Pain around knees after rides

closesupport said:

when i have been out on rides my knees are fine, but when i have finished my knees are extremly painful for about 12hrs thereafter but they do get better as they get warmed up usually around 10-20minutes into a ride they become fine, but after the ride i'm back to square one, could this be due to new muscle growth or could it be something else?????????

been out for the last 3hrs and i'm finding it painful to bend my legs and walk without experiencing pain now.

Ice them down immediately after your rides. How long have you experienced this?

No, it's not due to new muscle growth. More likely it's an overuse injury but that's left best to your physician.

Doctor Morbius said:

Ice them down immediately after your rides. How long have you experienced this?

No, it's not due to new muscle growth. More likely it's an overuse injury but that's left best to your physician.

the last 2 or 3 days its been extremly painful, but i've jumped from 17.9miles perday to 40 and 65-today so thats over hundred in 2 days plus i do 17.9miles tempo rides each day except for wednesday when i have 45minutes of easy spinning and mondays that i have off totally. I have been prescribed diclofenac tablets 50mg, which i ain't to sure about since the list of side effects are massive.

the majority of my weekend rides are climbing. maybe your right about the overuse, and i'll give iceing them a try after rides, thanks

Chris

closesupport said:

the last 2 or 3 days its been extremly painful, but i've jumped from 17.9miles perday to 40 and 65-today so thats over hundred in 2 days plus i do 17.9miles tempo rides each day except for wednesday when i have 45minutes of easy spinning and mondays that i have off totally. I have been prescribed diclofenac tablets 50mg, which i ain't to sure about since the list of side effects are massive.

the majority of my weekend rides are climbing. maybe your right about the overuse, and i'll give iceing them a try after rides, thanks

Chris

You doubled the mileage that you have previously adapted to. Unless you are young and/or indestructible, that will put a hurtin' on something - in your case it was your knees.

in.10.city said:

You doubled the mileage that you have previously adapted to. Unless you are young and/or indestructible, that will put a hurtin' on something - in your case it was your knees.

Hmmm! i have just been to the shop and 21x35 was excruciating, but i have iced them and soaked them, they don't feel quite so stiff now, hopefully they'll be right come tuesday for my tempo ride. wouldn't say i was young but 32yrs old and riding for the last 8yrs i new it would take its tole sooner or later.

i ain't to sure if its a seat problem or the fact that i have spent the majority of my ride on hills and into headwinds this weekend, i have found however that i can ride faster if i sit further back on the seat when i'm tucked, and this is new to my riding using the bars to push my [censored] to the very back of the seat and applying a greater amount of power to the pedals.

Would it be down to overuse could it not be due to a bike fit problem???

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closesupport said:

the last 2 or 3 days its been extremly painful, but i've jumped from 17.9miles perday to 40 and 65-today so thats over hundred in 2 days plus i do 17.9miles tempo rides each day except for wednesday when i have 45minutes of easy spinning and mondays that i have off totally. I have been prescribed diclofenac tablets 50mg, which i ain't to sure about since the list of side effects are massive.

the majority of my weekend rides are climbing. maybe your right about the overuse, and i'll give iceing them a try after rides, thanks

Chris

It's all that single legged cycling you do at 32 revs/min up a steep hill! what more mystery ailments can you *dream* up this week? Your chain and cassette will probably melt by the end of the week with all the cycling you do at 70 mph. LMAO

Going by some of your posts, it seems to me you may be hammering large gears too much. I had very sore knees last year when I did stuff like climb hills on the big chain ring or push in max gears. Then I started to change my gearing and develop a feel for the gear I ought to be using at a given time. I always use smaller gears these days and my knees are much improved.
The thing about cycling is you can push your heart rate up spinning and gliding from gear to gear without putting much stress on the knees.
Another thing you should do is stand when you climb as physios suggest this is the least stressful way of riding on the knee joints.
Just ease up a little is my advice.

closesupport said:

when i have been out on rides my knees are fine, but when i have finished my knees are extremly painful for about 12hrs thereafter but they do get better as they get warmed up usually around 10-20minutes into a ride they become fine, but after the ride i'm back to square one, could this be due to new muscle growth or could it be something else?????????

been out for the last 3hrs and i'm finding it painful to bend my legs and walk without experiencing pain now.

ric_stern/RST said:

It's all that single legged cycling you do at 32 revs/min up a steep hill! what more mystery ailments can you *dream* up this week? Your chain and cassette will probably melt by the end of the week with all the cycling you do at 70 mph. LMAO

ric i usually do them just to ensure that i am using the full revelution of the pedals cause you can really feel how your pedalling is, Once i have conditioned myself to do the full 100% of the pedalling then i'll stop these, they consist of usually 20-30 per leg and i do them for about 10minutes and my pedalling feels smooth there after.

plus it allows me to apply alot more tension to my legs other than just riding in a medium gear on climbs at a slow cadence. But i realistically can't imagine a dura ace groupo melting, since i bought it because of the amount of presure that i would be applying to the pedals, since i found that the 105 and ultegra flexed a great deal on climbs.

