I started twice-weekly turbo sessions about three weeks ago and I’ve been noticing some mild, niggling knee pain in the past week or so.

Been riding the road bike since August and I’m pretty happy with the setup, so I’m guessing that there is some kind of causal link between the turbo and the sore knees. It’s a twinge in both knees just below the kneecap and on the inside edge. Not there all the time, but definitely noticeable.

I’m hoping it’s just weakness leaving my body and another couple of weeks will have strengthened them up enough to deal with the effort of hard intervals.

Anyone else experience this when starting a turbo programme?

Does it come on after a set period of time? Does it hurt if you try to push your knee cap through your leg? Might be that you’re creating a muscle imbalance through a different pedalling style on the turbo. Give me an answer to those two questions though.

It may be that the fixed position of the turbo is exposing a movement or position that the road bike doesn’t. Buy an anorak, out on the bike….

One other question.Do you have your front wheel lifted or are you always pedalling downhill on it?

Answers to your questions Mr. G.

1) No, not that I’ve noticed
2) No. No pain in the kneecap itself if I push on it.

I would say, though, that it is more noticeable when I’m running up stairs or standing up from a crouching position.

What about underneath your knee cap when you push it through your leg?

Front wheel lifted, bike level.

Nope. Can’t feel any pain when pushing or prodding any part of the knee. Really only the extension under load scenarios above.

My hypothesis is that I’m overloading tendons/ligaments that are unaccustomed to explosive effort

I get knee pain occaisonaly on the turbo, tends to be if I don’t do a good warm up in a low gear before starting the efforts.

Possibly, but its one hell of a size of ligament that you’re talking about there.

Extension under load giving you pain suggests that you might have a small kneecap tracking problem, caused by that muscle imbalance that i mentioned earlier. Most common source of that type of pain in cyclists. Couple of options, go with it and see if it settles down in a bit or try and strengthen VMO by doing some squats in just the last 15 degrees of extension.

I might be wrong though.

SBZs, I get this every so often and reading around, I’ve seen it suggested that attempting to strengthen the VMO is not only difficult but a bit …irrational?… because of the way the muscles all work together.

Not suggesting you are wrong, but wondered what you thought?

Mine always seems to go away after a week or so.

Cant see any reason why it would be difficult or irrational to be honest. Did they give any reasons for suggesting this to be the case?

http://sportscenteraustin.blogs.com/the_view/2003/11/the_myth_of_the.html

This kind of thing, I’m not arguing or contradicting, just wondered what you thought..

Sounds like a little spot of patella femoral perhaps, possibly caused by having tight hip flexors and IT bands from sitting dead still on the turbo ? Not the first time I have seen/heard this so not totally uncommon. What stretching do you do after each session – even if you stretch buy yourself a foam roller for working your quads, IT bands and hip flexors. Hopefully you’ll find it eases off quickly. Thats my best guess based on what you have said. It seems the TT does sort of encourage you to sit dead still and can amplify any minor setup problems that you may get round on the road by shifting on your seat a bit more. Very possibly check your seat height and also its fore/aft position – or get someone to do it that knows what they are doing.

VMO?

I don’t think I have a Vaginal Meniscal Orifice.

Very Manly Organ, on the other hand…

Your best bet is go visit an experienced physio who understands your sport, with a little research you’ll find one.

Where abouts r u?

Crikey – That just about goes against everything I’ve ever read or been taught. I’m inclined to go with the evidence based approach.

VMO is the lower part of the inner quad muscle at the front. It wasting changes the vector forces that help your kneecap track. It is one of the fastest growing and wasting muscles in the body, so very easy to get an imbalance.

Happy now? 😀

Happy?

My cup runneth over!

😀

Incidentally, knees feel fine today.

Did an hour of Pilates (aka “Girls’ PE”) after work and ran up lots of stairs with no problems. Hopefully just a niggle, but thanks for all the advice.