Dealing with Injuries?

I injured my knee performing a shoulder press today and it is now clicking in two places (sometimes) and pretty painful if I make any movement in my left leg. I’m going to the doctor to get it looked at soon, but my mother (the pathologist) thinks it might be a cartilage, muscle or tendon injury, which take a lot of time to recover from. I can’t do more than a few bodyweight squats and am probably sidelined from lifting for a while - it’s not the first knee injury on this leg. This is really, really shitty because I just finished reloading.

Does anyone have any advice on dealing with injuries? Exercises I can still do, foods or supplements that might speed up the healing process? Any advice is appreciated.

Now is probably a good time to stop bulking. Shit.

[quote]blue_star_cadet wrote:
I injured my knee performing a shoulder press today[/quote]
Color me curious… how’d you manage that?

Could this be a repeat of the original injury? Was that ever treated/resolved fully?

Reloading what? I didn’t follow.

Without knowing the full diagnosis, Flameout would be my first instinct, to control swelling/inflammation and just make everything feel groovy again. Training-wise, I’d say focus on your upper body, but since you managed to hurt your knee training shoulders, I’m kinda scared to suggest that. :wink: At least train the good leg any way possible.

Once you know exactly what the injury is, I’d toss a question to Cressey or Mike Robertson in their Locker Rooms.

With reduced activity comes reduced calorie intake, sorry man.

Whenever you listen to any facts regarding an injury keep make sure it relates to

  1. What is the joint, muscle, tendon, cartilage supposed to do?

  2. How will this help it do it.

This will help you seperate the bullshit from good advice.

Example

Your knee joint should have roughly 120 degrees of pain free motion. If a doctor tells you to stop squatting forever, or only do partial squats, how will this help your knee maintain full ROM.

Now that is different advice then start partially and slowly increase the ROM over several weeks before adding weight.

I can only think you were perfoming a push press :S

Do you have someone training with you?

I remember you posted a while ago saying you injured something (wrist?) doing deadlifts.

Chris, thank you for responding. I misspoke - it was a standing military press, not a shoulder press (I keep mixing the two for whatever reason.) I’m not quite THAT incompetent. :smiley: The doctor thinks this might be a torn meniscus, but not as severe as most cases (there are four ROM tests and I only failed two.) I have an MRI due Wednesday that should confirm or refute the diagnosis, and if it is torn, I may need surgery down the road.

I was reloading on Starting Strength after I’d started to stall, I cleaned up my form and went back on track (at least until I injured myself.) If it does turn out to be a torn meniscus, is there anything I can work out or do I risk aggravating my injury? Also, I’ve already cut back my calorie intake to around maintenance, but would further dropping my intake help with some fat loss (without exercises, probably) or will this impair the healing process?

Airtruth, thank you for the advice. I’ll take it into account once I start lifting again.

echelon, I don’t have a consistent training partner. Almost all of my friends are in the ‘bicep curls and calf raises’ mindset and either refuse to squat and deadlift or are so far behind me that it’s difficult to work in together. The wrist turned out to be nothing, although I was worried for a few days. It ended up fixing itself, fortunately - that, or I never really had much an injury.

Another question - will it be beneficial to continue taking creatine even if I won’t be able to lift for some time? Or will I just be wasting money? Answers to any of these questions would be appreciated, I want to get back to the gym ASAP.

blue star, on the creatine, depends who you listen to.

Stopping creatine will cause you to pretty quickly lose the couple of pounds of mass that are due to the extra retained water in your muscles.

There are also several studies (will look for links at home if I get a chance) that point to Creatine being good for you for more reasons than just increasing the available ATP in your muscles.

Hey blue, commonly that “clicking” comes from a torn meniscus. You can live with that, you may need surgery but it is not a necessity. You can actually get a 7-17% (depending on the study) carry over to the injured leg just by doing isolateral training with the non-injured leg.

Also let pain be you guide, if it hurts don’t do it, if it doesn’t free reign. resistance on a stationary bike w/ intervals is a way to keep up some form of strength while your waiting. By the way, I am a physical therapist, and am speaking from experience, not just a gym rat.

I’ve hurt my back recently, I’ve also noticed right scapula pains when doing a kickback with my left arm, and also tricep pains in my right tricep like a feeling of being pulled like a band.

We all have a bunch of injuries a lot of the time, I don’t even know where mine have come from. I think the best thing to do is avoid any exercises that will hurt it and rest it till it seems normal.

