Why Does Your Knee Hurt After Cycling?

Your knee consists of four bones; the tibia (shin), fibula (bone to outside of shin), femur (thigh) and patella (knee cap), problems often arise in cycling when your tibia and femur don’t track well with one another. This basically means that for thousands of revolutions per cycle your knee will experience repetitive torque between your shin and thigh bone.

Your knee may hurt after cycling due to its inability to deal with this rotational stress. Your knee has two main capabilities in terms of motion, it can flex and extend (open and close), and it also has the ability to rotate. When cycling the knee should stay pretty steady and not really have to tap in to its rotational capabilities all too much as cycling is a sagittal dominant exercise (meaning simply the knee should open and close like a hinge throughout without too much rotational deviation).

Pain is a warning system to your brain that a joint, ligament or tendon is coming to the end of its ability to deal with stress. At an early stage that is all it is, that is why nipping these things in the bud quickly is by far the most straightforward approach. The ‘wait and see’ crowd tend to sadly end up with multiple compensatory patterns meaning it is a much harder puzzle to solve.

What Will Help Your Knee Pain after Cycling?

You need to let your body experience the opposite of what it is currently doing. The best rehabilitation program is to mobilise à stabilise à integrate. We need to create new or forgotten motions through mobilisation before establishing strength in your improved range of movement. Finally and most importantly whole body exercises need to be introduced in order to combine your enhanced movement capabilities at the knee with the rest of body.

To allow your body to experience ‘the opposite’ we have to ask ‘the opposite of what?’ This is where the sports therapy fix knee assessments come in handy. Through self-guided assessments you’ll be led down the path that is right for you and your knee. You’ll find out whether your knee has a rotational problem or a hinging issue. The assessments will analyse whether you need more focus on mobility work, stabilisation or postural exercises.

Specific exercises based on the outcomes will be identified and outlined with video support, repetition guidance and clear visual and verbal instructions on how to perform each drill, for how long and in what sequence.

Is Cycling Bad for Your Knees?

Cycling, just like any sport puts the body under strain however there is no evidence its stresses the knees more than other activities. In fact anything that gets blood pumping, elevates your heart rate and promotes you being out in the fresh air is tremendously good for you. Do not let pain become an excuse to not exercise; often the answers for acute and persistent niggles can be quite simple if you ask your body the right questions.

Don’t waste hours spent searching for ‘the best’ knee pain rehab routine, trolling through thousands of exercises. From the comfort of your own home use our step by step, easy to follow process to guide you to a specific routine relative to your pain and take back control of your pain and continue to do the things you love.