I injured one of my knees over 20 years ago—snapped the LCL and ruptured one of the internal ligaments (I believe it was the ACL). At the time, my surgeon told me that as long as it wasn’t affecting my day-to-day activities like walking or cycling, I could just carry on with life. He did mention, though, that as I got into my forties—which I’m now well into—I might start to experience symptoms related to that old injury.
Lately, the knee has started acting up again. It feels weaker and more unstable than it used to be. I haven’t unicycled in over a year, mainly because life has been busy with other things but I have kept up with lots of cycling.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Go see a specialist to get a proper, updated assessment,” and I agree completely. That said, my main question is: is it thought that unicycling can be helpful for rehabilitating this kind of injury and for building strength in the muscles around the knee?
Im not sure in how far unicycling can build up strength in the muscles around the knee. I damaged my knee with Ultimate Wheel practices several years ago. Now when running or walking my knee hurts, but when riding unicycle (with a seat) I don’t feel any pain in my knees. To strengthen my legs and knees, I’ve started at a fitness center. On the 36” Ultimate Wheel I also don’t feel my knee pain.
Basically I see it as looking for activities that alleviate pressure on my knee. I do like things like riding with a non-electric kickscooter with my kids, or rollerblading, skateboarding, but they all start hurting my knees at some point.
In my case, this is pretty much the opposite. Unicycling may sometimes hurt my knees more than other activities. However, there seems to be a simple solution to that: doing exercises specifically targeting knees such as squats. In my case, this helps a lot when I start feeling pain again.
Do you just ride distance or also hop with a trials uni? Muni might also need more legwork as well as riding uphills. I reckon it depends on what style you practise
Having come back/successfully rehabbed after a severe knee injury and surgery (Completely torn ACL, torn miniscus, fractured femur, gouged cartilage) I would not use unicycling as part of the rehab for your knee. The chance of a mis-step during UPD is too great, and you have a greater than zero chance of re-injuring the knee. My thoughts in this regard is that you also would not use soccer/football as a way to rehab a knee injury. Soccer/football would be the end-goal.
So, I would use cycling (a real bike, or a stationary bike) to build the knee muscles. My surgeon told me that there is no better way to build the muscle around the knee than cycling.
At some point during the knee rehab, one-legged squats and hopping will become part of the exercises. Once you can do one-legged squats and hops, and possibly jog on a treadmill, and walk DOWN stairs without any issue at all, THEN unicycling can become part of the routine.
I am not a doctor, and this is only my opinion after having successfully rehabbing a surgically-repaired knee with the help of a physical therapist. However, in my opinion, you need to be able to safely run out an awkward UPD, before adding unicycling into your routine.
Or you can ride smaller unicycles with less flywheel mass. This puts significantly less strain on your knee. Ride a 24" unicycle and make sure the tire and tube are relatively light.
I tore my cruciate ligament and damaged my meniscus in 1998. The torn cruciate ligament was only discovered during meniscus surgery; it was too late to stretch it, so I tried it without the cruciate ligament and had the surgery in 1991. The first surgery went wrong; the tubes had grown into my knee, and during the removal, some of the knee was damaged, and then the entire meniscus was removed. Since then, I’ve lived without a meniscus and cartilage damage. They told me I would have severe osteoarthritis at age 40. Now I’m 56 and can handle it well and keep my balance. I’m 100% sure it’s because of unicycling. Not too much, not too little. I ride a few kilometers almost every day. When I injured my shoulder in January of this year, I couldn’t ride my unicycle for four months. During that time, I walked a lot. My knee started to hurt and became very unstable. As soon as I started riding the unicycle again, my knee stabilized noticeably. Now it’s back to normal. I’m 100% sure that riding a unicycle builds muscle around the knee and stabilizes it.
Hello unikyt, I am struggeling with Osteoarthritis under the kneecap for more than 10 years. Initially (that was 2 years ago) unicycling lead to more pain in my knee. I guess that because the muscles in my leg cramped quickly.
The doc advised me to stretch the upper thigh to to take load from the kneecap.
The overall situation after half year stretching and unicycling is currently better than it ever was before.
My guess is, that unicycling leads to better coordination of the different muscle groups and thus can help repair muscle inbalances. I think improved muscle coordination can also help to stabilize the knee.
I guess the main problem with an instable knee are the UPDs. If the knee is instable hard or many UPDs might affect the cartilege.
So if i was in your situation, i would give it a careful try, avoiding UPDs as much as possible and see were it takes.
