The KNEE PAIN Thread

Bigger Stronger Leaner Injuries and Rehab
141

This may have been previously discussed on this thread…if so, forgive me and direct me to the page number. If not, please feel free to chime in…

I’ve had quite a time with my knees in the past year and a half or so. It started with my right knee and now it is still usually my right knee, but my left one acts up about 70-80% of the time. On the medial side of my knees, the pain makes a cresent moon shape. No pain actually on the actual knee cap itself. It begins below the cap, and circles almost up to the top of my knee cap just on the medial side. It’s an ongoing, agonizing, dull ache. Pain on a scale of 0-10 flucuates on a day to day basis. Sometimes no pain at all. Sometimes I can’t walk to the bathroom without assistance. Most of the time it’s around a 6 or so. I can’t handle the pain sure, but I can’t handle it getting worse and constantly hurting even if most of the time it’s just a 6 on a pain scale. It doesn’t have a time of the day it hurts worse…it’s just all over the place, morning, noon, night. I’ve never seen any swelling or discoloration either.

To my knowledge, I’ve never injured either of them. However, as I kid, due to my mom saying I was “tubby,” I started running miles and miles a day. This happened while I was like 10-15ish. I had gotten up to running 4 miles at a time. I have had one doctor to suggest this could have contributed to it.

I have seen a few docs about this, but they aren’t very helpful. They say don’t squat. This isn’t an option for me. I’ve tried changing my stance around (sumo or wide stance squat), going lighter weight and all sorts of other things. One doctor said I may have degenerating cartlidge, one said my knee cap was just inflammed, another said it was tendonitis, etc. They all tell me to take lots of anti-inflammatory drugs. Quite frankly, I’m not about to take 3 ibuprofen a day for the reset of my life. (I just hit my twenties).

I no longer touch the treadmills, which helped for a little while, but the pain kept coming back. I can’t do any cardio on trails outside, Icy-Hot patches are my best friend, I run hot water over my knees in the bath tub at night, when the weather gets cooler I start staying in my bed as much as possible, I warm wet diaper padding in the microwave (a trick a learned at the spa), and I constantly wrap them up. Seriously, I’ve had to be carried up the stairs to my apartment. I’m not a baby when it comes to pain, I’ve had a few rough surgeries/illnesses that would make your daddy cry… but something has got to give with this. I refuse to give into “no squats” …I’ve given up lunges, leg extensions, jump rope, etc.

Any advice? Thanks guys :slight_smile:

142

Oh yeah… forgot to add, I’ve been taking glucosamine (1500mg) every day for about 2 months now and it hasn’t helped me.

143

Hi SouthernGirl,

Have you tried taking chondroitin with your glucosamine? They’re meant to work well together. How about MSM? I take all 3.

A couple of months ago I also started taking celadrin (recommended by someone on T-Nation) and I think it’s helped with elbow pain, which the above didn’t do.

As for my knee pain, it’s due to a badly tracking patella on my left leg; this is caused by a strong vastus lateralis coupled with a weak vastus medialis (VMO). In plain english: the outside of my thigh pulls my patella with more force than the inside.

Knowing the cause of your pain will help you fix the problem, not just treat the pain. I was told all kinds of crap by a few doctors, until a physiotherapist told me I overpronated and my patella didn’t track correctly. It was then I realised my left VMO was soooo much smaller than my right. All these years and I hadn’t noticed it! At the moment I’m working on strengthening it, and I’m not running at all, even on the treadmills. I think that will be the real test of whether I’m better or not.

If you can see a specialist that deals with sports injuries, they will have a much better understanding of what might be going on with your knee. The “normal” doctors I went to did nothing but confuse me.

Sorry I can’t be of any real help!

Good luck with those knees, and let us know how you progress.

PS: I did the painkiller thing for a while, but it’s not worth it. I don’t care about the pain, I care about the injury.

144

[quote]Miserere wrote:

Have you tried taking chondroitin with your glucosamine? They’re meant to work well together. How about MSM? I take all 3.[/quote]

The glucosamine supplement has 400mg of chondroitin to every 500mg of glucosamine. (I take 3 a day).

