Facebook Live 13th December 2019
Cycling and could it be potentially bad for your knees?
Cycling is a low impact activity to stay fit and used as an alternative to running to reduce the impact on your shins and feet. Although there isn’t much vertical ground reaction forces onto the feet with cycling, the constant repetitive motion could place more stress onto your knees instead. The average cyclists would do about 5000+ revolutions per hour and the most common injury for most cyclists is overuse; Riding too hard, too soon and too far It’s a simple case of too much too soon, their body hasn’t been conditioned to withstand or handle that extra amount of load/stress yet, doing too much sporatically may lead to sore tissues.
Small things to look out for include: is your seat too high/low or too far/close from the handlebars? is your crank length too long/short?, are you bending your knee too much at the top and is your knee bending about 10% at the bottom. Switching up to a higher cadence at lower gears (aim to go above 75 rpm) will generate less stress through the quadriceps and patella tendon of the knees. As always, if you do experience discomfort/pain in your knees whilst cycling, it’s best to consult with a trained expert and/or pop into your local cycling shop and have them assess your technique.