mgmoore7

I have now been cycling and running for about 9 months and since getting my road bike in Dec, I have slowly noticed, starting in Jan that I get pain from a tendon on my right leg right behind my knee. It is the tendon that is easy to feel when your leg is partially bent. I have been dealing with this by stretching and ice and ibruprofen but this past weekend on a fairly high effort 37 miles with some small hills, it started hurting worse than ever. So much so that I had to concentrate on putting more effort in with my left leg to compensate.

Then, on Monday, I started to noticed a similar pain but more toward the middle of the back of my knee on my left leg.

So now, both legs are hurting. The pain only occurs while riding (not running) and the more I push, the more pain.

Could this be position? I did get fitted on the bike but maybe I need to adjust a little????

I could take a picture tonight of my position if that will help.

Thanks

The picture below shows where the pain is by the red line.

bigdawg45

I've experienced this type of pain after raising my seat. It turns out I had raised my seat to high and caused the same exact pain you are describing. You may want to try and lower your seat. When I lowered my seat the pain went away.

Psydotek

+1 for seat being too high. Also (assuming you're using clipless pedals), check your cleat position on your shoes. They may be too far back which creates the same effect of having your saddle too high (overextending your leg when pedaling).

ImprezaDrvr

I have been seeing a physical therapist for the last month due to tendonitis in my left hamstring tendon brought on by simply doing too much, too soon. I hope to be back on the bike early next month. Be careful and let it heal or you'll be fighting it all season. Get a fit, get some treatment and get back on your bike pain-free.

c_bake

I had that same pain at one point. Had to see my doctor ,it was so bad I couldn't walk after a long ride. It was my IT band. He had me lower my seat and switch to a cleat (look) that had more float. After a month off the bike and then riding with those changes, the pain never came back. You must check these things, the pain will not go away on its own and will result in damage that will force you to stay inactive for the summer. Google IT band, seat height. Good Luck.

ImprezaDrvr

IIRC the IT band goes down the outside of the leg, not behind.

mgmoore7

Thanks. I will lower my seat about 1cm and start there. I will check on my cleats as well regarding the position. I worked on the cleat position previously because my feet were burning. Moving the cleat back solved that. Of course, we are only talking about a 1/4" change roughly.

aicabsolut

Possibilities:

1) seat too high
2) seat too far back
3) crank arms too long
4) combination of any/all of the above

When you are working harder, you may have more heel drop than when you're spinning lightly. You may drop your heels more than "average." So, if you got fitted based on someone looking at you spinning lightly and checking for the angle behind your knee, then your saddle position doesn't take into account how your legs work under heavier load. So, you drop your heel more which means hyperextending your knees. The difference in location of the pain and time of onset may just mean you're not sitting that symmetrically on the bike or that you have some sort of functional or actual leg length discrepancy.

Then again, I had that kind of pain, and despite all sorts of work with my saddle position, it turns out my crank arms were too long (the bike had come with ones that were longer than spec'd for that size frame). So no matter what I did, I was turning bigger circles than my legs wanted to. It was only a 2.5mm change, but it made all the difference to my knees.

Little Darwin

This sounds like something similar to what I suffered through for a while.

I cured it by down-shifting to increase my cadence.

Brian Ratliff

I got this so bad one year that I had bruising at the back of my knee.

Lower your saddle about a cm. If you are still feeling it, lower your saddle further. Do this until the pain goes away. If you start feeling pain at the front of your knee, behind your kneecap, raise your saddle a bit until this pain goes away. I found there to be a narrow range of saddle height between where the back of the knee hurts and where the front of the knee hurts. Put the saddle near the top of this range and it'll be near it's optimum height.

Youngin

Is there a little blob of something in the back of your knee?

Brian Ratliff

You shouldn't need to do this. You shouldn't feel any knee pain, front or back, at any cadence you choose. Your body, after all, is designed for 60 rpm lifting your full body weight (i.e. walking).

Your saddle is too high if there is pain behind your knee. You end up needing to point your toes at the bottom of the pedal stroke and use your hamstrings to pull your leg through the dead spot, hence the pain at the tendons connecting your hamstring to your lower leg.

mgmoore7

Not sure I get this, but there is no blobs on the back of my knees.

The massage therapist did notice that the area/tendons were swollen and obviously sore. That was several weeks ago though and I had laid off the bike for a while to let it heal.

mgmoore7

I did not think the cadance is the issue. I am definately not a big gear pusher anyway.

Your explanation makes sense. The pain is usually on the way up more than the way down and I notice the pain when off the bike when lifting the leg up such as going up stairs.