But fact is my knees are in *bulk* but the tablets seam to be working and yes your probably right it is due to the one legged intervals that i'm trying to mashout on climbs. But my intentions are to improve my pedalling and build strength for the summer. i usually ride 53x17-19 carrera but i want to build strength in my legs, but i don't want to frequent a gym.

******
* Isolate Leg Drills: on a trainer, unclip one leg and put it on a chair or stool. Pedal with the other leg and try to "Circle Pedal:" apply power to the pedals smoothly in a circle, by eliminating the dead spots. Think of "scraping mud" off your shoe at 6 o'clock and rolling the top of a barrel at 12 o'clock. A road variation of this is Dominant Leg, where you let one leg do 90% of the work, while the other just goes along for the ride.

**********

SUITABLE ONLY FOR ONE 🙄 LEGGED CYCLIST THOUGH!!!

You don't need a great deal of strength for climbing if you stand up. That's because you can push your weight down on each leg, as climbers such as Van Impe recommend.
Strength will help you if you climb seated in larger gears but that's essentially a lot tougher on the knees. It sounds to me like you're stressing your knees out and could profit from some lower gear riding till they settle down.

closesupport said:

ric i usually do them just to ensure that i am using the full revelution of the pedals cause you can really feel how your pedalling is, Once i have conditioned myself to do the full 100% of the pedalling then i'll stop these, they consist of usually 20-30 per leg and i do them for about 10minutes and my pedalling feels smooth there after.

plus it allows me to apply alot more tension to my legs other than just riding in a medium gear on climbs at a slow cadence. But i realistically can't imagine a dura ace groupo melting, since i bought it because of the amount of presure that i would be applying to the pedals, since i found that the 105 and ultegra flexed a great deal on climbs.

But fact is my knees are in *bulk* but the tablets seam to be working and yes your probably right it is due to the one legged intervals that i'm trying to mashout on climbs. But my intentions are to improve my pedalling and build strength for the summer. i usually ride 53x17-19 carrera but i want to build strength in my legs, but i don't want to frequent a gym.

Carrera said:

You don't need a great deal of strength for climbing if you stand up. That's because you can push your weight down on each leg, as climbers such as Van Impe recommend.
Strength will help you if you climb seated in larger gears but that's essentially a lot tougher on the knees. It sounds to me like you're stressing your knees out and could profit from some lower gear riding till they settle down.

I try not to ride out of the saddle, unless i'm accellerating, i don't have much weight though to apply to the pedals standing anyhow and i try to makeup for the lack of weight with strength. i only weigh 158lbs i have been known to squat double that anyway.

i'm on week 4 soon which is a week or so of easy riding with 3 days easy riding 3sprint intervals, 1 tempo and one tempo over hills, maybe i should try paying a little more attention to what my body is telling me other than what my training diary suggests i should be doing.

thanks for the suggestion carrera

[quote="closesupport"]I try not to ride out of the saddle, unless i'm accellerating, i don't have much weight though to apply to the pedals standing anyhow and i try to makeup for the lack of weight with strength. i only weigh 158lbs i have been known to squat double that anyway.


Im 140lbs and don't know of any say 200lb guys who can hang with me in the mountains. it's about power to weight ratio, how much power you can maintain with your weight. at 158 you should be a decent climber, but then again hammering up every climb is not going make you a better climber. as for the knees i would realy ck that saddle height,90% of the time thats the problem.

[quote="zaskar"]

closesupport said:

I try not to ride out of the saddle, unless i'm accellerating, i don't have much weight though to apply to the pedals standing anyhow and i try to makeup for the lack of weight with strength. i only weigh 158lbs i have been known to squat double that anyway.

