TheFountain

Hey all. Sometimes my one or both of my knees are sore after I ride, even with my seat at the appropriate height.

I was just wondering what some people do here for sore knees. I normally just take a couple ibuprofen and call it a day. Sometimes I ice them for 10 mins and that helps. Is there anything else as a preventive measure you can do to avoid knee pain all together?

Thanks!

- f

Velo Dog

Are you pushing too high a gear? Try shifting down and spinning faster, somewhere in the range of 90-100 rpm, rather than straining at 60 or 70. That reduces the strain on your knees and often cures the symptoms.

kgriffioen

I agree with Velo Dog 100%

Little Darwin

I agree with the cadence comments.

Along with height, I think I have read that your fore/aft saddle position could be an issue in knee pain.

bhkyte

you could try doing a longitudal glide of the patella to stretch the tendons and encourage good knee cap movement before cycling. In lying, cup the patella in your palms and gently move it up and down over the knee.

Machka 

Read this ...

https://www.cptips.com/knee.htm

TheFountain

Thanks a bunch for all the advice, everyone! Makes sense to me.

Nightshade

You tell us nothing about your age or general physical condtion so any advice offered is useless and
dangerous to use. What makes a 20 yr old hurt can be very different than what makes a 50 yr old
person hurt. Get my drift?

bhkyte

Certianly my advice given here is not dangerous to use. Generally approachs can be tryed and their effect elvauated and rejected if not having an effect. If the gentleman has a seroius condition then yes I would agree. Sore knees are not a" red flag" for serious pathologies very often. I am sure the poster can apply some common sence to advice. My advise about longitudial glide before a cycle ride may be a wastle of time, if its not his problem area, but it will be rarely contraindcated.

Cosmoline

What worked for me was a sufficiently large frame, a properly adjusted seat, and a quality saddle (Brooks M17 for me).

bhkyte

If you have a biomechanical problem no amount of bike set up refinment will cure the problem, it may reduce the symptons.

Bike set up is not always the solution. Neither is exercise, posture, warm up or anthing else a solutions in them selfs all of the time.

For instance, if you have poor hip range of movement, lack of internal rotaional usually, then no bike set up is cabable of putting your knee in correct alinement. Patella malalinement issues often result from an outwards facing hip in an older athelets. Then the correct thing to do is work on the hip not the set up.

Bike set up is important, but occasionally seems to get over emphasised over other factors in these forums IMO.

bhkyte

If you want preventative stuff then ;
1)keep good range of movement at the hips and knees by stretching,
try to maintain a good range of internal rotaional in the hip (ability to point the toe inwards),maintain ability to adduct hips.
2) use a knee extention machine for inner range quadraceps strengthening.( the last few decrees of knee extention/striaghtening)
3) cool down well
4) keep the patella mobile( as mentioned before), and tracking well by using exercises like one leged squats in perfect knee toe alinement
5) keep glutes strong to aid alinement of the femur in weight bearing ie walking ,running and resistance work.
6) Good bike set up
7) avoid running downhill.
8) avoid prolonded postures. Particually sitting at pc,or with legs crossed, hips externally rotatied,sitting with knees flexed under chair.