Riding Knee Pain

I have been having severe knee pain after and during the later parts of my rides. I have tried going easy, skipping days, and about everything else. Nothing is torn, it is just a crippling pain when I move and especially go up stairs. The only solution that I can find is not riding and I took at 4 month sabbatical from riding. The first thing I felt when I got on was horrible shooting pain through my knees. I don’t know what to do, I play soccer and that doesn’t hurt my knees, but as soon as I get on a unicycle and jump, it hurts so bad. Does this happen to anybody else? Does any one have suggestions? I am a little chunky but not too.

Gene

Be sure to search the forums for threads about knee pain. There have definitely been some. Though I’m sure I remember any so severe sounding.

I’ve had a few bouts of knee pain. Early on my problem was putting too much weight on my pedals when it should be on my seat. A low seat can cause this. Then learning to hop gave me weird knee pain behind my knees. Tendon pain I guess.

Taking some time off from riding helped. Icing a few times a day helped. And wearing knee supports helped.

But I would never have described my pain as “crippling”/“shooting”/“so bad” so maybe this isn’t very helpful.

How much time do you spend riding in each session? How much is just riding versus hopping?

Well now that it hurts to ride, I ride for about 15 minutes. My ride: 100 ft down back path to pallets, mess around hopping on pallets, got to street and practice 360’s, go back inside.

Gene

P.S. What knee brace did you use? That might help me.

I bought the pack of 2 for $20 from Amazon. Search for “futuro knee support” at amazon. They’re just stretchy foam/rubber/fabric with velcro that wrap around your knee. Stretch them further for a tighter fit.

Actually I think I remember reading some user comments saying they didn’t fit them well… too small. They’re one size fits all. I’m small, so they fit me well. Maybe check out other knee support options here: http://www.futuro-usa.com

They’re the only ones I’ve ever owned, so I can’t say they’re better than others.

If it hurts to ride at all, I wouldn’t. It sucks, but I’d wait until you’re totally not feeling any problems in day to day activities, and then work your way back into unicycling very slowly. Use knee supports and ice afterward. It’d be hard for me to take my own advice for more than a few weeks.

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in here. I’ve only been unicycling for less than 7 months, I don’t hop pallets (yet), I don’t have a history of severe knee pain, and I’m not a doctor.

You are asking for serious trouble if you keep trying to ride with pain in your knees. You need to STOP doing anything that hurts your knees and let them heal completely. No pain when you go up or down stairs. Hopefully it is just overuse and will heal in a few weeks. Depending on what is hurting it could take months. You don’t want to screw around with your knees and back. If you are not nice to them now (you don’t say your age) but even if you are young injuries now will come back when are older and you have to tell people you wore out your knees. Trust me, you will thank me in your 40’s-50’s.

May I suggest you have a doctor diagnose the reason for your knee pain. Your discription is not real clear.

I have four different types of knee pains. Each with a different diagnosis and method to treat. I made sure that my doctor agreed working through the pain would not cause permanent damage.

With knowledge of what the problem(s) is then you should be able to understand how to fix things.

First, go to a doctor because everyone is different.

Second, I had some knee pain after, according to a doctor, I overextended my knee. This happened to me after an 8 hour hiking tour and a second time after riding more than 100km on my bike (both with not being used to it). On unicycles sometimes this sort of pain seems to start but usually I don’t ride long enough to let it become serious. The pain I had was like a stab into the knee when bending it.