I noticed that when I am in the saddle and either pushing a big gear or climbing, a sharp pain eminates from the very tip of my quadriceps muscle near my knee. I cut back on mileage, iced and stopped pushing big gears at all, but it still lingered.

My LBS moved my seat position back a bit and the first ride seemed much nicer with not much pain at all. What happened? Does moving the seat back change the way the quad muscle works? How?

I'd appreciate any feedback to avoid any useless injuries in the future.


cheers

Sometimes a slight shift in seat height or position can cause knee trouble. Over the past few days, I've had a few symptoms myself and I think the cause is maybe pushing too hard with the gears.
Physions recommend standing on the hills also puts less stress on the knees, although I find I'm faster when I stay seated.

I have a few athletes who have various knee problems that we try to address. Basically anterior pain (front of the knee) can be caused by:

Poor quad flexibility, poor cleat alignment, low saddle position, too forward saddle position, excessive quadriceps use in pedaling, prolonged low cadence or cranks too long.

Posterior knee pain (back of the knee, hamstrings) can be caused by:

Poor cleat alignment, seat too high, saddle too far back, or too much float in the pedals.

Lateral knee pain (outside) can be caused by:

Poor hamstring flexibility, toes pointed in, too high saddle, too low saddle, or too narrow a stance on the pedals.

Medial knee pain (inside) can be caused by:

Weak lateral hip muscles, toes pointed out, excessive stance on pedals.

If you can pinpoint the part of the knee that is giving you trouble its usually a matter of some adjustment to the cleats or bike fit.

This is of course not all inclusive, but may give you a good place to start when looking for causes of knee pains.

Dave
www.everybodysbikecoach.com