I have pain in the top of my knee like quadriceps tendonitis, but it actually feels better after doing back squats or deadlifts. It typically hurts when I stand all day, or if I’m working out doing something like lunges. My right knee will hurt when my left knee is out in front on lunges. Anybody have any ideas?

[quote]flipdaddy wrote:
Hey blue, commonly that “clicking” comes from a torn meniscus. You can live with that, you may need surgery but it is not a necessity. You can actually get a 7-17% (depending on the study) carry over to the injured leg just by doing isolateral training with the non-injured leg.

Also let pain be you guide, if it hurts don’t do it, if it doesn’t free reign. resistance on a stationary bike w/ intervals is a way to keep up some form of strength while your waiting. By the way, I am a physical therapist, and am speaking from experience, not just a gym rat.[/quote]

I got the MRI results back today and it is a torn meniscus - I’m sort of hobbling everywhere and have difficulty going up and down stairs, so I think lifting and even biking are out for the foreseeable future. :confused:

There may be a small cyst on the tendon as well, which might be responsible for some of my other leg issues - I probably have to get surgery done, even. Not sure when I’ll be able to get back to lifting, will muscle memory cover any strength losses?

I’d like to find something to do in the meanwhile other than eating less, but I don’t want to make this any worse than it already is. Anyone?

[quote]blue_star_cadet wrote:
flipdaddy wrote:
Hey blue, commonly that “clicking” comes from a torn meniscus. You can live with that, you may need surgery but it is not a necessity. You can actually get a 7-17% (depending on the study) carry over to the injured leg just by doing isolateral training with the non-injured leg.

Also let pain be you guide, if it hurts don’t do it, if it doesn’t free reign. resistance on a stationary bike w/ intervals is a way to keep up some form of strength while your waiting. By the way, I am a physical therapist, and am speaking from experience, not just a gym rat.

I got the MRI results back today and it is a torn meniscus - I’m sort of hobbling everywhere and have difficulty going up and down stairs, so I think lifting and even biking are out for the foreseeable future. :confused:

There may be a small cyst on the tendon as well, which might be responsible for some of my other leg issues - I probably have to get surgery done, even. Not sure when I’ll be able to get back to lifting, will muscle memory cover any strength losses?

I’d like to find something to do in the meanwhile other than eating less, but I don’t want to make this any worse than it already is. Anyone?[/quote]

Well, who says you can’t still do upper-body exercises? Granted, you may have to modify some of them, but you’re not done as a bodybuilder. I’ve got a full-thickness rotator cuff tear, but I look at it this way: when I’m done recovering from surgery, I’ll be so mentally renewed and ready to get back into it that I’m sure I’ll come back to where I am and beyond (safely).

[quote]patricio2626 wrote:
blue_star_cadet wrote:
flipdaddy wrote:
Hey blue, commonly that “clicking” comes from a torn meniscus. You can live with that, you may need surgery but it is not a necessity. You can actually get a 7-17% (depending on the study) carry over to the injured leg just by doing isolateral training with the non-injured leg.

Also let pain be you guide, if it hurts don’t do it, if it doesn’t free reign. resistance on a stationary bike w/ intervals is a way to keep up some form of strength while your waiting. By the way, I am a physical therapist, and am speaking from experience, not just a gym rat.

I got the MRI results back today and it is a torn meniscus - I’m sort of hobbling everywhere and have difficulty going up and down stairs, so I think lifting and even biking are out for the foreseeable future. :confused:

There may be a small cyst on the tendon as well, which might be responsible for some of my other leg issues - I probably have to get surgery done, even. Not sure when I’ll be able to get back to lifting, will muscle memory cover any strength losses?

I’d like to find something to do in the meanwhile other than eating less, but I don’t want to make this any worse than it already is. Anyone?

Well, who says you can’t still do upper-body exercises? Granted, you may have to modify some of them, but you’re not done as a bodybuilder. I’ve got a full-thickness rotator cuff tear, but I look at it this way: when I’m done recovering from surgery, I’ll be so mentally renewed and ready to get back into it that I’m sure I’ll come back to where I am and beyond (safely). [/quote]

Yeah, I should get back into the gym. Hopefully benching doesn’t aggravate it, I have difficulty sitting with legs at a 90 degree angle normally. Does anyone have upper-body exercises to recommend? There’s got to be something other than bench pressing and curls that doesn’t involve legs…

chinups
pullups
pulldowns
abs
skull crushers
flyes

?