Thanks for your advice, and I’m trying my best to pin point a cause so I can figure out a resolution. I just wanted advice or info on here before I continue to go to doctors.

145

Just a little info for my stand point. I have also had a knee injury, non workout related. Snow boarding, I am average and I act like i am in the X games. I went and had an MRI done and had a partial tear to my ACL. I did not want surgery so I look into everything to get around it. Last straw i went to and MAT therapist. Muscle activation techniques is what is stands for.

After 4 sessions i was pain free and no surg. I have since start the year long intern ship to become a MAT therapist. Just my 2 cents this is what has worked for me. and would incourage anyone to give it a try.

146

An update following my question below. I’ve been taking glucosamine sulfate for nearly a month now and I have started to notice a difference in my bad knee, it feels a lot smoother and there isn’t as much inflammation after exercising, especially after doing any running which has been the worst offender for any knee pain, so it looks like this is the right product to be taking for me.

[quote]bg100 wrote:
Hi everyone,

In the past I sufferred some serious damage to the aritcular cartilage in my right knee and have taken a long time to get back into doing lower body exercises as a result. I still feel some effects (it’s never going to be the same as pre-injury) such as stiffness or mild soreness if I push things too hard, but mostly it seems to be going OK.

After reading about it on T-Nation as well as seeing it advertised, I’ve just bought some glucosamine for the first time to see if this will lead to an improvement in how my knee feels. I was wondering what success you guys have had using this product, especially those who have injured articular cartilage in the past. Did you notice a difference at all?

How long did it take to notice the difference? Did a particular strength of tablet work while others didn’t?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Ben[/quote]

147

[quote]SouthernGirl wrote:
Miserere wrote:

Have you tried taking chondroitin with your glucosamine? They’re meant to work well together. How about MSM? I take all 3.

The glucosamine supplement has 400mg of chondroitin to every 500mg of glucosamine. (I take 3 a day).

Thanks for your advice, and I’m trying my best to pin point a cause so I can figure out a resolution. I just wanted advice or info on here before I continue to go to doctors.

[/quote]

I don’t think supps are the answer in your case SG, though they probably aren’t hurting.

I second the VM weakness - not trying to goad or anything, but you haven’t posted any pics in a long time - do you have much of a teardrop developed? A photo or two of your quad flexed and a short video/pics of squat form throughout the ROM would help confirm the weakness, but unless you’ve done a lot of full squats, front squats, or Peterson Step-ups recently, it’s pretty much a given. Could be other causes too, but this is definately one of the big ones.

-Dan

148

Ben -

Studies seem to show that it takes 2-3 months before you start seeing the benefits.

As well, there’s a lot of discrepancy between the “brands.” I use NOW brand, since I get it fairly cheap and it’s reputable. Check out Consumerlabs.com for reputable brands.

Stay strong
MR

[quote]bg100 wrote:
Hi everyone,

In the past I sufferred some serious damage to the aritcular cartilage in my right knee and have taken a long time to get back into doing lower body exercises as a result. I still feel some effects (it’s never going to be the same as pre-injury) such as stiffness or mild soreness if I push things too hard, but mostly it seems to be going OK.

After reading about it on T-Nation as well as seeing it advertised, I’ve just bought some glucosamine for the first time to see if this will lead to an improvement in how my knee feels. I was wondering what success you guys have had using this product, especially those who have injured articular cartilage in the past. Did you notice a difference at all?

How long did it take to notice the difference? Did a particular strength of tablet work while others didn’t?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Ben[/quote]

149

I need some advice on tendonitis. A co worker has tendonities in his knees and needs to know what he can do, ie, small exercises or anything to strengthen them. any advice would be appreciated!

150

SG,

Misere gives a great overview here. It could be a tracking issue, or it could be starting lower in the kinetic chain (say your foot). If you are overpronating, that area of your knee will ALWAYS take a beating; even if you are just walking, it’s going to absorb more force that it should. Do you have flat feet? If not, do your feet flatten out EXCESSIVELY when walking, squatting, lunging, etc.? If so, this could be your culprit right there. I would think a good pair of orthotics would be all you need.

