Ok, I officially feel like an old man. I’ve been squatting with a standard 3x8, once a week routine. I haven’t been increasing weight insanely, or anything.
Then, last Friday, I was walking (normally) and felt a sharp pain just above my right knee cap. For the next few days, it hurt like hell whenever I bent my right leg or put weight on it. By Monday or Tuesday, almost all the pain was gone, so I went ahead with scheduled squats, but only doing one set of five. I had some disomfort.
So here’s my question: was this some sort of freak thing that I shouldn’t worry about? Or is this possibly symptomatic of a larger problem? I do have widely set hips, so I’m aware that I put more stress on my knees than the average person does, just by standing. Any thoughts?
How is your squat technique? Many times even though you think you have perfect form you may be not sitting back on your heels enough. Get some Chuck Taylors to squat in. This will keep help keep your heels flat. Study up on what Dave Tate has written about squatting. Your pain could just be some minor patella tendon irritation or a symptom of an alignment problem.
I have poor hip flexibility (I’m working on it), so I generally squat wide, and to just below parallel. I can get further down without falling down. My knees don’t usually go in front of my toes.
If it’s patella tendon irritation, is there anything I can do to prevent that?
I’m not very tall… I’m 5’10". 24 years old, and it only affected the right knee at first. After two days of putting my weight on the other leg, I felt some pain in the same spot on the top of my left knee, but that has since gone away.
I’ve had some knee problems recently, and have worked through them with the help of my Chiropractor.
My right knee has always had a tendency for patellar tendonitis, and my chiro gave me a 3mm lift for me shoes, and that has helped a great deal. Turns out my hip is off by 7 & 5mm at my lower and top of my hip, making my leg shorter. He suspects I also may have had Osgood Schlatter disease when I was younger, contributing to my right knee giving me some chronic problems. One thing that has helped me also is skin rolling. My Chiro showed me how to do it: you take your fingers and tightly roll your skin and travel down the muscle. For instance, for my right knee, he found that the lower part of my quad was adhered to the fascia tissue. This happens when old injuries don’t heal properly. If you’ve got any tissue that has healed and “glued” itself to the fascia, proper skin rolling will HURT LIKE HELL in these areas. If you find areas that are like this, work them for a while and leave them alone for a couple of days, then try again. Eventually you’ll work the tissue free, it will heal and you’ll be less injury prone in that area. After a couple of weeks (maybe less) you should be able to roll those areas without any pain.
You can also buy a foam roller pad that will release fascia tissue. Do a Froogle search for “Myofascial Release foam roller” and you’ll find items that will be useful.
Bottom line, find out if you have anything going on structurally that needs realignment, lay off squats until your knees feel better, and try the skin rolling or myofascial release.