Good Afternoon Barbell Medicine
I apologize for my first post being an information seeking one, as I did my best in using the search feature to no avail on the topic in which I am interested about. Over the past year, I have in and out of different programs, with a short stint of SSLP prior to my current program, The Bridge.
Long story short, I tore the ACL in my right knee in February of 2017. I went through my timely rehab of just getting the knee back to full ROM. Once finished, I was cleared from the PT to resume gym activities at a slow progressive rate. Following this, I visited an orthopedic to gauge surgery logistics and at the time of this injury, I could not get it done due to my profession. So since that point in time, I’ve been doing life and strength training minus 1 ACL. The orthopedic outfitted me with an ACL brace that I use in the gym for squatting, deadlifting, and any other physical activity that I feel it is needed. Perhaps this is more for peace of mind?
My concern today is the pain I am experiencing in my “good” knee, the one with an ACL. From the time of injury, I have experienced slight pain on and off from what felt like the result of “favoring” the once injured knee and leg. Recently, I have noticed that my good knee exhibits some sort of pain following a training day, particularly when squatting is involved. This is my main concern as I do not want to enhance long-range damage and/or provoke the onset of arthritis in this knee, as my PT at the time all but guaranteed that at some point later in life, I WILL develop arthritis in the injured knee. I am currently on Week 6 of The Bridge and my plan was to do the 7 Week Hypertrophy program followed by the 12 Week Strength Training program.
A few questions I have are:
Am I putting myself at risk of future ailments?
Is there a development issue in strength terms regarding each leg that is leading to this?
Should I discontinue squatting?
Can I work on strengthening the right leg?
I would assume that the correct thing to do is visit an orthopedic again, but was hoping to gain some clarity here. Thank you for any help in advance and look forward to interacting with Barbell Medicine community moving forward.
Thank you
Steve