First you have to know what your particular knee problem is. Where does it hurt and when does it hurt. Your research than goes from there. For instance my knee pain is at the top of the knee cap. For others it might be under the knee cap or at the bottom.
Any pain on the side of your knees is much more serious and needs careful consideration of the nature of the pain/injury before proceeding with any care/treatment.
If any of the stretches here or that you find on the Internet hurt your knees, STOP! Try adjusting the position/find another stretch that hits the same target without hurting your knee, or drop that movement all together until you knee has grown stronger from the other stretches/exercise. For some people this could even be just kneeling that causes pain.
I found this good overview of Patella tracking problems: http://www.mrtherapy.com/articles/article3.html
Trying to learn stretches from text blows and would be way too much typing for me. So instead I will give ideas for search terms and few example sites.
The hard part is finding sites that have good pictures/diagrams and that are not come-ons for some book. Videos are good, but I don’t have the patience to sit through them to get to the 10 seconds I need to see.
At the bottom this post is a link to a yoga site. If you are not the kind to do a lot research/internet searching you can work up a good stretching routine from that list of stretches.
In general for knee cap tracking problems:
stretch the quads
strengthen the muscles that stabilize the knee
stretch the hip flexors (upper thigh/hip)
strengthen the hamstrings
stretch the IT Band
stretch the gluteal/glutes
twist the body/spine
Some search terms and example sites
Knee (and Knee Pain) stretches and exercises
Patella femoral stretches and exercises
Chondromalacia (this is what you don’t want knee pain developing into)
Runner’s Knee
Hamstring stretches
Hamstring exercises
Quad Stretches - especially the outside of the quad. Here is a good one for that: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/688 This is more advanced so look up some other quad stretches as well. You want to find stretches that hit the quads from all angles and that hit the lower, middle and upper thigh
Other search terms: Quadriceps and Thigh Stretch. You can’t do too many quad stretches as a cyclist.
Hip Stretches
Groin Stretches
IT Band or Illiotibial Stretches - this bad boy is the root of many lower limb and lower back issues. Find a couple different stretches for this. Like the quad stretch this is an important one and you can’t do too many IT Band stretches. If you are like me this one is a steel cable. The ‘figure four stretch’ is about the most common stretch for the IT band. http://www.fitsugar.com/Stretch-Figure-4-Piriformis-537394 but find a few different ones so you hit that IT Band a couple of different ways.
Hip Adducter/Adduction - Note this is ADDuction not ABduction. A simple one I do is to sit on the floor with legs out straight with feet about 6"-12" apart. while keeping the legs straight try to twist your feet to the inside like you are trying to make your big toes touch. Use your thigh muscles, don’t twist your feet. Try ‘leg adduction’ as a search term for other exercises.
These three belong in any stretching routine:
Lying (or supine) Spinal twists Yoga: Supine spinal twist
Sitting Spinal twists http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/485
Gluteal stretches (especially pigeon stretch: http://www.fitsugar.com/Strike-Yoga-Pose-Pigeon-121200)
There are many variations on spinal twists, find ones that match your ability level. Throw the term ‘safe’ on any of the ‘stretch’ search terms should show beginner level stretches.
All three of these are to open up the front of the hip
Hip Flexor stretch
Psoas/Iliopsoas stretch
Back Bends
Ankle/Calf/Foot stretches/exercises
Without good foot biomechanics it’s hard to have good knee biomechanics so I do some of these.
This is the Yoga site I mentioned in the top of this post. There is a good selection of stretches to choose from.
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/finder/browse_categories
If you are going to use this site I would focus on:
Seated and Twist
Standing
Backbends
Forward Bends (ones that stretch the groin).
Some other things I am doing while I rehabilitate my knee pain
Raised my seat as high as I could and keep good cycling form.
Switched to shorter cranks (From 150’s to 125’s on my 29")
Started pedaling on the ball of my foot (this helps me a lot with pain while riding)
Avoiding uphills and downhills
Tire pumped up hard.
Standard disclaimer:
I’m not a doctor, and don’t play one on TV. These are just stretches that I have used in the past and I am now using to address a specific problem.
what are your exercises to combat that? thanks!
) Before I started riding again, climbing stairs in my house was starting to be a challenge. Now, I’m running up steps I was starting to take half steps on.