I've been having some issues lately. It was difficult to pinpoint. I started not feeling good, physique wise, on my road bike. After making some seat adjustments, I finally realised that when I put knew cleats on my shoes, they had been placed too far forward. It probably happened when I go the new shoes. Then my left knee developed some tightness over the top of the kneecap. I also noticed that the tendons were lumpy. No pain, just some tightness mainly while riding.
The easy part was adjusting the cleats, although it's not really that easy. After having a pro-fit done several years ago, I know how it feels to feel perfect on the bike. Conversely, I know how it feels not to feel right. I strongly recommend getting fit by a pro bike fitter!!
After looking up diagrams of knees on the Internet, and discussing my issue with several people who know joints and ligaments I still was not sure what was going on. Then suddenly on the way home from work I realised that I was tilting my hips back.
The cause? Poor posture. Simply getting lazy and hunching over. As soon as I assumed good posture, and tilted my hips forward, the tightness was gone. And the bike felt smooth again. Even stretches that had not felt like they were doing anything improved.
After having rested for the past 5 days, doing only zone 1 rides, I decided to spice it up a little last night and do a self test. After a short warm up I put the hammer down on my ride home. I unfortunealtly got caught by two stop lights, had some head wind and pouring rain, but managed to take 2.5 mins off of my ride time. Sweet!! My PR for my commute home. Yeah!
Have a great day.
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