baribari

My left knee likes to swing left and right when I'm pedaling, and this seems like it would cause an injury and lower efficiency... is there a way to prevent this with cleat adjustments, or do I need wedges to prevent this? Is it an issue with leg length difference, or is it the angle of my foot or something?

lovestoride

get a pedal with less float then your current pedal/cleat. float is the amount of movement the pedal allows your leg to move, so of you have less float you move your leg less. but float is also a good thing it leads to less stress on your knees

banerjek

It could be an adjustment issue. Unless you know what makes your right (that apparently has no problem) different from your left, it's impossible to know what changes might help. Improper technique could also be aggravating things.

Probably the best thing to do is get set up in a shop where they can watch you pedal and find exactly what's going on.

AEO

it's best if you go to a fitter that has a bunch of experience with cleat and knees as well as plenty of stock on cleat shims.

it can also be muscle imbalances.
if you're right handed, your left side is naturally weaker and has less precision.

JoelS

The fix depends entirely on the cause. Honestly, there's nothing we can tell you. You'll need to find someone local that can watch you pedal and figure out the cause in order to make the necessary adjustments.

wens

https://velonews.competitor.com/2010/...rically_120495

May be related

baribari

They're SPD-SL yellows, I don't think switching to the no-float red cleats would have any benefit for me.

Jinker

Is it causing you problems?

No?

Why would you screw with it and potentially injure yourself?

baribari

Just because someone hasn't caused an injury yet doesn't mean that it won't cause one over time. I want to make sure I don't damage my knees, since repairing them gets a little pricey...

My cleats have my feet as close to the crank as they will go. I think I'll try moving them a few MM on the left foot, and leave the right one alone.

lazerzxr

If your knee wants to move left and right then the worst thing you can do is lock up the cleat to try and prevent it. That will cause an injury. You need to make adjustments that stop it wanting to move in the first place. Wedges when used correctly can certianly help in some cases as can altering q factor. The aim is to be able to completely relax your legs and have your knees move vertically on their own without falling out sideways or hitting the top tube.

johnny99

I agree with this. There are lots of possible problems that are difficult to diagnose on your own. Your case is a good example of why professional fittings are great idea for many bicyclists. If you don't fix your problem, all the wobbling can easily lead to knee injuries.

Jinker

Ok, so knees can 'wobble' for a variety of different reasons.

No harm in working on the stabilizing muscles around your knees and hips. Doing some running (trail running?), or even better yet activities that have you changing directions a lot (soccer etc.) will help build those muscles.

That being said, it could very well be a joint structure alignment issue causing it. Knee joints only bend in one plane. Most people's knees do not point perfectly straight ahead, or the exact same direction on the left or right side. On top of that, hip structure, especially the alignment of the ball on the top of your femur can lead to a rotation in your leg, changing the plane that your knee works in as you bend at the pelvis.

Your body will often choose the most natural path for motion, whether it's walking, running or biking. That means it will lead to a movement that limits how close you come to the edges of your flexibility envelope. It's not *perfect* at doing this, though, which is why people with bad alignment, who suffer from pain, can sometimes address it with orthotics, or wedges or whatever.

If you're not experiencing any pain or discomfort, it's probably not worth trying to 'fix' anything. The risk in trying to get your joints tracking perfectly straight is that this might be either outside the natural range of motion of the various joints involved, or, closer to the limits, which may not reveal itself until the day you try back to back centuries or something like that.

Who says that having your knees tracking perfectly vertically while pedalling is best? Our bodies did not evolve pedalling cranks in perfect little circles. While it might *seem* most efficient, when you look at an idealized model of a human body, and draw little force vectors from the joints and so on, it isn't necessarily what's best for YOU and your body.

Everyone's muscles, joints, and tendons are different. They will be different shapes and sizes, attached in different ways, and have different resistance to wear and tear from use.

Having your left knee track out 2" at the top of your pedal stroke might be what produces the most power for YOU.

Unless you get on a fit bike with a fitter who can measure things accurately and reproducibly with a power meter and a LOT of time for different tests, you'll never really know what's most efficient.

By trying to force your body into a particular alignment, when there doesn't seem to be any driving reason to, you risk a myriad of different complications. Your entire lower body is involved in your pedal stroke, all the way up to the stabilizing muscles in your lower back and abdomen. You think someone over the internet is going to be able to tell you why your knee does what it does?

