Spinning has many benefits. It’s fun, for a start. It’s also community-focused, can build strong muscles and can burn some serious calories. One of its top benefits, however, is that it is a low impact way to exercise, making it kind to the joints and suitable for everyone.
So why, after starting spinning, are your knees hurting more than ever?
The good news is that these painful knees are most likely easily fixed with correcting your bike set up and pedalling technique. To avoid knee pain, here’s our top things to try.
- Don’t put too much weight on the handlebars. In order to avoid clinging onto the handlebars for dear life, keep your hands light and your body weight over the saddle.
- Don’t have your resistance too high for too long. If you find your knees are hurting then turn your resistance down a little to take the pressure off the knees.
- Turn your resistance up whilst sprinting. When you sprint you want to be pushing against some resistance to make sure your feet aren’t moving too fast.
- Ensure you push and pull on the pedals. When you are pedalling, make sure you think about pushing and pulling with your feet. On the upwards part of the stroke, pull your foot up towards you.
- Make sure you’re stretching enough. Not stretching enough will cause the muscles in your legs to become stiff, which can lead to knee pain.
- Check your foot positioning. You might be distributing the weight on your foot too much onto one side when you’re cycling. Next time you’re on your bike, pay attention to the weight distribution and make sure that you are evenly distributing your weight through your foot.
- Check your saddle position. If the saddle is too high, too far forward or too far back, you may feel this in your knee.
- Give it time. Finally, if you’re new to spin, then make sure you give it time. It can take your body time to adapt to this new way of moving.
