Knee trouble

[SimonJOsborne]

Recently I have been getting a bit of a dull ache in my left knee around the knee cap on the outside of my leg when exerting myself. I first noticed it a bit on the last day or two of my recent L2P ride. And a little last week when I did some commuting, but I noticed it the most on a 30 mile ride last Sunday, the longest since Paris. When I use a much lower gear it didn't really trouble me.

I did pop to Docs this morning. She said I should take it easy, do some exercises to strengthen my quads and she also mentioned that some athletes take Glucosamien for such things.

I really don't want to have time off if I can help it, so was just planning on taking it easy and riding in a lower gear. But I have always been a bit of a spinner anyway. And for now running training for a sprint tri I have entered in mid Sept is definitely out, not that I had started.

I was just wondering if anyone on here as had any similar trouble and if so how they managed the problem?

[adrian]

Sounds like [url=http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/patelladisorders/a/chondromalacia.htm]chondromalacia[/url]. Good news - it means you're young and healthy! And yes, quad-strengthening excercises do the trick.

[Mike I]

Sounds familiar. And yes, a bit of physio and lots of stretching sorted me out. I really ought to keep up the stretches though, so thanks for the reminder.

[Marek]

Put your saddle post up one cm and don't bother with all the rest of this mumbo jumbo. All it is to do with is bike position.

Cheers

Marek....

[huw williams]

Polish doctors? Lord help us all :-0

[Sylv]

what's wrong with that

[huw williams]

They're likely to tell you that putting your saddle up by a cm is the cure for cancer

[Andrew G]

Mumbo jumbo or medical genius

I sort of agree with Marek. I wouldn't just stick the seatpost up but a lot of knee complaints come from incorrect bike set up. Best to get this checked first as even if a physio "fixes" a pain if the bike isn't set up correctly then it'll only come back again.

Also worth bearing in mind that on a long ride like L2P as you got more and more tired you may have started to slump in the saddle a bit which may have caused a bit of discomfort.

[kieran]

I got this a while ago after doing my longest cycle, did stretching and knee exercises, eventually went away.