Bike for Life by Roy M. Wallack

Author:Roy M. Wallack [Wallack, Roy M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780738217567
Publisher: Da Capo Press

Leg extension: To help pull an off-track kneecap back to the center, strengthen the VMO on the leg-extension machine. During this movement, tilt your feet and legs to the outside, as pictured. Do them one-legged frequently to check and fix unequal quad strengths.

Some researchers believe that the motion of cycling—a straight-ahead leg movement rather than the centered, in-line footprint of running and walking—has a natural tendency to cause an imbalance in the thigh muscles, which can cause lateral tracking of the kneecap. This imbalance is the overdevelopment of the muscle on the outside of the thigh compared to the one on the inside. Bike racers are famous for having huge quadriceps, the group of four muscles on the front of the thigh that extend/straighten the leg, but cycling apparently causes the one on the outside, the vastus lateralis (VL), to become much bigger and stronger than the one on the inner, or medial, front of the thigh, the vastus medialis (VMO; technically the muscle is called the vastus medialis oblique).

According to a study completed for the book Physiology in Bicycling, a seminal overview coproduced by a prestigious Danish sports-research institute and USA Cycling, the VL and the gluteus maximus (the large buttock muscle) are heavily involved in pushing the pedals down at peak force, but the VMO is not. That is understandable: Put your fingers on the VMO as you sit on a chair and straighten your leg; it does not flex (stiffen) almost until the leg straightens, which should never occur in the pedal stroke. Although the study was made on track racers, the researchers found a similar recruitment pattern in recreational riders.

Why is this a potential problem? The overdeveloped VL, now relatively stronger than the VMO, can exert a strong pull on the kneecap that can tug at it laterally. You know the rest: When the difference in strengths between the VL and the VMO is great, the kneecap can be yanked sideways, lateral tracking begins, and the underside of the kneecap begins scraping valuable cartilage away from itself and the end of the femur. Does this mean that a lateral tracking of the patella is unavoidable in cycling? Not necessarily. “After all,” asked Beazell, “if the lateralis always got stronger than the medialis, then why is it that every Tour de France rider doesn’t have a patella lateral-tracking problem?” Why some biomechanically sound cyclists get lateral tracking of the kneecap and others don’t isn’t clear. Natural overdevelopment of the VL in cycling is a fact; concluding that this causes knee pain isn’t always accurate.

Still, if you have problems with your knees, many agree that it couldn’t hurt to do two things to stabilize the kneecap: Strengthen the inside muscle of your quad, the VMO, to pull the kneecap back into line, and stretch the outside of your leg, which can help to loosen its outside pull on the kneecap.

A. Build up the vastus medialis, the inner-thigh quad muscle. Get familiar with the leg-extension machine, because you’ll be using it a lot to prehab and rehab lateral-tracking problems.

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