Hi Dr. Miles, Ray and Amato,
The area where quads connect to the knee (upper anterior inner part of my left knee) hurts when I’m reahing the parallel or below parallel and when I’m getting out of there. It’s a sharp pain that I can’t train through and do high volume squats but I can manage 3x3s or 3x5s even though the pain increases with each rep. Pain vanishes in between sets, starts occuring once I start squatting again, first two reps are usually pain free but it gets worse with each rep.
Deadlifts don’t bother my knee though, it’s only squats, leg extensions and leg presses.
Original thread here: Sharp pain in one knee whenever volume increases - Medical Q/A with Drs. Feigenbaum & Baraki - Barbell Medicine Forum Thought maybe this would be a better place to ask for rehab advice.
Are your symptoms made more or less tolerable depending on the load/intensity during the squats (bodyweight vs. warm ups vs. top sets)? Just wondering if you can tolerate more than 2 reps depending on what the load is, which might help you progress going forward. The other idea would be changing depth temporarily, but I’d start with intensity first if that seems to change tolerance.
Nope, squatting for about 8 reps makes my left knee upset even without a barbell on my back.
My general recommendation would be to squat to the depth that’s tolerable then and increase depth per tolerance week to week. This can be achieved several ways, either by self selecting the depth or using a box/pins. Either way, that should give you something to start with. Are you still running the beginner program?
No way I can run a program with such high squat volume with a knee like this. I’m only deadlifting heavy and leg pressing very low weights at the moment as far as my lower body training goes.
What kind of training were you doing before starting the beginner program? Volume can be one factor related to injury, but usually we look at it in relation to intensity (RPE and load on the bar) and prior training load/volume. As for the beginner program, it could be higher volume compared to your previous training history, but it wouldn’t preclude you from doing it in the future, given appropriate load selections and the ramp up in volume over the weeks. How has your knee felt with the current changes you’ve made?