I have some pain in my patellar tendon at work and while walking and the only thing that has really changed is that I started doing front squats frequently. I’ve started widening my stance a little bit because it’s slowly becoming more frequent, especially at work while I’m on my feet all the time. I know it could just be a new stimulus causing perceived pain but it’s very distracting at work. I’m not sure I’m ready to start the knee rehab program if it resolves itself soon, and I want to finish the new hypertrophy program(week 6 currently). Any suggestions in the meantime?
I’m 24, I’ve been front squatting below parallel, I’m on my feet for 6-10 hours straight at work, I don’t have any history of knee pain or injuries and I have no pain while squatting.
Yes, this is quite common when individuals introduce front squats at loads they are not necessarily prepared for.
I would either:
temporarily pull front squats back out of the program to de-sensitize things, then re-introduce more gradually, OR
change all your front squatting to incorporate tempo/pause work, e.g. 3-1-0 tempo front squats for sets of 10-12 reps. (Yes, this will be very light. That is often necessary to de-sensitize things, from which point you can then progress to 3-0-0 or a 2ct paused front squat, then back to normal front squatting).
I ended up just finishing out the front squats at a lower RPE and by now my pain is completely gone, but I’ll keep this method in mind for future reference. Thanks again, keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll keep proselytizing your programs and videos!