If it’s not here, you could have some issues that Misere stated (tight lateral structures, weak VMO). I believe I discussed this earlier in the thread, but I would start off with releasing the lateral structures (VL, TFL/ITB, lateral retinaculum) with massage, ART and foam rolling, while also strengthening the VMO with terminal knee extensions, etc.

A final thought is you might have damaged the medial portion of the joint capsule; a few ART treatments here usually loosens things right up.

Keep us posted on your progress and let me know if this helps!

Stay strong
MR

[quote]SouthernGirl wrote:
Miserere wrote:

Have you tried taking chondroitin with your glucosamine? They’re meant to work well together. How about MSM? I take all 3.

The glucosamine supplement has 400mg of chondroitin to every 500mg of glucosamine. (I take 3 a day).

Thanks for your advice, and I’m trying my best to pin point a cause so I can figure out a resolution. I just wanted advice or info on here before I continue to go to doctors.

[/quote]

151

I believe I’ve answered this earlier in the thread, but I need a little more info before I can help you out. He could have quad, hamstring, gastroc, or popliteus tendonitis.

Where is the pain located? What movements make it worse? How long has he suffered from it?

Give me a little more info and I should be able to help!

Stay strong
MR

[quote]mike08042 wrote:
I need some advice on tendonitis. A co worker has tendonities in his knees and needs to know what he can do, ie, small exercises or anything to strengthen them. any advice would be appreciated! [/quote]

152

Hey Mike,

I’ve been trying to strengthen my VMO lately through terminal leg extentions, but thus far no change. I’m in the process of trying to locate a specialist to see, but obviously in south georgia it is hard to locate anyone with sports injury expertise. If I do find a specialist I’ll definitely mention these things to him, and I will try the massage techniques on myself as well. Thanks a bunch.

153

This is great! Thanks, Mike.

In mid-January 2005, I had an incident in which a 100lb. P.A. speaker fell on my left thigh which was laterally outstretched. Point of impact was just below mid-thigh on TFL. The pain was accute and I was taken to hospital by ambulance where x-rays showed no break or fracture of the femur and no structural damage to the knee joint.

Rehab consisted of massage twice per week and physio, including ultrasound and laser, three times per week. There was significant swelling surrounding the knee and a large area of fibrous mass above the knee that gradually shrank to its present size - triangular, about 3" on each side. However bruising never appeared on my thigh.

Presently, there is a general lack of medial stability, grinding during knee extension, numbness and slow response time at the left knee. Obviously top end squats and deadlifts have diminished.

I went to a specialist who, upon confirming that there is no damage to the joint itself, told me to “take it easy” and reduce the weight training.

My question is: Have you had experience with this kind of prolonged soft-tissue injury and can I expect it to get better eventually?

154

Tough to say; is there any palpable mass in there? I would imagine there was some scar tissue built up, and if it’s still there could be the root of your problem.

Have you tried any foam rolling on the area?

Stay strong
MR

[quote]MetaMorFit wrote:
This is great! Thanks, Mike.

In mid-January 2005, I had an incident in which a 100lb. P.A. speaker fell on my left thigh which was laterally outstretched. Point of impact was just below mid-thigh on TFL. The pain was accute and I was taken to hospital by ambulance where x-rays showed no break or fracture of the femur and no structural damage to the knee joint.

Rehab consisted of massage twice per week and physio, including ultrasound and laser, three times per week. There was significant swelling surrounding the knee and a large area of fibrous mass above the knee that gradually shrank to its present size - triangular, about 3" on each side. However bruising never appeared on my thigh.

Presently, there is a general lack of medial stability, grinding during knee extension, numbness and slow response time at the left knee. Obviously top end squats and deadlifts have diminished.

I went to a specialist who, upon confirming that there is no damage to the joint itself, told me to “take it easy” and reduce the weight training.