Im 140lbs and don't know of any say 200lb guys who can hang with me in the mountains. it's about power to weight ratio, how much power you can maintain with your weight. at 158 you should be a decent climber, but then again hammering up every climb is not going make you a better climber. as for the knees i would realy ck that saddle height,90% of the time thats the problem.

closesupport said:

I was thinking that maybe it needed moving forward or backwards slightly the seat, the hight is fine. my hips are smooth they don't rock or anything its just that i have found myself pushing back off the bars and pushing my [censored] further over the backwheel and hovering above the seat.

you see i do TT and the majority of the time i'm in a tuck position and thats how i ride but i'm trying to increase my strength, it ain't about the climbing you see.

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Sorry rick but thats what the one legged intervals are about, just i don't want to spend money on expensive gimmicks 😉

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Chris, because you have no hip rock don't assume correct saddle height. give this a try, mark saddle where it is. raise it to just where your hips rock, then lower to where they smooth out. my last bike i rode a year got some knee pain after not changing anything or making any adj on the bike. i raised my saddle 2-3mm and pain left and i felt a better pedal stroke. and yea maybe you do need to move your saddle back, make changes on the bike and mark them just in case you have to go back to old position. but i bet you your problem is the saddle height or for-aft. if knees are hurt from riding in a bad postion they never will bet better until you let them heal, or else you just keep agravating the injury. from my experience every time i had knee pain it was due to saddle being to low. and once i got pain behind the knee from saddle being to high. just give it a try, be patient and start ruling out causes 1by1 good luck.

closesupport said:

you see i do TT and the majority of the time i'm in a tuck position and thats how i ride but i'm trying to increase my strength, it ain't about the climbing you see.

cyclingnews.comtech.phpOpen ↗
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Sorry rick but thats what the one legged intervals are about, just i don't want to spend money on expensive gimmicks 😉

powercranks.comhomevideos.htmlOpen ↗

If you're trying to increase your strength, don't bother with cycling as it's a waste of time and will make you weaker, not stronger.

Likewise, Power Cranks would appear to be useless as well as they appear to be a gimmick as well.

One legged intervals are a waste of time, unless you only have one leg.

ric

zaskar said:

Chris, because you have no hip rock don't assume correct saddle height. give this a try, mark saddle where it is. raise it to just where your hips rock, then lower to where they smooth out. my last bike i rode a year got some knee pain after not changing anything or making any adj on the bike. i raised my saddle 2-3mm and pain left and i felt a better pedal stroke. and yea maybe you do need to move your saddle back, make changes on the bike and mark them just in case you have to go back to old position. but i bet you your problem is the saddle height or for-aft. if knees are hurt from riding in a bad postion they never will bet better until you let them heal, or else you just keep agravating the injury. from my experience every time i had knee pain it was due to saddle being to low. and once i got pain behind the knee from saddle being to high. just give it a try, be patient and start ruling out causes 1by1 good luck.

its strange really, i rode it all last year and like i said, i have changed my position slightly and i thought this would be the cause of the problem but the girlfriend confesses that she has tryed it on the trainer and she has dropped the seat, but didn't want to say anything incase she got introuble for doing so.

i've lifted it up to where my hips begin to rock and then dropped it 2 or 3 cm until it smoothed out again, this is 1" difference to its original position, i wasn't aware any changes had been made to it.

So zaskar thanks, i think we may have solved the problem or rather the cause, or rather you have thanks.

but rick if you watch the The Introduction to PowerCranks™ movie you'll see what i'm trying to get at???? with the ingrained patterns........

closesupport said:

but rick if you watch the The Introduction to PowerCranks™ movie you'll see what i'm trying to get at???? with the ingrained patterns........

Using instrumented force pedals and iEMG better cyclists (elite) tend to push down more and pull up less than less good cyclists (county/state level). In other words this is the opposite of what you suggest and trying to pedal in 'circles'.

no extraordinary stories today Billy?
ric

Seats have a tendency to slip down over the weeks. I became aware of this before. But personally I think there's too much hype about seat height being responsible for every ache and pain your knees experience.
I myself had nasty knee pain through cycling, to the point my knee tendons would crunch like cereal when you pour hot milk on it. What I was doing wrong was simply pushing uphill in the biggest gear I could handle so I was essentially faster. But you don't have to max your speed on every ride to get fit.
Try standing when you climb as I said and push your weight down from the hip on each leg as you ascend. Make sure you change gear as soon as you feel strain in the knee area so the tension releases.
Why are you so worried about leg strength when you climb? Myself I do leg-presses once a week and that's it basically. I hear leg-presses are easier on the knees and back which is why Lance prefers them to regular squats.

