For the past couple of weeks I’ve begun to notice what I suspect to be patellar tendonitis of my left knee. This comes about only towards the end of physical activity and doesn’t impair my movement or strength to a great degree, but is definitely enough to make me take notice.
I have conducted a search of the forums here and have found some great advice, especially in the following two threads:
I’m still not entirely certain, though, what my best path in my case would be. In the first thread I noticed a video of a bodyweight squat on an incline plate, which I have tried at home (using a book to achieve the proper angle). This felt good, but I’m not sure if it’s the right approach. In the second thread there are some good tips for massaging the knee with a tennis ball, but I can’t seem to find a consensus on whether foam rolling is beneficial or not.
Does anyone have any advice on how to avoid this becoming a major problem? I hear that icing the injury is a no-no, but there are other points in the threads above that seem to contradict each other.
I’ve been looking into this a lot also lately and there isn’t really any proven method that works for everyone. I’m just got this e pharm joint force in the mail today which is supposed to attack inflammation in tendons, it’s a topical spray so I will post back in a few days how that works for me. I think what has caused it for me is increasing weights too fast, like if I use the same weight for a month and just focus on reps, then all of a sudden go up a large increment in weight…
Besides using this spray I got and taking lots of fish oil I’m just including extra stretching and foam rolling daily and avoiding exercises that trigger any pain.
^ Thanks for your answer. That might also be the case with me with the increase in weight. After taking a few months off of deadlifting at the beginning of the year I was going pretty hard at my deadlift the last couple of months. Managed to hit a PR, but definitely also felt the strain of often working to heavy singles.
I’ve also recently started Wendler’s 5/3/1 for the first time. Hopefully this’ll give my joints the chance to progressively adjust to the increase in weight.
Just a point of clarification: my soreness is actually on the top of my kneecap and only occasionally extends down the lateral patella. Is this actually patellar tendonitis or quadriceps tendonitis?
what I’d do is take a couple weeks off, and head over to mobilitywod - search patellar tendinitis and do what he says. Stretch out the hammies (keep your leg straight) for 2 mins a side, the calves for 2 mins a side, the rectus femoris/hips (couch stretch) for 2 mins a side. Hammer your IT band/quads with a foam roller (focus on lateral quad and rectus femoris), and hit your suprapatellar pouch with a lacrosse ball. Strengthen your glute med (hip abduction wall slides are good).
if it doesn’t get better after that it may not be an ‘itis’ issue.
Thanks for the tip! The good thing is that I have a deload week ahead of me and could theoretically take 1.5 weeks off of quad-dominant lifting without missing a beat.
I suffered from patella tendonitis. I took 3 weeks off any lower body lifting, and in the 3rd week I started to do eccentric squats on incline and went for a few moderately spins on the bike.
Also I did a bit of self massage most days.
Thinking about returning to some very light squatting this week or maybe the next. Ill let you know how I go.