sure your seat is high enough. to low of saddle could cause knee pain. also don't grind to big of gears, being new and pushing to big of gears could cause the pain.perhaps have a bike shop take a look at your position on the bike. once you fit your bike you should be pain free.

Bexrunner ...

Your knees may be too far forward over the pedals (you may need to move your saddle back and/or raise/lower it). With your pedal in the 3 o'clock position you should be able to drop a plumb line from your knee (right at the patella) and it should bisect the pedal spindle. I got a new bike with a little different geometry at one point & after about a month my knees really started to ache .... at first it was just a little after the ride .. but began occurring during the ride & increasing in intensity.

Good luck,

bfrjoe

You're probably doing too much too soon. The exact same thing happened to me every year, about a month into summer riding my knees would be very stiff and sore.

This year, I have been stretching more and I started out slower with very gentle climbs. My knees feel much better. I know it's tempting to do lots of sprints and climbs, but if you are patient putting on base miles first your knees will probably be much better off.

RedSky said:

You're probably doing too much too soon. The exact same thing happened to me every year, about a month into summer riding my knees would be very stiff and sore.

I agree with this. I began to mountain bike in March, then in May I switch to my road bike (Meaning a new position). After intense rides, I felt a discomfort during the night in my knees. I was wondering what it was, the pattern repeat for some weeks. Intense ride and in the night, discomfort in my knees.

Then it gradually dissapear. I'm sure the tendons and/or muscles get used and adapt to the exercise. Then in the following weeks everything get back to normal.

It's not related to shoes at all, I rode for years without bike shoes and I was OK. I do have it now though.

My advice? Go slowly, increase gradually your distance and intensity. You feel pain? Then stop the training session. Come back another day. If you are serious about bike, you should do some preparation in winter/spring to accustom your tendons and muscles.

Would you pitch a whole baseball game without preparation? Your arm would suffer a lot. The same apply to your knees.

Stef

I had this same problem too when I started racing back in the '80s. Rory had a shop in Summerland back then and helped me out with my position. Turned out my seat was too low and too far back. My quads were basically pushing down on the pedal at the very bottom of the rotation, causing a lot of force on the knees since the pedal can't go down anymore at the bottom. Raising the seat brought calves into use at the bottom and they also helps transition into the pull back with the hamstrings. Then moving the seat forwards helps the hamstrings contribute more to the back and upstroke as well.

BTW - having the seat too far forward typically causes pain just below the knee in front or in the back. It's not as problematic as having the seat too far rearwards; look at how far forward the triathletes sit, about 2" more foward than road-racers. For the velodrome, I have my seat about 1" more forward than my crit-bike. And my road-race bike has its seat about 1/2" more rearward than my crit bike.

The plumb-line on the patella is a good general rule for road-bike fore-aft placement. For seat-height, measure the gap between the heel and the pedal-spindle at full leg-extension & crank-arm at the bottom parallel to seat-tube (longest distance away from seat). There should be roughly a 1/4" gap beween the bottom of the heel and the top of the pedals with the leg fully extended (make sure you don't rock your hips, test by measuring other side).

Very good tips, DannoXYZ...

DannoXYZ said:

I had this same problem too when I started racing back in the '80s. Rory had a shop in Summerland back then and helped me out with my position. Turned out my seat was too low and too far back. My quads were basically pushing down on the pedal at the very bottom of the rotation, causing a lot of force on the knees since the pedal can't go down anymore at the bottom. Raising the seat brought calves into use at the bottom and they also helps transition into the pull back with the hamstrings. Then moving the seat forwards helps the hamstrings contribute more to the back and upstroke as well.

BTW - having the seat too far forward typically causes pain just below the knee in front or in the back. It's not as problematic as having the seat too far rearwards; look at how far forward the triathletes sit, about 2" more foward than road-racers. For the velodrome, I have my seat about 1" more forward than my crit-bike. And my road-race bike has its seat about 1/2" more rearward than my crit bike.

The plumb-line on the patella is a good general rule for road-bike fore-aft placement. For seat-height, measure the gap between the heel and the pedal-spindle at full leg-extension & crank-arm at the bottom parallel to seat-tube (longest distance away from seat). There should be roughly a 1/4" gap beween the bottom of the heel and the top of the pedals with the leg fully extended (make sure you don't rock your hips, test by measuring other side).

