My left knee has recently become a little bit swollen, inlamed and painful. I have identified the cause of the problem: my toes point outwards at about a 45 degree angle and my left leg collapses inwards a little bit when I do wide stanced box squats.
I’m not really sure what to do about it. I’m working on correcting my form and would love some tips. I don’t really know what to work on though. I’m trying to keep my toes pointing forwards and on the ground and strecthing my adductors and quads. I’ve read Ian King’s article “out of kilter III”, which is about knee pain but in all honesty I struggled to understand it.
Any advice on what to do? I’m really concerned about not being able to walk properly by the time I’m 25 lol!
You probably have some length/tension discrepancies between your Tensor Fascia Latae/Piriformis and Adductors. I’m betting your TFL is tight on the left? Try laying down on your back and cross your left leg over, at the ankle, onto your right knee- just above actually-noting the angle at which your knee points up in the air. Then do the reverse (bend right leg, ankle resting on your left knee- and note angle. If the left knee points higher (which is my guess) you have a tight restricted Left TFL. Hence, time to stretch it! The most effective way to do it would be to make the test the actual stretch, using a partner to push down with P.N.F. stretching- contract/relax say 15:5 ratio (stretching to contracting) repeated 3x. That should see some improvements in a few weeks- I would suggest you do it BEFORE training- Ya Ya I know “stretching before working out will make you weak…” as the story goes- but so will pain and/or an injury! Second of all it’s PNF stretching so it shouldn’t “make you weak”. I could give you the Piriformis stretch but I’m running out of room… Let me know how that works. P.S. I had the EXACT same problem a few months ago-couldn’t squat for FOUR months- till I figured it out- actually I hired another trainer- CHEK practioner- Lance Barrett- who diagnosed it- interesting how many people- some my clients who have the same problem-?! (I actually got this test and stretch from John Paul Catanzaro’s “Stretching for Strengthening” DVD-Excellent value for the price! (check out his article- by the same name it might (?) have a picture of this stretch…?
If you need any clarification let me know.
Ted
Cool! Hope everything works out for you- it took mine a couple of months to heal- my knee. But I was foolish in waiting so long to seek help- mine even hurt sitting down!
You’ll be fine in a few weeks of consistent stretching.
[quote]TedK wrote:
…Tensor Fascia Latae/Piriformis and Adductors…[/quote]
These are the abductors right? Try using a lighter weight and putting a latex band around both of your legs at the knee level, tight enough so that you have to abduct the leg to do a wide squat. Then gradually build up.