Anyone on here had patellar tendonitis (or tendinopathy)? Assuming you’ve now recovered from it, what do you do different either before or (I suspect more crucially) afterwards? And both immediately after a ride and when you get home.

I’m thinking mainly of stretches and exercises, but possibly also diet. I’m getting towards the end of months and months of recovery and no desire ever to go through that again. Has meant me writing off a big chunk of the 2015 season.

I should add that I’m 51 which probably doesn’t help. Any advice gratefully received

Sorted mine by releasing a deep muscle spasm in my mid back. Where in the country are you?

Am in Edinburgh and have had physio which is working albeit slowly. Doing tons of stretches. Thinking more of the future and how to stop it coming back.

I’m 51 and get it too. I find a patellar knee strap worked really well. Got mine off Amazon for less than a tenner.

Plenty of unweighted deep squats plus proper quad stretches sorts mine any time it appears.

The trick is finding out why it keeps reoccurring. I tried the strengthing and the stretching. The trick for me was finding a biomechanist who had the right level of understanding.

Thanks for all the replies. Have tried the knee band but for me doesn’t seem to make much difference. The squats are much of what my physio consists of. It’s only occured once so far, but has taken me months of recovery and still isn’t 100%.

Not sure exactly what caused it in the first place. I didn’t do anything different last year other than upping my running and swimming distances quite a bit (and actually doing slightly less cycling than usual). My suspicion is that it was the running, or more probably the not stretching afterwards, that caused it, though it’s hard to prove.

My physio doesn’t condone routine stretching. Says it causes more problems than it prevents. Seems to be true for me so far. Have you been fully investigate for a muscle imbalance? Find that and some specific exercises might be useful.

I think mine went with custom foot beds to stop my knee rolling in as I walk or cycle

Couple of comments resonate with my experience. My physio traced it back to a weak ankle, did some work on that and hey-presto the PT stabalised. I recommend the deep squat thing for rehabilitation and prevention. I saw a sports doctor who gave me a program of two-legged and one-legged squats. 6 months ago I couldn’t do any one-legged squats, now I can knock out multiple sets on each leg and not a twinge of PT since. I was surprised that such an intense exercise was suitable, I thought it’d be rest and stretching but the squats are what sorted it. It takes a while though, stick with it.

Again, thanks for the replies. Re the muscle imbalance thing, no haven’t had it checked. Who does that sort of thing? Have never been told, or noticed, a foot roll, and have been doing walking, cycling, running for years so while not totally ruling it out, will try the other things first. Bit ta, and will keep it on my list of things to try.

Squats, of various tyes, are what my physio suggested (and he is excellent, a keen cyclist, and had cured various things over the years). They seem to be gradually curing it. However sturmeyarcher, do you do them routinely after every ride, or just when you feel the PT coming on? Reason is that once I get it sorted I’m very keen not to have it return. Giving up running may be the answer, but that’s a drastic step that I don’t want to think about unless really necessary.

I was surprised that such an intense exercise was suitable, I thought it’d be rest and stretching but the squats are what sorted it.

As well as moving your limbs around your muscles also keep your joints stable, so keeping them strong is very important.

OP sounds like you’re on the right track, lots of good advice here, keep listening to your physio.
Your feet will roll in if your arches are low, so worth checking out. Ditto the advice about the biomechanist- was this done privately?

My biomechanist was private. Expensive but worth every penny. Actually, expensive up front but if I think about the price per hours, it really wasn’t. He put a lot of time into getting me sorted. A lot of focus on core exercises but not what people think of as core. Deeper muscles that it seems lots of people just don’t switch on. The deep core aligns the pelvis, which aligns the knees, which aligns the feet. It was about getting the right bits to activate to sort it all out.

Cheers, some good advice there. Will speak to my physio about a biomechanical assessment and see if he thinks it worth pursuing at present, or if I should just stick with the squats/stretching regime and see if that fixes it. Of course it could just be that I’m a decrepit old git (-: Never had arch issues in the past but again is something I’ll have looked at next phyio visit. Ta once again everyone.

Ahhh, patella tendonitis. Its effected me for over a decade and still does.

Some of the statements I have heard over the years

1) Its a muscle imbalance
2) The tendon is 1″ thick you would have to be in a car crash to snap it
3) Exercise is your friend
4) If you can take the pain just ignore it

etc etc etc

I snapped mine about 5yrs ago and it took me nearly 6mths to be able to walk properly again. Another 3 ops and more physio and I get rid of the weird limp I had. Still gives way every so often but no pain anymore.

Here we get to the answers though. The right one was the knee which snapped (17 x times your body weight, it ripped the knee support off I was wearing). My left knee is now worse than my right knee ever was. Obviously exercise scares the living hell out of me. My wife would divorce me if it happened again. 6mths unable to drive!!!!

I went to my consultant and explained the issues again and again. He did the orthroscopy (sp), it made no difference. He reported on the onset of arthritis, well whoopee. Eventually I sat down and asked di he have access to my families records and asked him to spend 10mins reading it.

Dad has one false knee and decades of ops and problems with his knees
Younger brother has not been involved in running sports so much but has a few ops from his time in the forces
Older brother has all the same ops as me but never managed to snap the patella. He has also had this operation http://www.cumbriankneeclinic.co.uk/distal-femoral-osteotomy.html

So the consultant brings up my hip to feet xray and puts it over my brothers one. WOW, we have exactly the same bone structure in our legs. We have knock knees. A line from our hips to our feet and our knees go inside the line where it should run through the middle of the knee cap.

I have therefore worn the outside of the knee out by all the running and football I have done over the years. Even cycling now hurts it too.

All that exercise and balancing muscles I did for years and years from really experienced physios meant the grand total of diddly squat when I was fighting genetics.

The snapped tendon was me battling through tendonitis for 18mths and it was obviously caused by the angle it was being pulled in. An inflamed tendon is more likely to snap and when pulled at an angle even moreso.

So they want to do that bloody awfull op on my leg to straighten it. I will end up with (As reported from my brother) a bit less pain but nothing else and no ability to improve my sport. For what???

Funnily enough, by snapping the tendon on the right leg and a lateral release (The op that made the biggest difference) I have a right knee which give no pain anymore.

I have given up tbh. I am in pain every day and I expect to be unable to carry out my work within the next decade unless they give me a new knee.

Not what you wanted to here but my advice would be don’t just think balancing muscles will help. It will in the short term but I have had decades of it and it just masks the problem if its down to anything like the issues I have had. See a consultant and get a full hip to toe xray done to make sure there aren’t any underlying issues which may give answers.

Actually I have a rather impressive knee support at home. It is designed for people like me to be able to carry out moderate exercise without the need for the op. It makes my leg look like Robocop and is totally unsuitable for cycling.

But a couple of weeks in it and you answer any questions about any alignment problems with your legs. This thing straightens you leg for you (very uncomfortable) and takes pressure off the knee. The hospital made me wear it for 2mths solid to answer wether the op above would be worthwhile.