I think UPDs can be avoided by finding some areas with long cycle paths on asphalt. We have several here along the river. I have a round of about 16kms where cars and bikes are separate and the asphalt is of good quality. I always try to step off the back when dismounting, but that doesn’t work 100% of the time, but then at least I can get off the front in a controlled way.
being an old man my left meniscus told me it was beyond repair. So I managed to be cautious and tried to manage the muscles around it… the best way was small consistent efforts while climbing (and trying to ride smoothly and straight)… you know what? It did work! (until further notice )
While I agree with some of the other posts that the risks from UPDs can be high with a weakened knee, I also agree that for later stages towards full recovery, unicycling can be very helpful, especially for muscle imbalance, and helping overcome isolated weakness.
I have had 3 ACL replacements and my first surgery was poor/incorrect so that after surgery the fore/aft motion was secured but not the twisting motion (when not supported by the muscles, my knee would pop to the side, e.g. when standing with feet fixed and setting a volleyball and twisting slightly). So over the 4 years until my next surgery, I developed a significant mental protection meschanism which resulted in the thigh muscles not firing and thus atrophy. I would train hard and have sore muscles in the strong leg, but no reaction from the operated leg. After my second surgery that corrected the problem (I now have 2 replacement ACLs at different angles), the physiological problem was corrected, but not the phycological and my brain/nerves still didn’t allow the muscles to activate. Weight training only helped a bit and cycling was no help as the uninjured leg took all the load and “protected” the weak leg.
But as unicycling forced moments where the weak leg had to fire as the strong leg could not take over, e.g. when the strong leg was in the bottom pedal position but I had to react, it really was key to my full recovery.
And compared to cycling, which is completely in the plane, unicycling requires the leg and knee to operate in different ways, so I think leads to better muscle balance and overall coordination (at 55 years old, my knees are stronger now than pretty much any time in the last 25 years: I did a lot of mountain hiking this year and can again hike down long descents >1000m vertical quickly without knee pain, which I couldn’t do most of the last 20 years). I think freestyle unicycling in addition to Muni and occasional weight training was the biggest factor.
So, if your knee can handle the inevitable UPDs then I recommend unicycling as a later-stage rehabilitation. Although maybe more difficult to get started, I think freestyle has an even higher return coupled with less injury potential (idling, backwards, one foot riding, wheel walk, drag seat, etc.).
I really really HATE my knees. Several years ago, I damaged my right knee because of overexertion with the 28” UW, but that pain went sort of away and then I had no problems with the 36” UW. Now today as I was practicing free mounts, which is far from perfect, I must have landed wrong on my left knee and then when doing some rotations, I got a sharp stinging in my left knee. At first I told myself not to be a baby, so I tried again, but naturally I shouldn’t. Now I feel it with walking too. Normal unicycling with a seat is fine and all, but just not as exciting as riding an Ultimate Wheel. Who knows how long I now have to wait for the knee to heal. Im very annoyed and furious right now. Just one more month and I will be 50. I should have started this unicycling when I was a kid, but then I had never thought of unicycles and thus only learned 10 years ago.
The doctors naturally won’t give me new knees just so I can ride Ultimate Wheels
It depends a bit what your knee condition might be, but for me the key is building strength in general and do gradual, stepwise “pain management”. Stuff like going deeper into squats just on or below the pain threshold and increasing gradually. I get occasional setbacks, like something today that sounds similar to your experience, albeit less severe. Rest and be really careful a couple of days, try gently and see where my threshold gas moved and start from there again. It is highly likely that you are not set terribly much back if you do things right and are patient. I am sorry to hear about your injury, and I hope it heals quickly. A month is a long time, best of luck!
So true!
I haven‘t ridden a uni since about a month (and another one to patient) because of surgery. Worst thing is, it’s not about a leg but an arm, so I could easily unicycle. But if I fall (which I rarely do when I‘m not muniing or pushing my limits) and try to catch the fall with the arms, it‘s back to start. So I keep walking (and grumbling) until fully recovered.
Luckily I am not that far with my knee complaints. I dont know if it is a good thing but I can be very stubborn. So this morning I wanted to take the 36”uni for a ride. I figured my knee wOnt be overloaded when most of the weight is on the seat, though as I hardly ride it, it is a drama every time to mount. Every mismount lands me on the ground again, where my knees need to catch my weight. Though on the way back I needed a bit more pressure to find the balance and momentum and that hit the sore section in the middle
of the joint. Luckily that wasnt so bad and I could ride for a few kilometres. Then after I rode the 29” which I brought along in case I wouldnt be able to mount. I really like that uni. It just feels like home. So I will just stay away from the UW’s for the time being.
The rim is green (you get used to it, at least I did), but the frame is black just like your frame. By swapping just the frames your eyes would be spared from the green - I’ve even replaced the green seat clamp with a black one.
So, there’s really no excuse .
)
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