Bursitis/tendonitis in knee

Just curious - what are your knee symptoms? And how was your problem diagnosed? (I'm interested because your problems are on my list of 'candidate' knee ailments, but the docs have failed to pin down a specific diagnosis.)

Agreed on having somebody check out your bike fit. I had assumed that my seat position was fine, but had it checked out by my LBS when I took my bike in for a tune-up last week. They found that the position that they had fit me to when I bought the bike in '09 was now about 20mm too low, due to how my position had changed with experience and weight loss from training. Too early to tell whether it will help the knees, but I was quite surprised at how much my position had changed.

I'm not sure how low impact you need, but I've been finding that by riding on the trainer I can keep fairly good control over the amount of pressure that I place on the knees, allowing me to very gradually increase the load on the knees over the course of a couple of months. 

Good luck with the recovery.

Aquajogging is more helpful to build/maintain run fitness if done correctly than any other other activity.

Look at another thread about aquajogging with link to how to do it.

Intervals are good to do in the pool.

i would bike/swim a lot.  With the bike I would exaggerate the high rpm's with lower resistance. Stay in the saddle which allows for less compression and sheer through the joint.  

Low impact is relative.  Treadmill is low impact compared to road. Water jogging is lower impact than treadmill.  I would focus on swim and bike.  To keep the legs in good shape I would use the elliptical if the knee allows it, and work on walking some hills to keep the legs strong. 

Just curious, Tendonitis? as in Patellar or quad tendon?

best of luck

I was diagnosed with pes anserine bursitis last fall and we did everything to try and alleviate the pain.  we finally stopped all running and only did bike/swims for several months.  we did lots of stretching and strengthening of the knee joints and muscles.  it got better but would never go away.  finally got a cortisone shot in the bursa sac over a month ago and it has been doing great.  i am back to running and doing things with no pain at all. 

The big question is if I had gotten the shot early on would I have had those results without all the stretching and strengthening of the knee.  And I don't know the answer to that.  All I know is that the combination of things worked for me. 

I was told that I could do any activity I wanted where I didn't feel knee pain for longer than about 15sec.  If the pain ever lasted longer than 15-30sec then I was told to stop that activity.  It was just trial and error.  I felt it on the elliptical so stopped doing that.  I felt it running.  I just stuck to swimming, biking, and an occasional rowing machine.  Walking didn't seem to bother it unless I really was walking fast or doing hills.  I was told to try out pool running but my pool is way too full for me to be doing that up and down swim lanes.

I mostly saw a physical therapist to help with the stretching and strengthening.  I finally saw a knee specialist and he recommended the shot.

Good luck with it.