I have a problem with my knee which is that when I pull on the erg lets say a 2k, my knee starts to hurt , and when I finish the knee swells up like a balloon. Yet on the water, I can race a 2k, and have no swelling at all. Does anyone have this problem, or can anyone maybe explain to me why this happens.
Just to mention, I have had MRI's on the knee and the doc found that I slightly tore my cartilage. I did physical therapy for about 2 months (doctor's orders), then I have been weaning myself (physical therapist orders) back into more intense erg workouts, but the knee still cannot seem to manage the stress. It has been about 4 months since I had the initial injury.
Any help would be tremendously appreciated.
Odd Knee Injuries
Re: Odd Knee Injuries
Hi D42,D42 wrote:I have a problem with my knee which is that when I pull on the erg lets say a 2k, my knee starts to hurt , and when I finish the knee swells up like a balloon. Yet on the water, I can race a 2k, and have no swelling at all. Does anyone have this problem, or can anyone maybe explain to me why this happens.
Just to mention, I have had MRI's on the knee and the doc found that I slightly tore my cartilage. I did physical therapy for about 2 months (doctor's orders), then I have been weaning myself (physical therapist orders) back into more intense erg workouts, but the knee still cannot seem to manage the stress. It has been about 4 months since I had the initial injury.
Any help would be tremendously appreciated.
No actual help here, but I do have some observations to suggest to you. Since similar movements/body orientation OTW and on the erg are having different results (for your knee) try to see how they are different. For instance, is your stroke different on one than the other? Are your feet at a different angle? Does your knee track in the same plane as your ankle and your hip in both?
If you identify differences, see in you can conform your erg form to your OTW form and see if that helps. For example, if you discover that your feet are at a different angle to one another in the boat (than in the erg), see if you can match that on the erg...
Good luck!
Alissa
D42,
Have you tried messing with the height of the foot stretchers? I believe that my bad knee did better with my feet LOWER, but it may all depend on your body build.
Also, this may be entirely idiosyncratic for me. It felt like my knee was getting hurt at the end of the stroke, when I was laying back and my knees were flat and the straps of the erg were the only things keeping me from flying off the back of the erg. For some reason, there was more of a jerk on my legs at the end of my stroke on the erg as compared to OTW.
(EDIT: Doh! On the water I was pulling against the boat, thereby checking it down, with no stress on my knees. The stationary erg doesn't move, therefore when I was pulling against the strap with my feet, there was more stress on the knee/legs).
This got resolved when I started erging with my feet out of the straps. A word of advice: start with arms, then arms and back, then 1/4, then 1/2, then3/4, then full slide. Rowing with feet out of the straps requires that you keep pressure against the foot stretchers all the way until the end of the stroke. So there is little tension on the extended leg/knee.
Good luck!
Have you tried messing with the height of the foot stretchers? I believe that my bad knee did better with my feet LOWER, but it may all depend on your body build.
Also, this may be entirely idiosyncratic for me. It felt like my knee was getting hurt at the end of the stroke, when I was laying back and my knees were flat and the straps of the erg were the only things keeping me from flying off the back of the erg. For some reason, there was more of a jerk on my legs at the end of my stroke on the erg as compared to OTW.
(EDIT: Doh! On the water I was pulling against the boat, thereby checking it down, with no stress on my knees. The stationary erg doesn't move, therefore when I was pulling against the strap with my feet, there was more stress on the knee/legs).
This got resolved when I started erging with my feet out of the straps. A word of advice: start with arms, then arms and back, then 1/4, then 1/2, then3/4, then full slide. Rowing with feet out of the straps requires that you keep pressure against the foot stretchers all the way until the end of the stroke. So there is little tension on the extended leg/knee.
Good luck!