Ski Fitness - Save Your Skiing Knees

This is September, remember. Fall starts mid-month and if the Farmer's Almanac is right we'll be skiing this fall. So, with that in mind, I think we should all be thinking some ski specific exercises - aerobic and anaerobic.

In this beautiful weather, with autumn colors popping out more every day, bike riding easily becomes my aerobic exercise of choice and I've got something new to talk about in the sking and biking relationship.

For the past two summers, I've been riding my bike using toe clips and I recently amped up the weekly distance to 100+ miles. On each ride, I began to feel a slight pain in my left knee after about 20 miles or so. Last week, as my trusty hybrid Schwinn SuperSport bike was in the shop for some routine maintenance I stopped in Blue Sky Bicycles, a local cycling specialty store, to do a little window shopping.

Talking with Jeff Cimino, a Former Expert level NORBA Racer, with 15 years experience in the bicycle industry, it became obvious that the pain in my knee was probably related to a misalignment in the the knee/foot motion during the cycling pedal rotation. This misalignment was most likely aggravated by the tight toe clip locking my foot into position, preventing my normal "gait" and causing pain which, over time, could possibly lead to serious physical injury to the knee.

In effect, the problem was the same that I had with my ski boots - flexing my knee with my foot restrained caused my knee to roll outward at least 2 degrees off the vertical. As you know my ski bootfitter straightened me up for skiing. Could a bikefitter straighten my bike stroke and save my knees for skiing? In a word - absolutely.

Read how switching to cleated biking shoes and clipless peddles with some special fitting with a RAD (Rotational Adjustment Device) will save your skiing knees.

_{Biking Shoes at Blue Sky Bicycles © Mike Doyle}