Is Biking Good for Your Knees? Everything You Need to Know
You’ve recently taken up cycling, and you love it. It’s a great way to spend more time outdoors, enjoy the mood-boosting effects of sunlight, and burn some calories. That said, sometimes you end up with achy knees after a particularly long ride, which has you wondering something.
Is biking good for your knees?
Biking is considered a low-impact form of exercise since you’re seated and bearing less weight on your body. However, since cycling entails the same type of activity, overuse injuries could occur if you cycle too often.
In this guide, I’ll look at how biking positively and negatively influences knee health so you can decide where cycling slots into your routine. There’s very useful information to come, so make sure you keep reading!
Here’s How Cycling Is Good for Your Knees
To be clear, cycling is largely regarded as beneficial for your knees, especially the joints. Let’s talk more about why that is in this section.
Low-Impact, So There’s Less Pressure on the Joints
The knee has two joints. One of these joints is between the patella and the femur and the other is between the tibia and femur.
The first joint is called the patellofemoral joint while the second is known as the tibiofemoral joint.
Although joint pain is often associated with the elderly, knee joints are more easily affected, and thus knee joint pain can impact people of almost any age.
Cycling is considered a form of low-impact exercise, especially compared to a physical activity like running.
You’re sitting while cycling, which means your body bears less of your weight. This puts less pressure on the joints.
You’re also avoiding direct, repetitive impacts to your feet and legs like you’d get when running. This too can prevent or lessen joint pain.
Can Strengthen Muscles Near the Knees to Safeguard Joints
What if you already have a history of knee joint pain? You tried cycling a few times and didn’t expect to fall in love with it as you had. You’re interested in expanding how often you cycle but you’re afraid that your knees will suffer for it.
Not necessarily. Each time you hop on your bike and go for a ride, you’re working muscles in your lower body, specifically, the hamstrings and glutes.
You may wonder how that has anything to do with your knees, so allow me to explain.
The hamstring muscles are located at the ischial tuberosity, which is the V-shaped bone near the bottom of your pelvis that you use when you sit.
That’s not all. The medial hamstrings, including the semimembranosus and semitendinosus, connect to your knee via the tibia. These hamstrings attach to the inside of your knee.
You can see then that if you strengthen your hamstrings, your knees will directly benefit.
Okay, so what about the glutes, I’m sure you’re asking?
Well, your glutes are a nickname for the gluteus maximus, a sizable muscle that allows you to keep your torso upright.
The gluteus maximus is the largest of all the muscles in your body, so it’s important to treat it right.
The glutes connect to your lower leg via the iliotibial band, which is located on the side of your thigh.
Research like that found in an article by The BioMechanics Method states that a weak gluteus maximus can result in knee pain.
Thus, by building a stronger gluteus maximus, you’re safeguarding your knees!
Could Reduce Joint Pressure and Pain
Joint pain and pressure can wholly detract from your quality of life, which is putting it mildly.
You can suffer from soreness, achiness, and stiffness. Sometimes, the feeling of joint paint is more like a burning sensation or even a grating feeling. Other times, it feels like a throbbing.
Although the last thing you’ll want to do if you’re having a bout of joint pain is get on a bike and cycle, it’s for the best that you do.
Sitting down to ride lessens leg and foot joint pressure, which makes cycling less painful.
The other benefits of cycling will make themselves apparent with time as well, which could very well reduce your joint pain!
The Risk of Overuse Injuries to Your Knees When Cycling
Cycling, as advantageous as it can be for healthy knees, can also hurt your knees. In this section and the next, I’ll explain why.
I want to dedicate an entire section to overuse injuries because they’re their own type of knee injury risk from cycling.
Overuse injuries are caused by doing the same type of physical activity again and again. These injuries tend to pronounce themselves over time and are not considered acute injuries.
Examples of overuse injuries include tennis elbow or stress fractures. Although a knee overuse injury from cycling doesn’t have a specific name, it’s still an overuse injury, nevertheless.