closesupport said:

I was thinking that maybe it needed moving forward or backwards slightly the seat, the hight is fine. my hips are smooth they don't rock or anything its just that i have found myself pushing back off the bars and pushing my [censored] further over the backwheel and hovering above the seat.

you see i do TT and the majority of the time i'm in a tuck position and thats how i ride but i'm trying to increase my strength, it ain't about the climbing you see.

cyclingnews.comtech.phpOpen ↗
powercranks.comreviewsonline.htmlOpen ↗

Sorry rick but thats what the one legged intervals are about, just i don't want to spend money on expensive gimmicks 😉

powercranks.comhomevideos.htmlOpen ↗

Carrera said:

Seats have a tendency to slip down over the weeks. I became aware of this before. But personally I think there's too much hype about seat height being responsible for every ache and pain your knees experience.
I myself had nasty knee pain through cycling, to the point my knee tendons would crunch like cereal when you pour hot milk on it. What I was doing wrong was simply pushing uphill in the biggest gear I could handle so I was essentially faster. But you don't have to max your speed on every ride to get fit.
Try standing when you climb as I said and push your weight down from the hip on each leg as you ascend. Make sure you change gear as soon as you feel strain in the knee area so the tension releases.
Why are you so worried about leg strength when you climb? Myself I do leg-presses once a week and that's it basically. I hear leg-presses are easier on the knees and back which is why Lance prefers them to regular squats.

nothing springs to mind, but i have just bought an L Reg renault Clio for £25 off Ebay..... that extrordenary enough, i haven't got over the fact either....

Cracking purchase although i was only mucking about when i put the bid in.

Sorry carrera i don't want to have to visit a gym, i haven't done weights for some years, i did however used to train religiously and obsesively at one point and it took me quite a while to break the cycle, all i want is to become a better cyclist faster and stronger. i don't want to break records or anything i just want to do what i can from the bike alone.

i USED to find that stepups where easier and i could lift quite a considerable amount of weight by doing so, I still have my leg press stack, squat frame and equipement its all just packed away in the shed from when we moved house.

I have my weights day to look forward to tomorrow. I now do this once a week but I do my whole body after an initial cycle ride.
The bonus is you often get one or two gorgeous females ambling around the gym in skimpy costumes - something you don't encounter on a bike way out in the country.
Due to my diagnosed hernia, I decided to drop squats and have substituted leg-presses (an exercise Armstrong and Ullrich seem to prefer). Personally I don't think leg-presses do a great deal but I am glad about the fact they don't seem to bother my hernia remotely.

closesupport said:

nothing springs to mind, but i have just bought an L Reg renault Clio for £25 off Ebay..... that extrordenary enough, i haven't got over the fact either....

Cracking purchase although i was only mucking about when i put the bid in.

Sorry carrera i don't want to have to visit a gym, i haven't done weights for some years, i did however used to train religiously and obsesively at one point and it took me quite a while to break the cycle, all i want is to become a better cyclist faster and stronger. i don't want to break records or anything i just want to do what i can from the bike alone.

i USED to find that stepups where easier and i could lift quite a considerable amount of weight by doing so, I still have my leg press stack, squat frame and equipement its all just packed away in the shed from when we moved house.

Carrera said:

I have my weights day to look forward to tomorrow. I now do this once a week but I do my whole body after an initial cycle ride.
The bonus is you often get one or two gorgeous females ambling around the gym in skimpy costumes - something you don't encounter on a bike way out in the country.
Due to my diagnosed hernia, I decided to drop squats and have substituted leg-presses (an exercise Armstrong and Ullrich seem to prefer). Personally I don't think leg-presses do a great deal but I am glad about the fact they don't seem to bother my hernia remotely.

Have you ever tryed stepping up onto a box with the weights,

if you imagine, picking the squats from the squat frame as if you where about to do a squat, but instead of dropping your [censored] to squat, lift up your knee and step on a box that will support the weight, if you can get your leg to around 90 degrees or just less, step up onto it, and let your trailing leg follow then on stepping back down step off with your leading leg so that your trailing leg is now taking the weight. I used to do this as a warmup before leg workouts with around 2-300lbs, i found that this made my legs stronger so my squats and presses increased quite rapidly, i found that this increased the strength in my thighs and running felt a little easier when it was intergrated into my training regime.

But as for gorgeous ladies in skimpy licra, i don't think the wife would like that thought....... lol