Detailed explanation of knee protection knowledge

What is the most important thing about cycling? Ride fast? Good riding? No, the most important thing is to ride properly.

First of all, make sure that you don’t get hurt in your daily training, so that the training can continue, and you will have the opportunity to become an outstanding rider or fully enjoy the fun of riding.

When it comes to injuries, in fact, as far as cycling is concerned, the most vulnerable and the most serious part is the knee.

First of all, let’s understand some information about the human knee: 1.

The composition of the human body is as shown in the figure below.

From above, we can clearly see that the shape of the joint itself at the joint between the femur and the tibia is not a natural match, but a spherical (femur)+a plane (tibia).

Therefore, in order to make up for this problem, there are “key cartilage” and “meniscus” between the two bones as a connection.

Articular cartilage changes the shape of the end of the femur to a certain extent, so that it can better connect with the tibia, but in the real sense, it is the meniscus that can achieve seamless connection between the two.

2.

Meniscus.

Wikipedia explains the meniscus as follows: meniscus is a crescent cartilage, which is found in some synovial joints.

The hinge joint of the knee, wrist and chin all contain the meniscus.

The meniscus is connected to the joint capsule, which helps to reduce the friction between bone blocks.

The meniscus in the knee may be injured in intense activities, so the meniscus must be removed to prevent the joint from getting stuck.

It can be seen that the meniscus mainly plays the role of lubrication, and it is not a strong structure, which may be injured at any time due to improper use, and all organic injuries are irreversible.

3.

The human knee is an incomplete product of evolution.

From the above information, the human knee has too many gaps in structure that need to be filled and maintained by cartilage and lubricating tissue.

It is not really a strong structure, but each knee should bear more than 50% of its weight.

In the same case, the knee structure of quadrupeds such as horses and dogs has a much higher shape fit.

Even without cartilage, the contact surface of femur and tibia can also fit well, The structure of the meniscus is also stronger, and the weight is shared by four legs instead of two human legs.

See the figure below.

A common saying is that when human ancestors learned to walk upright 4 million years ago, the evolution of knee joints did not keep up well.

At the same time, walking upright also led to a series of problems such as changes in the structure of human female pelvis and difficulties in production.

This is the so-called “gain must lose”.

After understanding the structure and history of our knee, we can better use it and maintain it.

Some sports that need to bounce violently, such as basketball, high jump, long jump, etc., have huge and obvious knee injuries.

Many retired athletes engaged in such sports have to suffer from knee problems.

Even former active athletes, such as Yao Ming, have been plagued by knee pain for a long time and have been unable to cure it.

In other sports, such as swimming and cycling, the knee loss is much smaller.

In this regard, as a bicycle enthusiast’s knee is lucky.

But the premise of luck is correct riding posture, otherwise your knees will start protesting soon.

Speaking of the correct riding posture, it is very popular to do fitting.

I have also done some charging fitting, but the result is not satisfactory.

In fact, the best fitter is the rider himself, because no one can really feel your riding feeling except you, so don’t blindly follow the advice of fitter and fitter and ignore your own feelings.

In fact, as long as the following aspects are well adjusted, we can basically avoid chronic sports injury including knee.

1.

The height of the seat bag.

Think of the leg as two bearings operating between the seat bag and the foot pedal (distance A for short).

If distance A is lower than the minimum distance required for bearing operation, it will undoubtedly cause compression between the femur and tibia, that is, wear of knee cartilage and meniscus; If the distance of A is too long, the femur and tibia need to be overstretched each time you step on it, which will also cause damage to the knee structure.

The adjustment of the height of the sitting bag is related to the flexibility of the individual.

Generally speaking, it is appropriate to take about 1cm below the hip bone.

Then get on the bike and ride.

If you can feel a slight bend in your thighs after stepping to the maximum distance, please note that this bend may not be visible in the appearance, but it is best to feel that your knees are still relaxed and bent.

2.

Sit in the front and back of the bag.

The front and back of the bag will affect the stepping posture and efficiency, and will also affect your happy life.

Generally speaking, if there is no obvious discomfort in the lower part of the body after a long ride (more than 1 hour), then congratulations, the front and back of the bag are OK, otherwise, it needs to be adjusted.

The principle of adjustment is actually very simple, where the pain is, it means that the pressure is too high, and the reason for the strong pressure is just that the stress area is too small.

In terms of distance, if you feel uncomfortable at the middle of your egg and anus, it means that you need to move the sitting bag forward a little and increase the stress area at this position to reduce the pressure.

Adjust the front and back of the seat bag according to this principle until you are comfortable.

3.

Position of locking tab.

In my personal experience, the position of the lock is critical.

Improper position will cause a series of problems such as knee wear, foot numbness and pain.

The position of the locking tab is divided into front and back and left and right.

Because the locking tab of one of my shoes deviated about 3mm to the left, my knee felt uncomfortable after several times of cycling, and then the discomfort disappeared after 3mm to the right.

It can be seen that the importance of the locking tab position and the high requirements for its accuracy are obvious.

Forward and backward adjustment: determine two parallel lines according to the above figure.
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