Riding a bicycle is easy, but it also makes people ignore potential sports injuries and generates a lot of wrong ideas about cycling, which accelerates the formation of injuries, especially invisible internal injuries. The knee joint joins the thigh bone and the two lower leg bones, and in order for the joint to move smoothly, the middle is padded with several pieces of cartilage and joint fluid as lubrication; the causes of knee injuries vary, mostly in the displacement or wear of cartilage, and because cartilage is not easy to regenerate and repair, it is difficult to recover once damaged. In addition, tendon inflammation, ligament strain is also cycling often caused by the knee injury, if the knee injury, light recuperation weeks to heal; serious may never ride again, this is the love of cycling enthusiasts is the most cruel end, must be careful!

The correct concept of riding and vehicle tuning can help prevent injuries from occurring or worsening, so let's learn how to take care of your knees from a doctor's explanation and the things you should pay attention to in general.

Cycling has become increasingly popular and is a good low impact sport in addition to jogging. Although it is a milder sport, it is easy to accumulate small injuries and produce big injuries, especially to the knees, because of the high repetitiveness of the same action. Do you know that an hour of cycling, the pedal about 5000 turns, equal to the knee in an hour of bending and straightening 5000 times! Therefore, knee pain (especially in the front knee) is a very common symptom in the cycling community.

Main factors of cycling knee pain

The most common cause of knee pain from cycling is overuse. Other factors such as improper adjustment of the vehicle, poor cycling skills, and wrong training methods may also cause knee pain. We can broadly divide them into human problems and vehicle problems.

Human problems: Some people have abnormal body structures that can affect the knee, such as short and long feet, flat feet, too wide pelvis, unbalanced muscle strength on both sides, poor joint flexibility, etc. If you have these problems, you must assess in advance whether you need to correct them, or order special shoes, otherwise it is easy to hurt your knee when riding a bike. In addition, cyclists must understand their own physical ability and riding skills, sudden over-riding, such as the usual habit of no fixed cycling exercise, but on the spur of the moment to ride a long distance or challenge the high difficulty of the route, are sources of injury. And for players, excessive training is also prone to injury.

The problem of the car: the work is good, it is necessary to first benefit from its tools. The importance of the car is no less than the human factor, not expensive is good, basically, to fit the body, after appropriate adjustment, is a good car. If you ride a car that is not suitable for you, it is more likely to cause sports injuries. In addition to the time to buy a car to first select the vehicle size to meet the height, because everyone's body proportions are also different, before riding on the road also according to their own body shape, the car for the fine adjustment, in order to reduce the burden on the knees when riding a bike.

Prevention & Treatment of Knee Injuries

However, even with attention to both human and vehicle problems, injuries can still occur, especially chronic injuries due to overuse. Once injured, the initial treatment can follow the PRICEMM principles (Protection, Rest,lce, Compression, Elevation, Modalities, Medications) and wait until the inflammation and pain have subsided, then slowly return to normal function through rehabilitation. The process should not be rushed, otherwise it will not be worthwhile to turn into a permanent injury. Of course, as long as you have doubts, you should seek professional medical advice, do not listen to hearsay or believe in folk remedies.

Like other sports, to reduce sports injuries are just a few principles: to develop regular exercise habits, adequate warm-up stretching before exercise, gradually increase the amount of exercise, to maintain a good rest and spirit, etc.. For cycling, I would like to give cyclists (especially those who are just starting out) some suggestions.

1, 10% principle - increase the distance and intensity of cycling by 10% every week.

2, prior testing of skeletal muscle status - including structural abnormalities, joint flexibility, muscle flexibility ....

3、Adjust the bike and wear appropriate clothing.

4、Warm up sufficiently before exercise and stretch, and stretch after exercise, do not rush to eat ice and drink cold water.

5, keep a good sleep, with a happy mood to go.

As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure, as long as the grasp of the above mentioned principles, that is, you can achieve the purpose of exercise, and will not hurt the knee, then you will be a happy cyclist.

How to prevent knee injuries on a bicycle

There are not many cycling injuries, and most of them are caused by inflammation of the patellofemoral cartilage; if you have ever felt knee pain during exercise, it is likely that the patella is inflamed as well.

The patella is located in front of the knee and is relaxed when the foot is straight. When the foot is bent more, the patella becomes tighter and tighter and the pressure rises; so when riding a bicycle, the patellar cartilage is easily inflamed because the foot is repeatedly bent and straightened, allowing the knee joint to constantly grind. The more you bend your knees when riding a bicycle, the greater the pressure will be, so it is incorrect to adjust the saddle to a height where both feet can land at the same time for the general public to feel safe. The first step to prevent chondrofemoral inflammation is to adjust the saddle to the proper position. The general formula for calculating the saddle height is: "Span length ╳0.885=Saddle height (center to saddle)", and then fine-tune it according to your riding feeling.

To prevent knee injuries, you can do long-term stretching exercises and weight training to exercise the quadriceps `bending muscles on the back of the thigh.

