Three Easy Ways to Save Your Knees from Cycling
Three Easy Ways to Save Your Knees from Cycling
BY SEAN SWOPES, PT, DPT, CSCS (The MTB PT)
RAUSCH PHYSICAL THERAPY & SPORTS PERFORMANCE
Don’t let knee pain keep you from racing OTH this summer. Sean Swopes shares three ways you can prevent knee pain to keep you on the trail and off the table. If you are suffering as the consequence of a recent knee injury then it might be worthwhile to seek treatment from physical therapists who specialize in the area.
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Cycling is a game of repetitions. Did you know if you were to ride 100 miles at an average of 90 RPM, you would turn the pedals 32,000 times? When you’re doing something 32,000 times, even the smallest abnormal strain will turn into a big problem if left unchecked.
The nature of mountain bike racing-pedaling fast, hard, uphill, in short bursts-makes knee pain one of the more common complaints I hear when talking with riders at Over the Hump, and it’s because we’re often smashing those pedals every week all summer long trying to get our next PR. In fact, as the “Mountain Biking PT” at Rausch Physical Therapy & Sports Performance, the majority of my patients are on my table battling overuse issues (e.g. tendinosis, iliotibial-band syndrome) from lack of tissue mobility, causing poor movement mechanics while pedaling.
However, by being more aware of your body on the bike, how you pedal and taking msm powder when you feel your joints hurting, you can prevent a lot of the overuse injuries I see plaguing my MTB patients.
Three Easy Changes You Can Make to Prevent Cycling Knee Pain
#1 – Find Your Optimal Seat Height
Proper seat position is one of the best changes you can make to save your knees. The biggest issue, and the easiest to address, is saddle height. Problems can occur when the saddle is too high or too low.
If your saddle is too high, it can cause lateral knee pain due to overuse of the IT-band. It can also cause posterior knee pain due to overextension of the hamstring muscles, which cross behind the knee.
If your saddle is too low, it typically manifests as anterior knee pain due to an increased amount of shear from the patella on the knee. Not only will you be at-risk for knee pain, but you also won’t be effectively using your quads and glutes (the powerhouse of the legs,) which will cause a decrease in your power output.
You can figure out your appropriate seat height by measuring the angle of your knees when the pedal is in bottom dead center (BDC) position; the knee angle should fall between 25 to 40 degrees. However, in order to achieve an ideal knee angle of 30 degrees, you must have good flexibility.
#2 – Improve Your Hamstring Flexibility
As mentioned above, to achieve optimal seat height it’s best to have a knee angle closer to 30 degrees. To do this, you’ll need optimal hamstring muscle length. Your hamstring muscle runs down the back of the thigh, starting from the pelvis and attaching just below the knee on the back of the tibia (lower leg bone). When you straighten your knee, you stretch that muscle.
Now, hamstring flexibility is a fiercely debated topic. You’ve probably heard someone say that they have “short hamstrings,” however that’s probably not accurate (In fact, only 1% of the population actually has short hamstring muscles). Every person’s hamstrings attach to the same place in every person, therefore you cannot have a short length of a muscle.
What really negatively affects hamstring “flexibility” is the body’s intolerance to flexibility, meaning your body just doesn’t want to stretch to its full potential! This can be due to a variety of environmental and physiological factors, however the good news is that you can improve your flexibility if you work at it.
To increase your hamstring flexibility, try these exercises:
- Foam roll: ITB, Quad, Hamstring, Quads, Glutes
- Hamstring stretch with a strap with contract relax technique. One reason people have difficulty stretching their hamstring is due to a phenomenon called neurogenic inhibition; to override this factor, use a contract relax technique to increase your hamstring length.
- Inchworms (See picture to the right.)
#3 – Work on Proper Pedaling
Contrary to popular belief, you cannot pedal upward. Many people think that because your feet are clipped in, it allows you to pull up through the pedal stroke. However, this is nearly impossible because of how fast the pedal stroke is; the leg simply cannot move fast enough to produce an upward force to match the downward force caused by the opposing leg.
Although it is nearly impossible to produce force through the entire pedal stroke, this is where mountain bikers have an advantage; the changing terrain and loose-surface steep climbing helps you develop an efficient pedal stroke. When your pedal stroke is efficient, you don’t need to call on additional force from your quad (the powerhouse of the knee) to produce power, which will ultimately help prevent stress on your knee joints and pain from wear-and-tear.
So for all you road cyclists out there, I suggest you add a mountain bike to your collection and come on out to Over the Hump. Mountain biking is the perfect way to cross-train and work on pedaling efficiency so you can prevent stress on those knees. Workouts on your trainer definitely have some benefit, but nothing beats getting out there on the dirt.
Conclusion
The most common injuries a cyclist endures are caused by overuse. When it comes to your knees, overuse injuries develop from an imbalance (stiffness, weakness or both) causing abnormal strain to the knee. If your knees are causing you difficulty, you might want to take a look at knee sleeves on amazon to find out how a knee brace can help protect your knees from further damage. Furthermore, physical therapists are trained body movement experts, and they can do a full-body exam to figure out exactly what these imbalances are so you can address them.
Most athletes I come across assume that their injuries will resolve on their own; I’ll tell you that the sooner you address your overuse injury, the easier it is to overcome. The longer you continue to cycle with an injury, your body will develop a movement compensation, which will only exacerbate the injury. Finally seeking out Physical Therapy will allow you to get back to cycling with no worries about doing further damage to your body.
So come join me on the trail this summer at OTH, and stop by the Rehabulance to chat about how you can save your knees so you continue to ride for years to come.
About Sean Swopes, PT, DPT, CSCS
Sean Swopes, DPT is the “Mountain Biking-PT” at Rausch Physical Therapy & Sports Performance. He is also a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. As a physical therapist, Sean’s goal is to help his patients understand their musculoskeletal impairments and work together to improve them.