The Start Of An Injury

I was box squatting last night and I noticed a feeling of pressure in my right knee. It was kind of above my knee cap and hurt a bit as well. I cut my squats short a set and am going to try to take it easy. I know my description is vague as hell, and the #1 responce will be go see a therapist. However, I have no insurance and I’m kinda looking more for someone who’s been here before and what type of re-hab/pre-hab work they did before it actually became and injury. It felt kinda stiff all night last night and still kinda hurts when I squat or lean in certain directions. Any feedback or personal experiances would be very appreciated.

Thanks,

WIdeguy

Did you warm up properly? I find that if I don’t get a stretch and a couple light sets of extensions my knees are pissed at me when I squat. If it goes away soon, it probably isn’t a big deal. Next time warm you knees up good.

If you don’t have insurance and don’t want to spend money on a therapist, it’s better to be safe than sorry. So ice the knee regularly, a couple of times a day for about 10 minutes. Massage the spot.

And no squats, deadlifts or any other quad exercises for at least a month.

After that, gradually ease into these exercises again, using minimal weights at first.

But of course the smarter thing to do would be to see a doctor about this.

Play it safe: lay off squats fully for a week. Go back to them and see if it still hurts. If so lay off for two weeks then go back to it slowly.
The worst thing that can happen is to be so injuured it takes like 2 months to heal, or probably worse: so injured that even other exercises will fuck up the injury.
I have been injured a shit loads and know that staying off sucks.

Pound the anti-inflamatories in addition to the ice and rest. Any concern about the theoretical possibility of reduced gains resulting from their use should obviously be secondary right now.

Sometimes I have random knee issues that disappear with a little R&R. Obviously, none of us know quite what you were feeling or if it felt more serious though. It doesn’t sound like anything accute which would require immediate attention though so you may as well just take it in steps rather than running to physio. Poor choice of words there. :wink:

Whenever I have a knee niggle, stretching the quads, ham, hip flexors and ITB have always worked for me. I think the ITB may be the main culprit. The first time I got on a foam roller with it I could hardly put my bodyweight on the roller so give that a try.

[quote]etaco wrote:
Pound the anti-inflamatories in addition to the ice and rest.[/quote]

Bad advice. Why would you pound AI’s when you’re already icing?

Good advice.

In addition to checking the flexibility of those things, check your VMO strength compared to your VL strength.

Easy test - sit down with your legs stretched out in front of you (classic sit and reach position). Flex the quad of the offending knee firmly - does your knee cap move to the outside a little bit? If so, stretching the IT band (most likely) and doing some VMO specific work will probably fix it.

If not, though, I second taking a week or so off and then testing it lightly. Could just be a little too beat up right now.

-Dan

Can’t thank you guys enough for the advice so far. It seems to be getting a little better(although I did 2 sets of 25 in Waterburry’s QD program like an idiot the day after I hurt it). I didn’t get any worse but I’m sure it didnt’ help, just plain dumb. Aside from that I’d say it seems to bother me the most when I’m going down stairs, not so much up them. I’ll do the test you mentioned killa, and I’ve been steady icing it.

Once again thanks

When I saw an orthopedic surgeon about my knee (it was also right above the kneecap). He said to do short radius leg extensions from the extended position. Not sure if this may help or you may have something different than me but he said that most knee pain or discomfort can be remedied by those. I still would not discourage at least seeing someone about if because the knee is so complex.

I forgot DO ALOT OF HAMSTRING STRETCHES!! Maybe some SL Deadlifts or something.

I did about the same thing, heavy boxsquats but i turned my knee just alittle bit and it felt weird on the way back up. it hurt but was not to swollen, when it got checked out it was a petla tendon strain, i used ice and heat 15 mins at a time switching back and forth, they recomended not squating(this sucked) for 4 weeks just to let it heal all the way. and message the area often.

good luck, I hope you get better, get stronger, get bigger.

OMG! It’s hard not to do any squats or lunges ect. It is feeling better but I really need to give it another solid week to 2 weeks!

[quote]WideGuy wrote:
OMG! It’s hard not to do any squats or lunges ect. It is feeling better but I really need to give it another solid week to 2 weeks! [/quote]

It comes down to let it heal for a couple of more weeks or go under the knife, and have the expense and be off of training your lower body for like 6 months and having to start almost completely over. I’ll take the couple of weeks.

Wideguy:

I had almost that exact same thing, from the way you describe it at least.
Mine was caused from lack of warm up. When I first felt it I stopped immediately.

I then massages the area (above the knee) and put ice on it. Two days later I was ready to go. But before I did any squatting I made sure that I warmed up properly before hand.

You see I stopped when I felt something was wrong…but then again I’m smarter than you :slight_smile:

(Don’t feel you have to get even for that comment…)

I don’t like the number thirteen.

Blow me Zeb :wink: LOL, just kidding. You’re right though, with age comes wisdom oldtimer :slight_smile:

However, I’m getting older to. I didn’t really warm up as thouroughly as I should have and that was probably the culprit. Thanks again for all the feedback boys.

I love you all!!! :slight_smile:

Still kinda achy although I don’t think I laid off of it enough. Very difficult not to train legs for so long. However, I think after another week or two thinks should be good.