As above.

Had a pain in my right knee for a week or so. Comes and goes but when it is painful, I’ve put a Tubigrip on it and the pain goes.

Just under the kneecap.

Anyone any experience of this and if so is it worth going to GP ?

Thanks

Do you ride road with clipless pedals?

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/take-care-of-your-knees-part-2-17445/

there’s part 1 as well, both useful

best thing i have found recently is a ‘roller’ to roll my muscles and especially iliotibial band. made one out of 80mm waste pipe with old sleeping mat glued around with contact-adhesive.

yes worth going to gp, of course. tho depends on you gp a bit

Had pain on and off in the inside of my right knee for years. Was sent to the hospital by my GP for a scan which came up ok. Turns out it was a tight calf muscle and a bit of stretching sorted it out.

Had a wrist injury about 6 months ago. GP said it was Carpal Tunnel and gave me some splints. I suspected it wasn’t so researched it. Turns out that I had a muscle knot in my upper arm/neck that was referring pain to my wrist. Bit of massage sorted that.

The body is a strange thing and I only half trust what the medical professionals say. I used to work in a hospital pathology dept. They say that if you ever work in a restaurant kitchen you’d never eat there – that!

Do you ride road with clipless pedals?

No, just flats I’ve never tried clipped in

yes worth going to gp, of course. tho depends on you gp a bit

That’s it, some GP’s don’t have a clue. There is a GP at mine that is a cyclist himself so if it carries on I will get booked him with him rather than the overweight middle aged GP 😉

You may have the start of calcium build up under the knee cap. As you say a GP is just that a generalist and in many cases not surprisingly cycling specific knee problems are not their area of expertise. That being said see the cyclist, a good physio may be more useful for advice and to get some specifc excersizes. As a good friend (in the “medical business” and a keen mtb-er) says knees are damn complicated. It could also be the onset of aging, stuff does wear out !

The body is a strange thing and I only half trust what the medical professionals say.

+1

go to a good physio and get them to check all your movement is OK and you don’t have tight calves/hamstrings/hip flexors/etc. If all is then good then you need further investigation but my bad knees seem to come from tight calves and inactive medial glute, i.e imbalance of muscles.

Simmy,

I’m a physio and strength coach and see this quite a lot. Invariably it results from a general spike in the level of training being completed. Research from Australia has indicated that these recent spikes in training load can increase the risk of injury. More on that here. Without seeing you personally, my best advice would be to scale back the training for a week or two to allow the painful tissues time to recover. This does not mean a complete rest.
During this period of deload, try working on mobility for the lower body into hips and knees to ensure the level of training has not caused large decreases in range of motion available to you.
The advice given previously is useful, if this issue persists past that deload period, see a reputable physiotherapist.

Regards,
Clem Nihill

I’m not a physio or even a humble GP but it seems to me that the stronger your muscles the more the joints need to keep up and increasing fitness and muscle bulk often causes joint problems, which are usually temporary or ease naturally as you ease off the effort.

To my unending amazement, Ibuprofen gel rubbed on the source of the pain also works very well; I find it hard to believe that the molecule is so readily absorbed and can find its way to the underlying tissue but it really does seem to work, even on quite deep muscle pain.

I have a very similar sounding issue which arose while I was cycling to and from work during the olympics.

I had started cycling to avoid the traffic in London, this meant I had gone from 0 miles to 32 miles a day.

I hadn’t done a lot of road riding at this stage and my experience of riding techniques was poor, i figured to go faster you keep cranking up the resistance.

I was pushing a harder gear than normal and this is what did the damage.

If you are not already, always try to keep your cadence high in an easier gear.

Ensure your seat position is the best it can be, cycle slowly around and have someone take a photo of you side on to get an idea of where you are situated on the bike.

Too low a saddle
Too high a saddle
Saddle too far back
Saddle too far forward
Stem too long
Stem too short
Stem too high
Stem too low

These can all contribute to putting additional strain on your knees etc.

There are lots of articles on bike fit which you can either try to measure up accurately or try to mimic in your own way.

Through changing my riding style and fitting my bike to me I have considerably reduced the amount this issue affects me.

I can comfortably do a 50-60mile ride. I did the Ride 100 and that hurt but a lot of that was due to me crawling up hills alongside my partner who is a pedal masher!

Summary
Pedal mash bad.