Hello! I’m posting here after being asked by Michael Ray to describe a particular knee issue I have after commenting on a post regarding the new knee rehab program on Instagram. I was wondering if the program may be a good fit for me?
I’m 31 years old, 6’6”, 220 lbs and over the last 3 years or so have made my health a priority, losing 60 lbs. I navigated that journey without many injuries, thankfully, until about a year ago when I started having issues with my right knee. For a while, I’ve always had issues with my knees constantly popping (when standing, walking, or… really, any sort of movement) but never any pain lifting.
At some point, I started to get pain in my right knee, when putting too much weight on it. More often than not, it occurred during squats. I held off from doing much weight training that caused strain on my knee while seeking medical opinions. Some tests showed that my patellar tendon “pulls laterally” when I bend my knee. The way it was described to me was that the tendon is supposed to sit in a groove on your knee cap when your knee bends. Mine, however, pulls pretty drastically to the outside of my knee. Tests also identified a small meniscus tear. It’s worth noting that I have a similar patellar tendon issue in my left knee, but not as severe.
I did Physical Therapy for a while which primarily focused on increasing flexibility in my knee and strengthening my IT band. The PT did help a bit but after a while, they cut me loose, and I am still having issues with the knee when trying to do heavier weight.
Before training legs, I start every workout with a warm-up on the stationary bike and a 4-5 different stretches they had me do in PT. I also occasionally do bosu ball squats because I was told that those can help strengthen my knee as well.
I am currently doing a program that has two lower body days a week. Those days include a low bar squat and deadlifts with some additional, very standard, isolation exercises.
Some days the knee responds fine to squats and other days I can’t do it for fear of pushing through pain and causing additional injury.
I’m just wondering if this new program may be something that could help me as well as looking for general opinions and input.
Thank you in advance for any feedback.