Hello, Hope that your week is treating you well.
I’ve read a lot of the BBM resources on pain management but I’m in a situation where I don’t really know how to proceed. I’m on the 12 week strength template and some significant pain in my knee popped up the morning after my squat workout on Monday. I’m 5’9’ BW 205lbs 20 years old. Below I have the day/squat exercise listed and then how my knee felt during the day.
Monday -
No pain at all pre-workout.
Belt Squat
360x1@8.5 (a 5lb increase from last week)
300x5x4@83% (all around RPE 7 - 8)
These all felt fine, no pain at all.
Tuesday -
Woke up Tuesday morning with a dull pain just below the knee cap. I could still do air squats and walk with minimum discomfort.
Wednesday -
Pain was better in the morning, still some discomfort when walking/squatting.
3-0-3 Tempo squat
185x10@9 (I did 205 last week)
5% off 1x10 @ 8
I could feel my knee during these sets but It was very tolerable pain. I reduced the load from last week in an attempt to desensitize the knee and it seemed like it worked out well. It did ache after these sets but not noticeably more or less than beforehand. Like I said the pain was tolerable during the reps but it was present.
Thursday -
Woke up to knee feeling it. Hurt to walk up stairs, ache was still present.
Unbelted Squat
245x4@? (last week did 315x4@9)
205x4@?
205x4
Decided to reduce the load a lot for unbelted squats. Worked up very slowly with sets of 4. 45x4x2 (tolerable) 95x4 (tolerable) , 135x5 (tolerable) , 165x4 (tolerable), 205x4 (tolerable, no increase in pain), 245x4 (tolerable, some sharp pain during the third rep - maybe 3/10 on the pain scale), Due to the pain at 245 I decided to back off to 205. Did two more sets of 4 at a tolerable level of discomfort no sharp pain. I thought this workout was pretty successful and saw it as a good sign that I could squat without any significant increase in pain or discomfort. I then went to work (I’m a server) and walked around on it for 5 hours. By the end of my shift it was feeling pretty sore. I thought my knee would feel better the next morning and I may be able to squat a relatively heavy single on monday.
Friday -
I woke up this morning and my knees in the worst shape it’s been in since the pain started. It hurts whenever I bend my knee to walk and especially when I drop my hips going into a weightless squat (moreso than ever). It aches when I’m just sitting around, maybe a 1 or 2/10 on the pain scale but it is nearly constant. My third movement on Saturday is Leg press 1x10@9, 5% off 1x10. I’m going to go into this drastically reducing the load. I rewatched “4 Steps For Managing Pain In The Gym” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdwj5ORPmX0&t=7s) on Alan Thrall’s channel and noticed that Dr. Baraki didn’t say anything about tolerable pain. When I’m rehabbing the knee am I looking for tolerable pain or no pain? Because currently I can’t do an air squat with no pain, but it is “tolerable”. How should I address this knee pain going forward? I’d like to finish the 12 week strength template and I don’t want this to become more of an issue. I don’t see it as a big one now, but still, I would like to avoid injuring it more. I can bench, deadlift and do their accessories with no issues. If I need to change the exercise selection for the template does this mean changing all of the accessories as well? what about the rep ranges?
Anyway, I’m hoping by Monday that it feels significantly better but I’m really not sure. It’s the first time I’ve had knee pain like this that hasn’t gone away in a day. Anyway I appreciate the help. The forums are a life saver.
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