After all, whether you’re pedaling quickly or slowly, uphill or downhill, the process of pedaling is essentially the same.
Incorporating cycling into your daily life increases your risk of overuse injuries since you’re riding so often.
Cycling isn’t the only type of athletic activity that leads to knee overuse injuries. Runners know about these types of injuries all too well.
Fortunately, overuse injuries–to the knee or otherwise–are usually easily treated if they’re caught early enough.
The first thing you want to do is discontinue the activity that’s contributing to the injury, which would mean taking a break from cycling.
Then you want to treat the injury itself. You should rest the area and elevate it.
Switch between ice and heat and consider compression as well. You can also take over-the-counter pain-relieving medications such as NSAIDs.
For more serious overuse injuries to the knee, I’d recommend seeing a doctor.
You can tell that your injury is severe if a short break and the above treatments fail to put much of a dent in your pain.
Your doctor will likely recommend even more time away from cycling. You’ll be given a brace to wear for a period of time as well as prescription medication for the pain.
Keep the brace on as often as your doctor advises and your knee will be about as good as new before you know it.
The most severe overuse injuries to the knee would require a surgical procedure to correct. Whether you could go cycling again after that would depend on your doctor’s advice.
Other Knee Risks When Cycling to Be Aware Of
While most overuse injuries won’t require going under the knife, the injuries do create a vicious cycle. If you keep cycling, then you’ll keep suffering an overuse injury time and again.
It would be nice if those are the only kinds of knee injuries that should be on your mind when you go cycling, but they’re not.
In this section, let’s examine several more types of cycling-related knee injuries to be aware of.
Lack of Warming Up Could Lead to Pulled Muscles
Back when you were in grade school gym class, your teacher probably taught you to always warm up before you start any physical activity.
This is good advice to heed, and here’s why.
Think of the muscles in your body like an engine in a car. If you try to drive right away on a freezing cold morning, your engine is going to spit, sputter, and generally give you fits.
The reason is that the lubricating oil has not reached all the engine parts yet, and the cold weather makes this process take even longer.
Once you let the engine warm up for a couple of minutes, the engine is lubricated, heated, and ready to go.
Your muscles don’t use lubricant, of course, but they do need time to stretch the same way the engine needs time to warm up. If they don’t, then your muscles may be less pliable and sorer, which increases your risk of injury.
Improper Bike Size Makes Riding Uncomfortable
How old is your bike?
Even though adults generally don’t have any more growth spurts, that doesn’t mean the bike size you start with is always the same bike size you’ll use for life.
If your bike is too small, then, of course, you’re going to have knee pain. You’ll feel cramped and awkward every time you pedal, and your leg muscles will work harder to do this basic task.
You might sit in such a way that you sustain your weight more towards a certain side, which can also exacerbate sore knees.
Your knees might be bumping into the bike frame as you pedal, which will leave your knees bruised, battered, and painful.
Besides those obvious signs, if both your knees and arms feel sorer than usual after riding and you haven’t changed anything such as how far you ride or where, then it’s probably because your bike is too small.
Bad Posture Affects More Than Your Back
You’re not supposed to sit up stick-straight when riding a bike. Rather, you should lean forward so that your hands can naturally reach the handlebars.
The shape of your body on the bike will be rather triangular, which is proper form. Sitting this way distributes your weight between your pelvis and sit bones.
Your elbows should also be bent, but only a little. If you sit like this, then your back and arms will take most of the impact from riding, not your shoulders, knees, and neck.
Leaning too far forward may be able to reduce your wind resistance, which in turn improves your power, but it leaves you with a lot of knee and back strain. It’s not worth doing.
Riding in Unknown Terrain Could Lead to Falls
The last knee injury risk I want to talk about is one that can affect more than your knees but your entire body, and that’s falling off your bike.
If you ride on uneven terrain, falling is a lot likelier to happen. That’s also true when riding after dark, before sunrise, or in an environment that you’re not comfortable or familiar with.
