Pain - Knee - Build

All,

I started my build phase which has been challenging for me, I have developed some mild pain after a difficult workout I completed recently. My question is should I lower intensity, rest, or just shake it off…

Workout name: Bashful +6

I don’t think you should be training through pain. If it’s anything more than discomfort and doesn’t start to feel better by your next ride, I would consider seeing a doctor or PT.

As for what might have caused it (assuming you’ve been cycling for some time and haven’t experienced similar pain before) I would start by asking yourself if anything has recently changed. Have you tweaked your fit? Have you increased volume? etc.

If you can’t think of any changes that may have led to it, I would also ask yourself how your form on the bike was during Bashful +6. I find that when I dig deep on tougher, high power efforts I have to focus hard on keeping good form. If you are only focusing on hitting target power numbers without focusing on a smooth pedal stroke, vertical knee tracking (basically all the tips in Chad’s instruction text) that could be a potential cause.

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Exactly what @ffffbbbb said.

When this happened to me it was a slightly off bike fit that showed up when I did harder efforts.

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Its only happening on one leg, going to start paying attention to Form and Power, will not lie, I wanted to hit all the numbers and was not paying attention to form… - This was done indoors.

You’ll have to figure out your own body.

IME, pain has always been attributed to fit. Small problems were magnified by intensity and volume, but the problems had always been there.

The tricky thing is that when a minor acute injury happened, I’d fix the fit issue, but the pain would linger for a few weeks. Sometimes months. I’d have to resist the temptation of making further tweaks, and very carefully evaluate my condition to make sure that I was recovering, knowing that improvement would be very gradual.

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Don’t forget to check your cleat position too, my speedplay cleat on the foot that I clip out with always seems to drift outwards after a month or so, which I found causes me knee pain (and yes I do use loctite).

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I don’t have any words of wisdom but will say I experienced some left knee discomfort when going through Sustained Power Build, particularly the latter half. I had been through a fitting process 2-4 months earlier and was happy with high power intervals in that position, though that knee has always been sensitive since a bout of lyme disease a decade ago,

I believe it was just the weekly repetition of VO2 intervals, superthreshold intervals, over/unders and threshold intervals that put some extra wear and tear on my body. It ended up going away the week into my next base block (so recovery week at end of SPB + 1/2 - 1 week.)

I think the main question is, is it really pain? or discomfort? Pain, like being stabbed in the knee, is always bad. I would immediately stop. Discomfort can be monitored and add extra rest days or weeks into the plan to keep it in check. My next pass through SPB I will be inserting another recovery week and do two loading weeks and a recovery week instead of the normal 3/1.

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I had a two issue with my knee that kept stopping me from getting on with TrainerRoad.

After many visits to different physio’s and a quality bike fit that using the wattbike website I transferred to my Wattbike. I still had issues especially under load.

In the end I took matters in to my own hands and did the following.

  1. Push my seat back 10mm
  2. Moved my cleats to the furthest position back on my shoes.

This ensured that my knee was not forward of my foot.
I then lowered my FTP taking 25% off my true level. I started a low volume base plan and followed this for 4 weeks. I then increased my FTP by 10% and trained at low volume base for another 4 weeks.
After this I tested my FTP and used that for plan builder.
I sometimes feel my knee if my quads are But foam rolling sorts it out. If I keep on top of my rehab and strength and conditioning work than I can train as I want. My knee is improving all the while and I’m now back to my fittest level for 4 years.

Key points
Play with your position with small adjustments.
Rehab is really important.
Strength and conditioning is really useful to develop supporting muscles and work on weaknesses.

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If you’re like me you probably avoid certain exercises because they can cause annoying and
nagging soreness during or after your workout. It turns out we’re not alone though. Over 36% of all exercise-related injuries affect the knee. (Scary)

Keep in mind that statistic comes from people who visited the doctor about their aches. Most people probably just suck it up or shake it off as you’ve suggested. If that’s you, be careful I’d hate to see it get more serious and lead to a major blowout potentially putting you under the knife.

I’ve found this pain-free workout which includes 4 tactics to get rid of soreness in the knee: Fix My Knee Pain. I’ve shortened the link so it wouldn’t look long and boring.

In the meanwhile, I’ll suggest you give it some rest, shaking it off will only make things worst.

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