Got a buddy of mine that wants to start some powerlifting training, but he had some ACL surgery about a year ago. He can SLDL and Good morning just fine, but knee flexion seems to give him some pain. Is it worthwhile for him to train, and if so, what sort of modifications would be necessary? Would he be able to ease into squats one day, or should he just stick to push/pull meets?
If it hurts then he shouldnt do it.
If I was him I would do push pull meets or become a bench specialist. Because if knee bend hurts he will never be that great of a deadlifter.
Has he done any physical therapy? How bad are his knees and how bad is the pain?
Is it a matter of using neoprene knee sleeves and doing a better warm up? Or is he currently pushing his luck just trying to walk up stairs?
EliteFTS has some good videos on YouTube for a thorough knee and leg mobility warm-up if you look through all their other stuff to find it.
There’s also this book called Bulletproof Knees that’s out by this guy named Mike Robertson who knows a thing or two about powerlifting.
Your friend should look into
- Solutions and exercises for knee and joint health
- Better ways to warm up
- A professional opinion about how risky squatting AND deadlifting is.
If your friend can’t squat, he probably shouldn’t deadlift. If that does turn out to be the case, the only meets he’ll be going to are Bench-Curl meets (yes they exist).
If anyone who has heard of Jim Hoskinson pro powerlifter then goto Elite Fitness and read his story. I met him a couple of weeks back and he came back from 2 acl tears and 2 ruptured patella tendon about 4-5 yrs ago to squat 1085 at the ipa nationals. I myself don’t have any cartilage on the inside of my right and left and have squatted over 850 in competition. I personally don’t know how bad the pain is but i wanted to let you know there are guys that have been thru it. Shoot Jim a email thru the elite fitness site and see what he has to say.
Before I e-mail Jim, you think you could tell me what you personally did for your training? You sound like an awesome resource yourself, and any knowledge you have on the subject would be greatly appreciated.
I myself tore a mcl ligament in college while playing football…a mcl to be exact and that instability has caused me to to loose the cartilage on the inside of my knee. For me I know pulling the sled has increased my glute stength and it doesn’t put alot of stress on my knees. That way you can still work the core muscle group. As far as working the knee flexibility you are going to have force yourself to increase the range of motion thru stretching and the use of bands. I think laying on your back and holding a mini underneath the foot is one of the exercise they give you in physical therapy and it helps the muscle around the knee my tightening them up.
You use the band to bend the knee to a certain point and then push out. Also I use leg presses after my second surgery and tried to work on increasing from 45 degree to 60 and so forth. Man if i can help you just let me know. I still would read the ELite Fitness article on Hoskinson as that is very inspirational and in talking to him it was even more so…
Great advice dude, I’ll definitely need to talk to you more once this guy gets serious into his training. I’m definitely gonna catch up on Elite FTS as well. Thanks for all your help dude, I’m sure my buddy will appreciate it as well.
Anyone else wanna pitch in, I’m more than receptive.
Yep… all I have to say is Dave Tate.
Well… i guess more than that. I have blown out both knees… completely severed my rotator cuff in three places… broken ribs, hands, feet many times, and I am still powerlifting… and making gains every week.
All of my doctors said I would never lift again… 3wks after surgery i was back at it. Im some sort of freak when it comes to healing, but whatever.
Wow, sounds like you’re pretty knowledgable in this field. Any tips you can throw my way beyond what’s already been said? Only injury I’ve had to deal with is dislocating my shoulder 5 or so times, knees are a whole new world for me.