Knee Pain

[erin5max]

Last year one of my friends on my team started having knee pain but tried rowing through it. However after seeing a doctor she was told to rest and had to miss out on our championships. Now this year I am having pain on the inner side of my knee, it gets really bad when erging to the point where it hurts to keep my splits where they should be and it hurts for a few days after, especially after being bent for a while. It is not the same type of pain my friend had but I don't want to end up in the same position as her. I feel bad about complaining, especially because I missed the first 2 months of erg season, and still am missing a lot of the time due to other commitments, but I don't want to row through it if it's going to mess up my knee even worse. For now I've been putting ice and taking pain relievers but they haven't really been helping. Should I row through it, or take time off?

** Just a note, the time I took off of rowing I was swimming, so it is not from being out of shape**

[Ergmeister]

I think anytime you get pain, your body is trying to tell you it needs something. I would not row through it and I would concentrate on resting it and simultaneously getting to the root cause.

Assuming that your problem is coming from rowing and not a carryover from swimming, is your knee going beyond your toe at the catch? Is your shin no farther forward than vertical at the catch? Compressing to the point your shin is farther forward than vertical can absolutely setup knee troubles, though not exclusively. Where are you initiating the drive?

It might be helpful to setup a video camera on a tripod and get a few minutes each of video of you on the erg from shoulder height (your shoulder on the erg) from the side. Also set the camera up high enough so that you are looking over the cage and straight down the rail from the front, and finally, back to about shoulder height from a 3/4 view angle at the front. Look carefully at your form and see if you can see any habits that are making unnecessary movements such as a subconscious flare of your leg or pushing harder off one leg than the other.

The video review might help to eliminate form as a possible cause.

[rscans]

Am a 59 year old very active male- have over 12 mil meters on my erg and for the past several years my exclusive winter ( Oct-March) training regimen
has been the erg (3-4 X/week) and strength training
For the past 2 years now I have had meniscus tears to both knees...so am wondering if the erg work has contributed???
per a previous posting- by no means should you "work through" knee pain...see above

no doubt I am sure my form is not perfect and will deteriorate espec in the longer pieces ( 8-10,000 meters)
I see postings for technique review but specifically at the catch should the knee be 45 degrees; ??..what is the correct position
don't want to revert to using all upper body to power the stroke losing the aerobic and lower body benefit
thanks

[gregsmith01748]

I've never heard of anyone suffering a meniscus tear from using a rowing machine. I torn mine through a hyper extension trying to catch a football. It's interesting that you have them in both knees. I guess it's possible that you hyperextend your knees in your rowing motion. Do you feel like you are? If you suspect that this could be happening, you could identify the point on the seat rail where your knees are nearly at full extension, but not quite and put a stripe of masking tape in the rail at that point. That way, if you drive past that point, you'll feel the seat going onto the tape and correct. You could do the same thing to make sure that you are not overcompressing at the catch.

[trevor.richter]

...is your knee going beyond your toe at the catch? Is your shin no farther forward than vertical at the catch?

Ah.....thanks, hopefully correcting this will fend off my nascent knee pain!