It’s not always losing your footing that causes you to fall. Your bike tires, which are not made for rough terrain, could pop. Your bike will careen out of control, and you will end up taking a bad tumble.
No matter the cause, a fall can hurt your back, your legs, your torso, and–most importantly of all–your head.
Well, unless you’re wearing a helmet, that is.
If you aren’t, then you’re far likelier to end up with a traumatic brain injury or TBI from the trauma of the fall. This can lead to behavioral, physical, and/or cognitive impairments.
How to Reduce Your Risk of Knee Injuries When Cycling
Knee injuries don’t have to be a guarantee when cycling. The following tips will reduce your rate of injury so you can enjoy longer, more peaceful, and less painful rides!
Always Stretch Before a Ride
I talked about the importance of stretching before engaging in physical activity but allow me to underscore the point again.
Think of a hair rubber before you ever wear it. It’s tight and hardly pliable, right? Those are your muscles when you fail to stretch.
Stretching your muscles is like a hair rubber that’s been used several times. It’s looser, easier to work with, and ready to go.
You’ll not only reduce your risk of injuries by stretching ahead of a bike ride but enhance your performance as well.
All you need to do is stretch your legs, arms, and torso to limber up. If you don’t want to do it in front of people, then stretch at home.
Start Slow
Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know. Whatever your cycling aspirations are, you too need to be willing to take it slow.
Your muscles will have to get used to cycling, and that goes for far more than your knee muscles and joints. The entirety of your lower half will have to adjust, including the calves, hamstrings, glutes, and quads.
These muscles will feel hard as rocks and very painful in the beginning, which will prevent you from cycling very far anyway.
As your muscles adjust to what you’re doing, you’ll find it easier to ride further. You’ll add 10 minutes to your ride over time, or perhaps you cycle for an extra mile.
Continue to set new goals each time you smash an old one. It’s this little-bit-at-a-time approach that allows you to eventually reach a point where you could cycle a marathon if you really wanted to.
Train the Rest of Your Body
You know how everyone makes the joke that you shouldn’t skip leg day?
If cycling is the only exercise you get, then you’re in the opposite camp. You never skip leg day, but you skip [insert any other body part here] day.
Your hamstrings and glutes can be strengthened by cycling but ideally need more than biking to make them powerful.
You also want to give your upper half some love, as that will make it easier for you to hold onto the handlebars, steer, and lean over without pain.
Make sure that when you’re training that you incorporate leg exercises as well. Although your legs get plenty of exercise as it is when cycling, different exercises use different muscles, or at least the same muscles in different ways.
I’d recommend calf presses, calf raises, squats, hip extensions, lunges, leg extensions, deadlifts, and leg curls for your lower half.
Get a Bike That Fits You
Riding on a bike that’s too small for you isn’t only uncomfortable, but let’s be real, it looks comical too.
If you’re trying to be taken seriously as a cyclist, and if you want to take yourself seriously, you need a bike that’s the right size for you.
Otherwise, you won’t ever be able to increase your distance goals, as your bike will be too uncomfortable to use for very long.
I would recommend trying a few bikes from a local shop. Even if you ultimately buy your bike online, browsing around and trying bikes gives you a feel for which size bike you need.
Keep in mind that even if your bike fits, if it’s improperly adjusted, you’re still going to have fit issues.
If your seat height is set correctly, then as your knees are rising to the top of a stroke when pedaling, they should be at approximately 45 degrees.
The pedal cleats might also need an adjustment, especially if the pedals are either too far from the bike or way too close. If you can’t put your feet on the center of the cleats without feeling pain, then you need to fix the cleats.
Conclusion
Biking can be good for your knees, but you must ride properly, get a bike that fits you, and sit correctly when using the bike.
Although biking will always carry with it some injury risks, that you can strengthen your muscles and alleviate joint pressure always makes cycling a wise idea!
