Knee Pain and LLD

[davidbod]

Back in March I had a new frame on order to build a new bike. I wanted to get a start with the saddle I had picked for the new bike so I swapped it onto my current bike. Three weeks later I did a century with this setup and late in the ride I began to get knee pain behind the knee. It feels like the knee is weak when I want to pull back on the pedal at the bottom of the stroke and the beginning of the up-stroke. The pain which is never severe comes from the rear where the upper calf and lower hamstring are at the back of the knee.

Since then I have lowered my saddle slightly and things go OK for anything under 40 miles or so but anything longer and the knee begins to bother me progressively worse. After searching for answers I finally clued into the fact that one leg is shorter than the other. The shorter leg not surprisingly is the one with the knee problem.

Does anyone have any experience in leg length discrepancy and knee pain? Do any of you use shims and has this helped? Does anyone know of any excersise to correct for what I have done for my knee, or am I just too old to ride centuries without pain?

I'm 40.

David

 

[kokopuffs]

As a chiro, the best I can recommend barring insidious pathology is try the foot shims and see. Or, perhaps pedaling on crank arms of different length might be the answer.

Two sources account for leg length discrepancy: uneven legs or an unlevel pelvis. The latter would require more investigation including xrays.