Hello everyone. I left a few weeks ago for a trip across Europe and after two days without falling or hitting myself I injured my knee. I first thought it was inflammation then the doctors told me it was related to fluid in my knee (I didn't really understand everything they told me).
But I was really devastated and completely destroyed to prepare myself for so much time planning, organizing, buying in short doing everything to prepare myself for this extraordinary experience that I was going to live and that it ended so quickly and abruptly. Of course I didn’t quit right away I traveled by train for 3 weeks. But after that my pain went up and increased by the day. I went home.
I really need your help because I would like to leave again one day, do you have any advice on exercises to strengthen the knees or joints to no longer suffer from such injuries? Or any other advice for the bike or the training I’ll take anything.
by Sensitive_String_410
8 Comments
If you can, get the medical report. Fluid on the knee is the body responding to an injury of some kind and attempting to protect it.
Did you train hard? As in , did you cycle a high percentage more than normal, over a short ( like the month before) amount of time?
You did amazing. Fluid on the knee is painful!
If you can get the medical report, you will know where to start in order to rebuild. If you can’t get the medical report, it would be worth going to see a well-respected and qualified physio. They will tell you what is wrong and give you a set of exercises to sort it out. My biggest tip is when you get the exercises and your pain or issue subsides. Don’t stop doing them! Change and modify the exercises, but don’t stop. You will slowly lose the benefits of all your hard work.
If you get the report, I’m not a doctor, but unfortunately, I’m we’ll be versed in the translation of medical documents. So give it a share.
Go and see a doctor and/or physiotherapist. Your body might not be ready to try again this season I’m afraid but I would guess if you do what the professionals tell you to do for the next six months you’ll be ready for next season. Remember, Gotthard Pass doesn’t open until late May! I made that mistake last year, ended up on Simplon Pass instead 😂
Good luck!
This depends on your medical condition! Biking is actually considered an effective and low-impact exercise for the knees, but if the joints are already in bad shape, you might have to lay low for a while and wait for them to heal. Sorry 🙁
Maybe bike in your daily life and slowly increase the duration of your trips?
sorry about that. knees -and other body parts- can fail in so many different ways that I feel like it’s almost impossible to give you some recommendation.
what I would say though is this. Before any trip, especially a long one, you should have several tests on the same bike with the same saddle height, the same shoes etc that you plan to use for your trip. Demanding tests with lots of climbing. Ideally with a packed bike, although that might not be necessary. If you don’t experience issues in these tests you should be good to go on the trip.
Not saying you didn’t do any test, but maybe those issues could have surfaced earlier with more trip-like training?
But hey, sometimes no matter what you do, it’s possible that even with perfect training, something happens to your body during a trip that you didn’t/couldn’t anticipate.
That sucks, I feel for you!
To prepare for a long bike trip, do shorter bike trips, closer to home. Speak to a doctor that you can understand to see if there is anything in particular you need to do or if that was just a coincidence that could have happened to anyone and not a sign of some chronic (knee) problem. With hindsight, you should have gone to a doctor you could understand (if you can’t there isn’t much point in seeing one) and maybe this could have been fixed on your tour.
The first week of a tour always has some pretty serious aches and pains for me. Back, neck, knees. Try moving your saddle around and up and down, use flat pedals, and rest a couple days and walk and stretch it. You might find that you can work through it. Touring is hard on the body and body aches while touring are really hard on the mind.
Might also simply be bad luck, don’t get yourself discouraged from it, do some small tours around your home, for example take the train 100 km away and see how far you can get back home, or to which nearest train station you can ride. Preparing (I assume you did some test rides) around home with and without your gear definitely should help, but still you can also simply have bad luck
Ben Patrick [Thekneesovertoesguy](https://www.youtube.com/@TheKneesovertoesguy)