Hello Danno
nice picture.
You sound like you know what you're talking about. I have pain above my right knee on the outside. some kind on joins onto the hip tendon i guess. I have dud tendons - get tendonitis very easily.. So I want to watch out with this one. I have a mountain bike for commuting and a road bike for riding. Only get the pain on road bike. Is this a seat too low kind of thing or the shoes? I thought maybe it was because my shoes were pointing the wrong way (my feet point naturally inwards a bit - the right is worse - yes, like a pidgeon). But your seat theory sounds like it could be right. I am reluctant to put my seat higher becuse then i am towering over my handlebars...
I should go to a shop right?

[b]" Hello Danno
nice picture."[/b]

Why thank you. 🙂 Beautiful women, fast cars and bikes, what else can you want in life, eh? 😉

Some quick questions for clarification:

1. Are you using the same pedals on your road & mountain-bike?
2. Is your position the same on both the road & mountain-bike?

[b]"I should go to a shop right?"[/b]

That would be a good start; try to find a shop with a Fit Kit. This lets you make actual measurements and have some concrete numbers to go with your bike position. Measure your position on the MTB and get it all on paper, then set up your road bike the same way. Would also be interesting to see what the differences in position is, because that would be a clue as to what changes causes the pain in your knee. Also do not sacrifice your knees for the handlebar position, adjust your stem or get a new one. If you have a sore back, work on that separately too.

Although I suppose the knee-pain could also do with the pedal/shoe/cleat orientation and pedaling motion as well. Personally, I'm not in favor of strapping your feet to the pedals until you've got some smooth circular pedaling motions down. If you're pedaling in squares or triangles, locking your feet in with straps or clipless pedals will end up artificially rounding out the corners of your pedal-stroke. The effect is that rather than having your feet slip off the pedal under power, that force is trapped due to the lack of free motion between the foot and pedal interface and that ends up putting more stress on your knees (kinda like stubbing your toe, it's a lot less painful if whatever you kicked moves out of the way). I think everyone should learn to pedal a smooth stroke on a bare pedal-spindle, like those old crappy beach-cruisers you find abandoned on university-campuses. If your feet slips off the bare spindle, you know the force applied isn't on a tangent to the pedal and in a plane with the rotational axis of the crank. In the old days, we'd ride with the cleats on our shoes lose and after a while, the pedal would wear marks into the bottom of the shoe. We'd then set the cleats to be in the middle of this range.

Another good idea is to have someone ride directly behind and ahead you and look at the motion of your knees. Might want to paint a white dot on the back and front of the knees and video-tape it. You'd be surprized at how many people rock and wobble their knees in and out by over 3-4". They relax the legs on the upstroke, pulling their knees to the outside by a couple of inches, then when they apply force on the downstroke suddenly, it forces their knees back in. As you can imagine, repeated transitions like this will result in some sort of knee injury, so be careful, pain is a signal that your body wants to say something, don't ignore it.

Another good way to verify your pedaling motion is to ride one-legged. The dead-spots and wobbles becomes very obvious. On long boring stretches of road, you can concentrate on spinning smooth circles, you'll be amazed that you'll start accelerating and going faster without any additional effort! and the knee-pain may disappear too 🙂

Follow-up question re: seat height - when I first got fitted for my bike by the LBS, I noticed that when my leg was extended at the bottom my toes would point down before the up-stroke (couldn't have my foot flat). I felt that this was 'akward', though I didn't have pain, so I moved the seat down a bit. I was wondering though, should your toes point down like this, or should the foot be flat at the bottom of the pedal stroke?

[quote="DannoXYZ"][b]" Hello Danno
nice picture."[/b]

Why thank you. 🙂 Beautiful women, fast cars and bikes, what else can you want in life, eh? 😉

Some quick questions for clarification:

1. Are you using the same pedals on your road & mountain-bike?
2. Is your position the same on both the road & mountain-bike?

[b]"I should go to a shop right?"[/b]

That would be a good start; try to find a shop with a Fit Kit. This lets you make actual measurements and have some concrete numbers to go with your bike position. Measure your position on the MTB and get it all on paper, then set up your road bike the same way. Would also be interesting to see what the differences in position is, because that would be a clue as to what changes causes the pain in your knee. Also do not sacrifice your knees for the handlebar position, adjust your stem or get a new one. If you have a sore back, work on that separately too.

