Very quiet knee 'pop' while riding - Triathlon Week

04-06-2005, 12:57 PM

Last November I hurt my knee doing a sprint tri. The pain, which
started a short way into the run, wasn't too bad during the race, but
was quite bad the next day, especially when standing up after sitting
at my desk for a while. The intense pain lasted about three days, and
then tapered off to a noticable, but not sharp pain.

Gradually over the winter the pain went away completely. During the
winter I had my bike fitted, and I bought new shoes. The bike fitter
said that my cleats were really misconfigured, and he thought that was
the likely cause of my knee pain.

I started light training again in February. I've had no recurrance of
the pain.

My first tri of the year is in two weeks, so I'm really at my highest
intensity training of the year right now.

Yesterday, while riding the bike, about 20 minutes in to my session, I
started to notice a very quiet light pop in my knee at about the 2
o'clock position on many of my downstrokes. There wasn't any pain, but
I was worried. I noticed that if I kept my foot level, or even pushed
the heel downward, there was no pop. If I pointed my toes at all, the
pop would come back. I kept going another 40 minutes, trying to
minimize the popping and I felt fine afterwards.

I'll be on the bike again tomorrow, paying extra attention, to see if
it was a one time only kind of thing, or if something is really going
on.

My knee does not hurt today, so I'm starting to think that it's not a
problem, but I was curious to hear other opinions on this. The thought
that I might be setting myself up for another knee injury is starting
to become louder in the back of my head then my self-motivating voice.
I don't want to be peeling off my wet-suit thinking, "What if I hurt
myself again?", so any information you have would be great.

Steve

04-08-2005, 03:32 PM

Well, 40 minutes on the trainer last night, being very careful to not
point my toe, and I'm happy to report no knee pain. I guess it's just
more proof that good technique is worth working on.

Steve

04-08-2005, 03:46 PM

Steve Anderson wrote:
> Last November I hurt my knee doing a sprint tri. The pain, which
> started a short way into the run, wasn't too bad during the race, but
> was quite bad the next day, especially when standing up after sitting
> at my desk for a while. The intense pain lasted about three days, and
> then tapered off to a noticable, but not sharp pain.
>
> Gradually over the winter the pain went away completely. During the
> winter I had my bike fitted, and I bought new shoes. The bike fitter
> said that my cleats were really misconfigured, and he thought that was
> the likely cause of my knee pain.
>
> I started light training again in February. I've had no recurrance of
> the pain.
>
> My first tri of the year is in two weeks, so I'm really at my highest
> intensity training of the year right now.
>
> Yesterday, while riding the bike, about 20 minutes in to my session, I
> started to notice a very quiet light pop in my knee at about the 2
> o'clock position on many of my downstrokes. There wasn't any pain, but
> I was worried. I noticed that if I kept my foot level, or even pushed
> the heel downward, there was no pop. If I pointed my toes at all, the
> pop would come back. I kept going another 40 minutes, trying to
> minimize the popping and I felt fine afterwards.
>
> I'll be on the bike again tomorrow, paying extra attention, to see if
> it was a one time only kind of thing, or if something is really going
> on.
>
> My knee does not hurt today, so I'm starting to think that it's not a
> problem, but I was curious to hear other opinions on this. The thought
> that I might be setting myself up for another knee injury is starting
> to become louder in the back of my head then my self-motivating voice.
> I don't want to be peeling off my wet-suit thinking, "What if I hurt
> myself again?", so any information you have would be great.
>
> Steve

I don't have any wisdom for you, but some perhaps similar experience. I
have a knee that I injured years ago, and for years the kneecap would
dislocate now and then, until I learned to stretch it so the stronger
tendon didn't tend to pull it out. Do check the balance of your
quads--can you do as many leg lifts with the leg rotated one way as the
other?

A couple of months ago my knee started giving me trouble. I thought the
problem was softer running shoes, and immediately changed back to the
kind I had used before (I use custom orthotics). My massage therapist
thought it was starting swimming, on the theory that the knee wasn't as
stable in non-weight bearing exercise. I tried a neophrene knee brace
swimming but didn't see any difference. It would hurt (not severely)
going up and down stairs, just as I started pressing down going up
stairs (which I think is what you mean by 2 o-clock). Sometimes it
would feel just weird, like the components tracked wrong. A few times
it stiffened up after biking.

I cut back my training for a week and then decided to keep it up unless
the knee started getting worse. It hasn't, it has slowly gotten better.
The weird thing is that once it settled down a little it sometimes
hurt when I first started out on the bike or if I rode slowly with my
kids, but not if I rode harder. It never hurt running.

The things that I think have helped are raising my bike saddle a little
and doing side leg lifts. I just lie on my side and do leg lifts,
though I got the idea from a runner who uses an elastic strap and walks
sideways. It also helps to stretch my calves before biking (I know it
doesn't make sense, but try it). If my knee starts to act up on the
bike (it feels to me more like a crunch than a pop) I do find it helps
to keep my heels down at the top of the stroke.

I haven't seen a doctor because the one time I did see an orthopedist
for the dislocating kneecap he said he could cut the tendon on the other
side so both sides would be equally weak. I said I would wait until
they invented a better cure. He told me there was some arthritic
degeneration in the joint, and that was almost 20 years ago. I figure
that knee is always going to be iffy and so I am very careful to build
up slowly but I'm willing to keep going despite some weirdness from it,
so long as it doesn't start getting worse. But then I'm 49 and only
training for a sprint triathlon, so I may be in a whole different
category from what you are doing.

Pam