My question is: Have you had experience with this kind of prolonged soft-tissue injury and can I expect it to get better eventually?[/quote]

155

Hi Mike,

Got a 413 lbs. squat PR at a meet on saturday. I Would really appreciate it if you could give me some input on my technique.

http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2OMJC88X2LD552M7OZ6J4YAKFZ

156

About 6 weeks ago I got a tear in my IT band. This monday I go back to the doctors and should be clear to play football again. would there a be a greater chance of my reinjurying it again, and any ways to help prevent another injury.

Also ive been looking around alot and read about iliotibial band syndrome. anything to be worried about?

157

Ralf -

Congrats on the PR brother!

Now, there are a few things you can work on that will kick things up a notch. First off, I would try and descend a little faster; it takes you quite a while to break parallel, so I would work on getting down a little faster.

Next, I would put a greater emphasis on sitting back from the start, while flaring your knees. This will get your more glute/hamstring activation and thus drive up your squat (once they are ready for it). You could just have really strong quads and that’s why you squat this way now.

So if nothing else, just focus on sitting back more from the start and descending a little faster. All in all, great work though and congrats!

Stay strong
MR

[quote]Ralf wrote:
Hi Mike,

Got a 413 lbs. squat PR at a meet on saturday. I Would really appreciate it if you could give me some input on my technique.

http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2OMJC88X2LD552M7OZ6J4YAKFZ
[/quote]

158

The biggest thing w/ITBS is a huge muscle imbalance around the hips. You’ll need to really focus on loosening up the TFL/ITB, hip flexors and adductors, while really strengthening all the gluteal muscles. If you don’t rectify what caused the problem in the first place, you’ll always be “at-risk” to injure them again.

EC and I went into great depth in our NNM and GYBIG article series’; check them out and I’m sure they’ll be of benefit to you!

Stay strong
MR

[quote]WhiteLable412 wrote:
About 6 weeks ago I got a tear in my IT band. This monday I go back to the doctors and should be clear to play football again. would there a be a greater chance of my reinjurying it again, and any ways to help prevent another injury.

Also ive been looking around alot and read about iliotibial band syndrome. anything to be worried about? [/quote]

159

The mass that remains is quite tough. I get some benefit from applying heat around the knee, followed by an ice pack on the knee (elevated) and heat at the hip. The physiotherapist hypothesized that instead of rising to the surface in a bruise, the blood stayed in the muscle and pooled around the knee, preventing proper reformation of the musculature (for instance there is a marked difference between right and left leg VMO).(?). I haven’t tried foam rolling but will start today & keep you posted.

Thanks.

Andy

[quote]Mike Robertson wrote:
Tough to say; is there any palpable mass in there? I would imagine there was some scar tissue built up, and if it’s still there could be the root of your problem.

Have you tried any foam rolling on the area?

Stay strong
MR

MetaMorFit wrote:
This is great! Thanks, Mike.

In mid-January 2005, I had an incident in which a 100lb. P.A. speaker fell on my left thigh which was laterally outstretched. Point of impact was just below mid-thigh on TFL. The pain was accute and I was taken to hospital by ambulance where x-rays showed no break or fracture of the femur and no structural damage to the knee joint.

Rehab consisted of massage twice per week and physio, including ultrasound and laser, three times per week. There was significant swelling surrounding the knee and a large area of fibrous mass above the knee that gradually shrank to its present size - triangular, about 3" on each side. However bruising never appeared on my thigh.

Presently, there is a general lack of medial stability, grinding during knee extension, numbness and slow response time at the left knee. Obviously top end squats and deadlifts have diminished.

I went to a specialist who, upon confirming that there is no damage to the joint itself, told me to “take it easy” and reduce the weight training.

My question is: Have you had experience with this kind of prolonged soft-tissue injury and can I expect it to get better eventually?

[/quote]

160

Hello Mike. Long time reader/lurker, first time poster. Somehow I’ve missed this thread but I just went through every post and only found one reference to high rep bodyweight squats (BPC 7/15/05).

I’ve always had Rice Krispie knees until learning about Hindu squats about a year ago. I have been using these as part of my warmup routine for 5-20 minutes (125-500 squats) and have not had any knee problens since. They’re a real asskicker cardio warmup too. I’ve told several people with knee problems about them and the ones who have worked them swear by them.