Knee Pain, Rocking Hips, Dropper Seatposts, & Follow-up Bike Fits | Q&A #2

Knee Pain from tightness and a long reach

Subscriber that admitted he has poor flexibility and was experiencing some knee pain.  Should he shorten his cranks now?  Might work, but there are two areas just as likely to produce results and much cheaper to try.  Play with the reach of the bike -- if the reach is not correct or asks more from the rider's hip, spine flexibility and stability than it can tolerate the posture and the mechanics of the pelvis on the seat will be affected.  This will create an unbalanced path for the lower extremity (one side moves in a different path than the other) as well as unbalanced muscular output.  This very easily can create knee pain.  The other area is to work on the body.  Even making small gains in mobility and stability can yield tremendous results on the bike.  Both of these changes are much less expensive than spending $200-$500 replacing the crankset.https://youtu.be/6FzLCjGQmgE

How do I tell if my hips are rocking?

Take some contrasting tape and either plac two dots on the back of the pelvis on each PSIS joint (the dimples on your low low back) or run a length of tape parallel to your belt line but slightly below it.  This will highlight the hip and pelvic movement and make it much easier to read.  What are we looking for?  And how much is too much motion?  We want to be especially aware of unequal movement and this is usualy very easy to see.  One side of the tape will clearly move more than the other.  As to how much movement is too much, the answer can be a little trickier.  Generally the PSIS will each move vertically around 1-2", depending on the size of the rider.  erhaps an easier way to see if the movment is too great is to look up the chain at the lumbar and thoracic spine.  More movement will create a counter movement in the spine, so when the pelvis dips too far to the left, the upper spine will compensate and tilt to the right and you get a fish-like side to side movement.

Dropper posts and low profile saddles

• dropper seatposts have a minimum height because of the telescoping slider and its collar
• because the rider has a given seat height and the frame has a given seat tube length, at times smaller riders with smaller frames can run into the problem where they can't get the seat height low enough
• sometimes the only solution is to find a low profile, or low stack height, saddle

How long should I go between bike fit checks?

• bike fits are not static - we are always changing
• inevitably, sa slow creep occurs as we change in how we fit our bikes.
• after big changes, like extended periods off the bike, surgeries, injuries, it's often a good idea to get your fit checked
• normally every 2-3 years is preferable
  • in many cases I have had clients that were surprised just how far off they were from their optimal position.
  • the changes happened so slowly and insidiously that once we made some minor changes they couldn't believe how much of a difference it made even though their bike fit was only 2 years old

If you have questions or comments please feel free to comment below or on the YouTube video itself