In addition, before exercise must be warmed up ` stretch muscle, especially in the cold when the muscle will be stiff, must spend more time to warm up. Because the muscle is like a rubber band, if very elastic, how to pull will not break; if stiff, may be a pull will be broken. And the higher the temperature, the softer the muscle will be, it will be easy to be pulled loose, so pay attention to warmth when riding a bike, otherwise the cold air will make the muscle stiff, it will be easy to cause injury. If you want to effectively prevent, on a regular basis to do stretching exercises, according to a medical report pointed out that 5 to 10 minutes a day to do stretching and muscle exercise, than only before the exercise to do warm-up, can more effectively reduce the chance of sports injuries.

Don't forget to change gears when riding

Many people like to ride cross-country or challenge steep hills, but do not know how to make good use of the transmission, often using very heavy gear ratios in climbing, and even some riders treat the bike as heavy training equipment, thinking that the heavier the gear ratio, the more muscle training, but in fact is counterproductive. Not only is it easy to get tired, but it also increases the burden on the knees; so when climbing, strain to a lighter gear ratio and let the rotation speed rise (about 80 revolutions per minute of pedaling), not only can you maintain a long ride, but also avoid soreness and sports injuries.

Because changing gears needs to be driven by the chain, it is important to change gears while keeping forward, especially before climbing or stopping the bike remember to lower the gears first to facilitate the start of the ride afterwards, and also to avoid the knees from exerting more force and hurting the chain due to poor gearing.

Appropriate use of muscle power

Because cycling is a fixed chain exercise, more muscles can be used at the same time, and it is less likely to cause injury, so it is often listed as a suitable exercise for knee rehabilitation. But how can someone get a knee injury from cycling? Improper force application during cycling is also one of the reasons. As the legs repeatedly move in a circular motion during bicycle pedaling, it is easy to overload the meniscus cartilage in the knee joint and cause injury.

If the muscles on the side of the thigh are too tight, the knee may become unbalanced and cause problems such as patellar exostosis and patellar chondromalacia. Therefore, cycling is not a good idea to ride on the car, but the usual muscle training is the cure, and it is also necessary to do a good job of warming up and soothing the muscles before and after the ride, so that the muscles can be fully stretched.

For the use of muscles in the riding position, Hsiao Yu-chung, director of the Rehabilitation Department at Clarification Hospital, explained that the hip joint (the point where the thigh bone meets the pelvis) should be used for movement when riding. The lower limbs are like moving joints. By focusing on the hip joint and pulling up, the strength of the iliopsoas, rectus femoris, anterior tibialis and extensor digitorum longus muscles are naturally used, allowing the ankle to follow the upward hook, which is more effortless than using the ankle to hook the pedal; when pedaling down, attention is also focused on hip extension rather than knee pressure, which allows the gluteus maximus, quadriceps and hamstring muscles to drive the knee to pedal straight down. The knee is driven by the gluteus maximus, quadriceps and hamstrings. The correct use of muscle strength to pedal can reduce the burden on the knee joint.

Everyone's physical condition is different, and it is most taboo to ride with friends when you see others racing forward and pedal heavy gears to catch up, which not only puts a heavy burden on the heart and lungs, but also on the knees. The ability to ride is not forced out by will, but by progressive training, adjusting the vehicle to suit your condition will help to ride in the right way.  

Bicycling knee discomfort improvement suggestions

1. The right height of the seat is also very important when riding a bike, short legs can not be straight, the body is difficult to move open, and easy to consume more energy; the seat is too high will also lead to your ligaments may be strained, people who have had such experience know what it is like.
2. The correct riding position is very important. The first thing is to allow your body to get a more reasonable exercise process, moderate cycling is good for your health this thing is undoubtedly. If your posture is weird, first you will lose more energy than others, and second you will do more damage to your body than others because of improper posture, your body is your own, you watch it. In addition that is to say, riding posture correct will look very good, photo up also more model.
3. Don't always keep the same gear ratio when riding. Keep the pedaling frequency but don't always let your derailleur become a pendulum. You can make the gear ratio heavier on the downhill side to prevent you from pedaling in the air while also making you feel more secure. Uphill depending on the size of the slope to adjust the gear ratio, generally the steeper the slope gear ratio lighter, but to maintain the pedaling frequency. 
4. The warm-up before exercise is very important. Warm-up is to wake up the body's functions, through the warm-up exercise to tell it, you need it to help you do what next. Countless examples prove that people with a warm-up exercise feel more comfortable riding than those without a warm-up exercise in the process of cycling more obvious. If you do not have time to do warm-up exercises, you can before riding (running, etc. also applies) to put some professional warm-up cream (more expensive, this is more common abroad, China is still very little), warm-up cream will usually be based on the temperature to regulate your body's response to the external environment, for example, before riding in the knee area, you can increase the secretion of lubricating fluid in the knee area, reducing your knee pain caused by not warming up or riding posture is not The knee pain caused by not warming up or incorrect riding position.