Terex

I agree with lowering seat 1 cm (not 1 inch), and try a few easy rides. Your right leg just sounds like tendonitis. Your left leg may be a Bakers Cyst. I got one on my right leg at the beginning of Feb after raising my saddle slightly. A Bakers Cyst is a bulging of the knee fluid into the back of your knee, typically seen in adults 55-70 yrs. old.

In addtion to the cyst, I had huge knots at the top of my calf and the bottom of my hamstring. I've been seeing a physical therapist, and recently purchased a massage stick to work these areas.

It's been 6 weeks since the date of the injury, and I still notice the problem, although it's a lot less now. I cut way back on the riding (none the first two weeks), and stopped lifting.

I went XC skiing a couple of times over the weekend and didn't notice any significant problems during or after. I did use the massage stick on my legs afterward.

Try icing both areas, take some anti-inflammatories, etc. They may take a while to completely resolve.

mgmoore7

Thanks, I meant 1 cm. 1" is alot.

The left leg just started this week so I hope I caught it early enough. I don't feel any sort of bulge, cist, etc. I am 33 years old.

I am icing and taking anti-inflamatories. Reminds me, i need to take my lunch dose.

I am planning to get the stick too.

Thanks!!!!

Brian Ratliff

That bruising I had was probably this "baker's cyst" you are talking about. Scared the sh*t out of me when I got it, but I reasoned that, because the pain came and went while I was riding (insteady of getting progressively worse as the ride goes on), it was a soft tissue injury, not an injury to the joint, so it would heal.

I didn't have to do any special things to make the condition go away. I just lowered my saddle until the pain went away (which was too low - an overcorrection, as I needed to raise it again somewhat after getting pain at the front of my knee) and it eventually healed itself.

Terex

Yea, I couldn't feel anything either myself. I went to my daughter's orthopedist who is a team doc for US Rowing Team, Rutgers football, etc. He examined my knee and asked, "Does it hurt here?" Nope. "Here". Nope. "Well, what about - here?" YESSSSS!!! He's a big guy, and he really had to push his thumb at just the right (wrong...) place.

Previously, my knees had always been perfect, but unlike you, I fall into the appropriate age category.

Hopefully changing the saddle height will prevent re-occurance of your problems.

I hope it all gets better soon.

mgmoore7

Well, I moved the seat down 8-10mm and did a 10 mile recovery ride. I immediately noticed the difference in the seat height. I believe there was less "tension" on the pain areas during the ride and they are definatley not hurting now (right after the ride). So I think I am going to continue the ice, anti-inflamatories and do only easy rides for the next few weeks and see how it goes. Hopefully that will be enough time for healing.

Thanks for you help.

2skinnywheels

I had this problem last year all season. I had an MRI and found that I have a small cartlidge tear. I noticed that I started having some tightness starting this season. I started taking Lurosil. THE TIGHTNESS HAS CEASED!!! It's costly but I have found something cheaper at GNC called Tri-Flex that appears to have the same ingredients for a $40 for a 3 month supply as opposed to Lurosil's $60 for a 1 months supply. When I run out of Lurosil, I will try the tri-flex. They both claim to rebuild cartlidge in the joints.

BarracksSi

It should be the same kind of tension that you'd feel when doing a hurdler stretch, right?

I raised my seat a bit too far one day, felt that exact stretch-like tension behind my knee, and realized that I was having to reach for the pedals at the bottom of the stroke. Dropped it by a centimeter or two (just like you did) and I was fine.

FWIW, it seems like a lot of these pains can be localized pretty quickly by referring to different warmup/cooldown stretches that we'd do.

Psimet2001 

Lots of good stuff already on here. Only stopping by to add my...

It's a classic injury. Saddle is too high. Lower it in steps until pain goes away. Measure everything before moving, and after you get something that works. Height, fore-aft (stem to tip), angle.

crydee

I think I have this problem. I had about ~2000 miles on my position till one day it was a pain behind the knee maybe like the tendon that runs down the leg. I feel it when I climb stairs or on the 5 or 11 o'clock position pedaling. I definitely have a good bend at the 6 o'clock position. I lowered the seat a wee bit waited a week till I no longer felt the pain by probing or climbing stairs. I hoped on the bike again after about 10 minutes on the bike it came back like it felt when it first happened

I usually have avg 100 cadence over the whole ride.

mgmoore7

My pain is still there but I have not given it much time to heal. I may need to go down a little further. I have a sprint tri next weekend and can't afford to slow the training too much. After the tri, I plan to take a week off and see if that helps.

Will G

I had some knee problems when I first started cycling. I went to a bike shop and got the bike properly adjusted and that solved the knee problem. Now if I could just solve my problems on hills......