Right knee pain (medially) after a pistol squat

Hi BBM team,

yesterday I did a pistol squat on my right leg and heard some popping noises which were followed by right knee pain, with an emphasis on the medial part (marked on the photo). I always hear crepitus while squatting deep and it is rarely (if ever) followed by pain, however I think I did something wrong yesterday as I don’t ever do pistol squats so I am not trained to perform them efficiently.

The knee doesn’t appear to be swollen, but it hurts during full extension and during flexion, during breaststroke swimming and I can periodically feel slight pops while walking. In spite of this, I try not to limit my movement and work around the pain. I can do atg air squats(for some reason without crepitus now) and I can handle the pain (I’d say it’ a 6/10 on the subjective scale) so I’m planning to continue your hypertrophy I program (tomorrow is week 6 so it’s deload and low bar squat for me).
My strategy would be not to worry too much and try and train the same way I have trained before (~RPE 8, autoregulation, with as much mobility and little fear as possible-but likely with prolonged squat warm up sessions) and see how the situation develops during the following weeks.

Could you please give me your thoughts on this?
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Sincerely grateful,
T.

Sorry to hear about this.

Our initial approach here would be as outlined in this article: Pain in Training: What To Do?

This may require some modifications from the template you were following, which is fine to do in the short term for symptom improvement.

1 Like

Dr. Baraki, thank you for your insights.
I read the article.
My session went great, no pain while tempo squatting
whatsoever, and it hurts less while walking by the day, so I think I’ll slowly return to regular speed squats and see how it goes.

​The thing that helped me the most is fear avoidance and ignoring other people’s worried comments.

The content you guys at BBM provide repeatedly proves to be an invaluable resource for anyone looking to improve their quality of life.

Thank you!
​​​

Glad to help.