Cycling Knees Moving Laterally

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Ever experience cycling knees moving laterally? You're not alone as many cyclists experience some side to side movement of the knees while they pedal. But two questions to consider:Can you do anything about it? Should you do anything about it?https://youtu.be/zdEepaGQqwk

  • idealized picture of how our legs should pump vertically like pistons
    • vertical knee path might improve efficiency and power in some
    • some riders may even mimmick their favorite pro and tuck the knees in
    • But is a vertical knee path common? Desired?
      • maybe not for you
  • important to remember that knee drift will often be caused by the foot or the hip -- why we call it the slave joint
    • we need to evaluate whether that reason is able to be fixed
    • causes:
      • forefoot posture drives hip
      • foot inversion
      • too wide/narrow stance (q-factor)
      • weak hip muscles
      • hip OA
  • rules for trying to fix
    • if you have knee pain, you should look into it
    • if you have pain elsewhere while biking -- foot discomfort, saddle issues -- you might look into it
      • but this is a tough path because now we're dealing with this as a secondary source of pain and things get complicated fast; and can be difficult to relate things back to
    • especially if movement is bilateral you might leave it alone -- greater chance of not being fixable
      • one-sided can be addressed but it's tough because it's often complicated by how we sit on the bike -- twisted pelvis
        • can also cause windswept knees -- one knee drifts out and one drifts in
  • how to
    • complicated -- shoot high speed video from front (free program on website shows you how) and analyze
    • trial and error -- could try some forefoot varus posting -- pretty cheap and most people tolerate a couple degrees of posting without any difficulty
      • or try moving cleats to change q-factor
      • or work on hip strength but this of course will take longer
      • not the most expeditious way to go about this but if you already have an inkling about the cause the trial and error route might be simplest
  • illustrate how remote and difficult this can be -- client I had yesterday
    • knee was drifting out -- not caused by anything local
      • her reach was barely too long -- only indication of this was her scapulaes were off in their posture
      • this drew her pelvis into slightly more anterior pelvic tilt than her lumbar spine and trunk strength was capable of managing
        • this caused one side of pelvis (nd hip) drift forward more creating a twist in her sitting posture which drove her knee on the forward hip side in and the backward hip side out
      • just managing her reach and restoring scp posture resolved pelvic posture and knee drift completely
  • take home -- there are some simple ways to address knee pain but I can't stress enough that in a lot of cases it may be best to just leave things alone -- the knee may be moving like that for a very good (and impossible to correct) reason; forcing the knee may create other new issues