Although I suppose the knee-pain could also do with the pedal/shoe/cleat orientation and pedaling motion as well. Personally, I'm not in favor of strapping your feet to the pedals until you've got some smooth circular pedaling motions down. If you're pedaling in squares or triangles, locking your feet in with straps or clipless pedals will end up artificially rounding out the corners of your pedal-stroke. The effect is that rather than having your feet slip off the pedal under power, that force is trapped due to the lack of free motion between the foot and pedal interface and that ends up putting more stress on your knees (kinda like stubbing your toe, it's a lot less painful if whatever you kicked moves out of the way). I think everyone should learn to pedal a smooth stroke on a bare pedal-spindle, like those old crappy beach-cruisers you find abandoned on university-campuses. If your feet slips off the bare spindle, you know the force applied isn't on a tangent to the pedal and in a plane with the rotational axis of the crank. In the old days, we'd ride with the cleats on our shoes lose and after a while, the pedal would wear marks into the bottom of the shoe. We'd then set the cleats to be in the middle of this range.

Another good idea is to have someone ride directly behind and ahead you and look at the motion of your knees. Might want to paint a white dot on the back and front of the knees and video-tape it. You'd be surprized at how many people rock and wobble their knees in and out by over 3-4". They relax the legs on the upstroke, pulling their knees to the outside by a couple of inches, then when they apply force on the downstroke suddenly, it forces their knees back in. As you can imagine, repeated transitions like this will result in some sort of knee injury, so be careful, pain is a signal that your body wants to say something, don't ignore it.

Another good way to verify your pedaling motion is to ride one-legged. The dead-spots and wobbles becomes very obvious. On long boring stretches of road, you can concentrate on spinning smooth circles, you'll be amazed that you'll start accelerating and going faster without any additional effort! and the knee-pain may disappear too 🙂[/QUOTE]

[b]"I noticed that when my leg was extended at the bottom my toes would point down before the up-stroke (couldn't have my foot flat). "[/b]

That's correct and natural for a reason. You always want to apply force on the pedals on a tangent to the circle at every point. So when the pedals are at the bottom, having your toes pointed down helps you push BACK on the pedals. Having the seat too low and too far back prevents you from pushing back on the pedal, you end up pushing forwards and down at the bottom the stroke instead (not efficient). Also the motion of pointing your toes down from horizontal as the pedal goes down brings your calves into play; they are the strongest muscle in our body for their size and weight (aside from your jaw). Having our seat higher allows you to fully utilize and get more out of the calves.

Then on the back stroke, with your toes aimed down, the hamstrings can pull back and get a solid push on the pedal rather than just stretching your shoe. Lastly on the up-stroke, you lift your toes from pointing down to pointing up and this adds power to the upstroke from using the front shin muscles in addition to the upper quads on your thigh pulling up the entire leg.

Thanks for the explanation. And to be sure I understand, you "shouldn't be able" to flatten your foot at the bottom of the stroke (without rocking hips), correct?

[quote="DannoXYZ"][b]"I noticed that when my leg was extended at the bottom my toes would point down before the up-stroke (couldn't have my foot flat). "[/b]

That's correct and natural for a reason. You always want to apply force on the pedals on a tangent to the circle at every point. So when the pedals are at the bottom, having your toes pointed down helps you push BACK on the pedals. Having the seat too low and too far back prevents you from pushing back on the pedal, you end up pushing forwards and down at the bottom the stroke instead (not efficient). Also the motion of pointing your toes down from horizontal as the pedal goes down brings your calves into play; they are the strongest muscle in our body for their size and weight (aside from your jaw). Having our seat higher allows you to fully utilize and get more out of the calves.

Then on the back stroke, with your toes aimed down, the hamstrings can pull back and get a solid push on the pedal rather than just stretching your shoe. Lastly on the up-stroke, you lift your toes from pointing down to pointing up and this adds power to the upstroke from using the front shin muscles in addition to the upper quads on your thigh pulling up the entire leg.[/QUOTE]

[b]"And to be sure I understand, you "shouldn't be able" to flatten your foot at the bottom of the stroke (without rocking hips), correct?"[/b]

If you mean by having your feet perfect flat, horizontal with the ground at the bottom of the stroke, yes, you won't be able to reach that position without rocking your hips since the optimum distance between the seat and pedal is longer than your inseam measurement by about 1/2". To reach the pedals at the bottom of the stroke (well, really when the crank-arm is parallel with the seat-tube), you have to point your toes down.

This bring up a fit measurement I forgot about in addition to seat-height and fore-aft sliding location. And that's the foot-position over the pedals. You want the ball of the foot directly over the pedal spindle or slightly behind the spindle. A lot of people learn as kids somehow to put their heel on the pedal which completely removes all power from your lower leg. The pivoting motion of the foot at your ankles moving the toes up and down uses power from the lower leg. If the toes are pushing against open air, all the power from the lower-leg is lost.