For about 6 weeks, right below my knee where it connects to the bottom part of my leg it is very sensitive to touch and it hurts when I bend my knee more than 90 degrees.
The following give 0 pain/discomfort:
Walking
Running
Deadlifts
Squats
So I’ve just not been kneeling on it/not bending it too much.
Generally I see the advice here to be, “decrease the intensity of activity that’s bothering it based on RPE and work your way back over time.”
It is pretty tender but given that it doesn’t give me any trouble during activity, I have no idea what is causing it and how to limit activity or if I should just ignore it and wait for it to get to a point where it does limit an activity and then I’ll know and adjust?
Sorry to hear about the knee issue you’ve been dealing with. It’s always frustrating dealing with nagging aches/pains and the heuristic of ‘decrease intensity and build back up over time’ oftentimes isn’t enough to help guide the path. Based on what you’ve presented here (location, symptoms with bending the knee greater than 90 degrees, duration of 6 weeks), it sounds like you may be dealing with a potential patellar tendinopathy. I could certainly be wrong, but I would recommend checking out our article on tendinopathies HERE. Specifically, take a look at Case Study # 2 as that seems to be most relevant to what you’re currently experiencing. If you would like more individualized guidance via a consultation or rehab programming, we’d be happy to help. See HERE for our intake paperwork.
Thanks for the answer Chalie–I hadn’t read that article yet, it was a good read and case study 2 is very close to what I’m experiencing, thank you.
I think the key is when not experiencing pain during an activity it is difficult to know which activity is exacerbating the issue. I agree with the case study that it is most likely squat, but could it be DL or running as well and any advice to determine which activity is the culprit?
Figuring out which activity is contributing to symptoms is very much a process of trial and error. I would recommend starting with reducing the intensity on your squat first (via increasing the rep range and/or adding in a tempo such as a 3s eccentric, 1s pause in the hole for example) and assessing your response from there.