Is it your ankles? Knees? (and knees are a pretty complex system, three bones, cartilage and a whole host of ligaments and tendons) Muscular imbalance? Femoral head alignment? Pelvic structure? Asymmetry in how your sitting on the saddle for whatever reason? Lower back issues? Leg length discrepancies?

Having someone 'watch you pedal' is a start. But I can tell you for a fact that the vast majority of bike fitters aren't qualified to tell you exactly what's going on with much of what would cause your knee to track a little askew. And I'm one. If someone comes to me with *minor* pain issues, we might try a little wedging or cleat position adjustment, but to start making adjustments to someone's pedal stroke when there doesn't seem to be anything wrong is playing with fire. I'd hate to recommend an adjustment that ends up injuring someone.

As for lower float cleats, or especially 0 float cleats, in my personal opinion, they're not a good idea. For the reasons above, it's difficult to know the ideal position for someone's foot. You can use a RADS device or something like that to determine where their foot sits naturally on the pedal, but if you're doing that anyway, why not just give them a pedal that allows float? Reducing the amount of float to try to force an alignment seems a little backwards. If someone has a very straight pedal stroke with no rotation, they can get away with less float. And some people will find it feels more secure, and a little quicker to clip out. More power to them. I don't think those people would be hurt by having float available to them that they're not going to use.

tero

I don't know how long the OP has been using clipless pedals. For me, finding a "natural" knee angle for the right side was difficult at first. Moving the cleat backwards helped. About a month later I moved the cleats forward towards the balls of my foot again, but this time I didn't have any knee discomfort anymore.

tFUnK

could also be that your saddle is too low.

botto 

get rollers. work on your form.

darb85

seat height

guadzilla

A combination of shims, wedges and cleat positioning is what you need. My feet tended to do that as well initially - wedges and tweaking the cleats fixed it (no leg length mismatches, so didnt need shims).

thump55

Wedges. They eliminated my lateral knee movement and relieved my knee pain. Instantly.

wheelgrabber

There is an article in Coaches Panel @ Velonews(scroll down its on the left) You may need to add a pedal axle extender to get your foot under your knee. I talked with my wife this morning about the Velo article. She claims that the majority of her patients are twisted to the left(as mentioned in the article). She believes its because the majority of the population is right hand/right foot dominate.

I would encourage you to go get fitted by a good guy. Not the local Cat 2 guy who works at the LBS and thinks he has a clue because he can do a rudimentary FitKit. If you have wide hips(many female riders have this problem) it is hard for your feet to take the typical pedal location.

baribari

My saddle IS too low. I need about another cenitimeter of height, but I can't since I'm already past the min extension point (it's a compact frame and the post isn't long enough)... and I don't have money to spend on a new seat post since I'm getting a new bike in a few months (or at least plan on to).

FWIW, if I concentrate I can make my knees track straight... the harder and faster I pedal the more they track.

guadzilla

Buy a Kalloy seatpost on Ebay for 20 bucks - seriously, why would you knowingly spend a few months riding an ill-fitting bike?

baribari

Because I need to save every dollars I earn from now until late July. And spending money on a bike I'm going to replace basically just means I've made my new bike that much more expensive.

rumrunn6

try using your head. meaning: make a conscious effort to move your knees up and down in that plane and not to let them wander out. I find when I climb out of the saddle my body posture is non symmetrical and I perhaps even pump more strongly with one leg. yesterday climbing one hill in particular I played with straightening out my form to be more symmetrical but couldn't quite get it perfect. on other occasions I recall making a conscious effort to bring and keep my knees inward - toward the top tube but not so far as to touch it. it's something I plan on paying more attention to.

spinwax

Not true.

I fix lateral knee travel all the time with just saddle height adjustments. I think there is a GIANT problem with fitters relying on shims for correction. I know fitters that always try to fix LLD with shims as well when 99% of the time it is a tight IT band and all the rider needs to do is start a good stretching routine. Shimming someone who doesn't need it can cause dammage to knees, ankles, and feet.

Just my .02.

baribari

Bringing your knees toward the top tube is something people used to do, but moving them straight up and down turned out to be better.