Experiencing Back-of-Knee Pain

[Brenchen]

Hi all,

I've done lots of reading online and asking around, nothing seems to really ease or improve my situation, so I would like to put this forwards to see what the wider community says.

Being a new cyclist, many things I didn't know, one of which is the adjustment of my seat being too high. Since I'm quite a short bloke, and I see many other bikes have their seats very far above their handlebar, and I wanted to just keep going higher.

About one month ago, I have this pain developing on the back of my right knee, feels like a knot. It started as a form of discomfort, then elevated to more of a discomforting pain, that was when I started to look for answers.

I've asked around, read lots, and heard some, the most obvious one seems to be the stretching (which I wasn't doing, but am now). Before so, my left leg also started to develop this pain, and I stretched for a few days, the pain went away.

The right leg is still getting this pain, it's now always there, even if I just lift my leg up.

Things I've tried are: Adjusting seat height, adjusting handlebar height, adjusting cleat position (myself and LBS), stretching, self-massaging, knee warmers, seeing a GP (he says nothing to worry about, just keep stretching...)

None of the above seem to really eliminate the pain. If anyone knows or has experienced something like this, how did you get over it? Or why would this even happen in the first place?

Cheers for reading, and thanks in advanced.

[Peacewise]

I had back of the knee pain, when I was diagnosed with chrondo malacia patella. They only way to get rid of it was rest and physio.
Then the rehab pathway of quarter lunges and other leg strengthening exercises intermittently done throughout the day.

Are you doing enough riding to suffer from an overuse injury? Done any heavy lifting with the legs lately?
I stopped going to GP's for injury advice and started using a decent physio, the gp's have little to n.f.i. about sports injuries.

[Brenchen]

That's my thought about GP as well, his comments didn't really help me ease the pain.

I haven't done any heavy lifting, just been doing hill repeats weekly (once a week). But the pain came before I did those hills. With the intensity of rides, it really depends on which scale I'm measuring against. To me, the hills have been very intensive, but apart from that, there isn't much that is of the same intensity.

[G-Ride]

From what your suggesting you may have damaged to knee during the "seat too high" phase and you may have anything from a strain to a Bakers Cyst in the structures at the back of the knee depending on how much cycling you did with the seat in the wrong position.

In the first instance the best treatment is rest combined with ice, compression and elevation when possible - and this rest could be up to a month. When you resume riding the first thing to do is ensure the saddle is not too high again. You will cause far less damage being way to low than way to high so err on the side of caution.

If it does persist push your doctor for an MRI to locate the exact problem and treat accordingly.

G

[Brenchen]

This is going to be difficult. I am going to leave Australia for some time (for work) in about 6 weeks, so I guess I will have to go see a physio soon to pin point what could be wrong.

I did some hills yesterday, and it was sore afterwards, even today I didn't ride in to work, the pain persisted, and also worsened. The thing about this pain is it comes and goes, sometimes worse, sometimes less bad. And it is quite annoying.

[Brenchen]

OK I just went to the physio. His diagnose was my hamstring tendons are fatigued, and he's put a lot of emphasis on how bike fit is important. His high recommendation was to first get my bike properly fitted by this Brian Mclean (apparently quite good?). He emphasised that with a properly fitted bike, many problems could be taken away.

So we'll see how we go and hopefully it goes away!

[toolonglegs]

I was going to comment on hamstrings... that is what gives me behind the knee pain. Stretching hip flexors and hammies gently after it all settles down.

[dyson.ross]

the advice i can offer is kinda silly, but when i ride with full-length leggings or 3/4 lycra shorts i get the same pain behind both knees. i don't know if anyone else experiences the same issue with their shorts but in my case not using any compressing lycra past my knees alleviates the issue.

[Brenchen]

Problem fixed about 80-90% from a professional bike fit! Now I've just been back for a follow up consultation, and the remaining 10-20% could be that I'm overdoing it as well. So bike fit really fixed the problem for me