Cycling injuries

Our Partner Victory Endurance sends us an article about cycling injuries, we hope it is useful to you.

Analyzing the hours invested in a bicycle outing, it is in the sport in which we easily invest a large part of them.

If we quantify the times we exert force on the pedals with an optimal cadence of 90-100 pedal strokes per minute as a reference, we do around 6.000 knee bends per hour, a more than important amount to pay the attention that this movement requires. , trying to do it in the best possible way.

The biomechanical studies show that an optimal pedaling is one in which the legs rise and fall perfectly aligned like a piston, performing a perfectly symmetrical movement with both legs.

Any movement that departs from this verticality represents a loss in the force that is transmitted to the pedals and can be harmful to the different structures of the musculoskeletal system involved in pedaling. M

Unwanted movements can alter the alignment of the path that the patella makes when flexing-extending the knee, potentially causing inflammation with subsequent pain.

Tension tendonitis of the fascia lata

Pain on the external side of the knee with involvement of the iliotibial band, which is an extension of the tensor facia lata muscle, and we say that it usually “annoys” runners but also cyclists.

It is easy for the inflammation of the tendon to be accompanied by an inflammation of the bursa or pad that reduces the friction between the tendon and the rest of the knee structures.

The causes, like most tendonitis, are usually excessive “overtraining” stress without proper rest, strenuous training, defective pedaling technique, or, most commonly, using cycling shoes without correction of the varus of the forefoot or pronation movement. .

Varising wedges are very useful to prevent this pathology.

(Alberto Cebollada)