[Closed] damn those knees

do you stretch? i had a lot of knee issues from a shortened itb. stretching relieves it a lot.

Reported.

EDIT: "Reported" refers to the spam post which has now disappeared. 🙂

itb fine but reckon vmo a little off so exercises start in earnest today

update: still sore 🙁

i had a knee injury from footy last year and have been recovering ever since, its fine now as long as i dont do more than 2 long rides per week.

crossing my legs really hurts still but cycling/running is fine, swimming breast stroke hurts my knee too!

i always used to stretch (couple of basic stretch exercises) but now i use about 6 different ones to target more of my leg muscles and hold for longer e.g 20 secs, this has helped as it used to e realy painful doing these stretches but its ok now.

i also started one leg cycling, now i dont know how much this has helped but seems to have helped my pedal stroke as one leg cycling is easier at least..

cross training has helped too

doing stretches for itb should be mandatory for all cyclists as well as hamstring and calfs

check your cleats, eliminate them by going flats for a month or too, but if your knee hurts on top then your saddle might be too low, inside pain could be week hams, outside might be itb

dont settle for pain you can probably do something about it

carlphillips - how many exercises have you been doing and how often?

dobo, your description of your issue is almost exactly how I am at the moment with my knee. I did a sportive a couple of months ago, tried too hard on a hill even in the easiest gear I had and hurt my knee. I now have a sore knee which is sore to cross legs , and in the morning, the arch of my foot feels really tight. doing breast stroke hurts as well when swimming. The foot loosens off quickly, but the knee part never really goes away.

spoke with my bro in law who has a medical background ( dentist - admittedly not sports science, but he does know how the body works )

He explained that what I had basically done was inflame the tendons around the knee area by straining them too hard. The inflamation tightens up the tendons a bit and that extra tension is the cause of the tightness in the arch of my foot in the morning and the general pain. Tendons have coatings which are supposed to slide across each other, when inflamed the sliding doesn't happen so well, and can cause the pain issue. ( Thats how I understood what he said to me anyway )

His recommendation was what he called a long term chronic dose of ibuprofen ( or similar anti-inflamatory ). They key being not to hammer the dosage by taking a lot , just to take a single pill in the morning each day for a longish period of time ( weeks if not months ) . That way you have a long term amount of anti-inflamatories in the system.

Combined with gentle exercise that doesn't strain the knee - but does flex it, it should slowly get better.

I've started doing that, and to be honest, it is working a bit. the tightness in the arch of my foot is gone in the morning, but the slight knee pain still is there. I also notice if I miss taking the pills for a few days.

Short term, the max recommended daily dose is 2400mg . I take a single 400mg pill each day ( when I remember ) ... so i', well under the daily guideline amount.

I'd suggest seeing a good sports physio. I have had a few (3) knee ops and get a lot of achy pain, partly due to hypermobility. Physio work on deep muscles/tendons in hips sort it out for me. In fact had I known that 5 yrs or so back I might not have had 3 arthroscopies....

fisha, for your tight arch you can roll a tennis/golf ball foam roller or whatever might help that, i do them once in a blue moon but never really had any feet trouble, i'm off the painkiller as didnt really do anything now, massage and stretching has helped, even tried the cold bath and showers for a week lol sod that!