Hey everyone. Relatively new to the forums, but long time article reader.
The past few months I have started working out at the gym, and I am satisfied with the progress I am making. Unfortunately, my left knee has started hurting during and after workouts involving lower body work.
I usually do a full body workout when I hit the gym. I usually start with squats, then I do good mornings, calf raises, military presses, bench presses, pullups and tricep extensions. I finish up with some ab work at the end.
The problem happens when I do GMs (and squats to a lesser extent). Something between my knee and foot feels like it catches and builds tension, worsening as I go lower into each exercise. Almost feels like a pop or clicking of sorts. As I come back up, the same thing happens.
Although it’s not necessarily painful in the traditional sense (burning or stinging), it definetely does not feel like something that should be happening. It only happens in my left leg… the right one is fine.
When I walk around normally after working out, my knee also has a sharp pain sometimes and it seems very tense. I do streches before and after working out. ANy ideas??
This sounds similar to what I recently went through. I increased my lower body lifting volume and started running. This caused shin splints, what you are describing sounds similar to what I think was pressure on and resulting inflammation of a ligament in the shin. However, without further information I cannot be sure that the same thing is happening to you. If you could answer some of these questions for me I could get a better idea of what is wrong.
-Have you also started running recently, or increased you running volume?
–if so: what shoes do you run in, on what surface do you run, and over what distances/intensities?
–Also, do you lift in shoes or barefoot?
-Are you doing any explosive lifting? In particular, how do you perform your calf raises?
-How is your diet? Are you making sure to get enough good fats in your diet, including fish oil?
-Where is the pain? Try to work out where it is in relation to the various muscles and bones as accurately as possible. Wikipedia is your friend.
If you have the same problem that I did then the following seems to help: don’t do anything to aggrevate it, do calf raises and toe raises to strengthen the general musculature of the calves, stretch and foam roll everything, and finally eat alot (especially fats).
It could also be a biomechanical problem around the knee, post a more accurate description of the symptoms and I can tell you what I think.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a dotor or otherwise certified professional, I do however have a lot of experience dealing with soft tissue issues.
I know this is an old thread, but I thought I would say that I started doing static stretches on my non-training days, including stretches for my calves, hamstrings and hip flexors. I also started taking high quality fish oil capsules on a daily basis. Other than that, I have been watching my form with all my lifts and the problem seems to have rectified itself.