It's the "again" that concerns me, Ed.
Is it your position on the bike, a particular movement on or off the bike, a lack of flexibility or what ?
Not sure what the root cause is, I know I've been prone (pardon the pun) to some cleat positioning issues with that leg but never managed to find a position I'm happy with.
As I don't do any cross-training at all and all three occurrences have happened at the peak of my fitness, the likelihood is that some muscles are overpowered and others too weak to allow the knee to be adequately stabilised, and so lateral load was getting offloaded to the IT band.
First time was in 2004 6 months after I properly took up cycling and was doing relatively big miles with regularity ... on a steep hill, knee went 'pop' and that was that.
Second time was in 2013 on the Five Ferries challenge when I hit a pothole awkwardly on Arran and my knee got twisted.
Yesterday was the third time: on Coarse Brae doing hill reps in a bigger gear than I was comfortable with (doing resistance training for the Pyrenees of all things
) and my knee sort of gave way. I knew instantly what I'd done. Got round the rest of the route without too much pain - by going slooooooooow - but really feeling it now.
Would some restorative stretches with future preventative stretches help ?
(private) Sports physio ? (as you are clearly an adequately resourced young professional chappie
)
Yeah, I went to the sports physio in Hampden after the 2013 flare up didn't go away and even walking more than a mile became problematic - he taught me some pretty effective stretches and techniques which are apparently good at promoting healing, and I got better. Hopefully I can do a similar recovery in a much shorter time frame.
. As long as it means a nice day I don't mind.
