Hey guys! I got an injury while running 2 weeks ago. Now, I am feeling a bit better, but the knee still hurts, especially when walking on when going up/down stairs on the portion when I flex my knee and when I flex my foot. Anyways, squatting does not produce symptoms, but leg curls do even with just 10kg per leg. Not that it just hurts, but the left leg feels weak while doing legs curls. How should I regress the leg curls? Given that knee flexion hurts, I decided to do it to desensitize. Doing leg curls with just the weight of my leg feels good, not pain at all. What do you think about this approach? I am currently on week 1 of Hypertrophy 1, but the exercises for lower body I am doing them with 3-0-3 tempo to desinsitize my knee and on GPP days, in the end I throw win leg extensions 3-0-3 and I am planning to do leg curls too, but I have to find a way to do them with minimal pain.
Where on your knee hurts and what happened?
Hello, Derek! First of all, thank you for your answer. It hurts just below the knee cap, it’s a sharp-stabbing pain. There is also a tender-to-touch spot on, I think where patellar tendon inserts on the tibia when touched, reproduces the stabbing pain below my knee cap. After long periods of sitting, it is hard to bear weight on it and sometimes it hurts behind my knee.
It started to hurt while I was running. Ran 400 meters then suddenly started to hurt out of nowhere, so I stopped. Immediately after that I was not able to put weight on my leg for a couple of steps. After I rested for a bit, I was able to bear weight on my knee but I was walking with a limp.
I probably started to do too much too son. In the last month, prior to injury, I started to run 2-3 times/ week to get into law enforcement where one of the tasks is to run 1km in 3:30 minutes, so I started to run. Until the last month, I probably did not run in the last couple of months.
I scheduled an MRI in 3 days in order to see what’s wrong. I am familiar with your content on pain and that pain does not always equals damage, but the fact that sometimes I am not able to bear weight and that I walk with a limp worries me, because I listened to the podcast on “meniscus injuries” where I heard that if I can’t bear weight on my leg it would be a good idea to get it evaluated. There was no injury mechanism whatsoever, no slipping, no falling etc. , just started to hurt out of nowhere while running.Also noticed a very little bit of swelling below my knee cap.Sorry for the long answer but I am trying to offer a good contrast of my situation in order for you to understand it. Thank you so much for your answer again!
Given the mechanism of injury, there isn’t much in that area that would lead me down a path for needing a full work up. This would likely be better as a consult to talk through training history, what you had been doing leading up to starting the training for law enforcement, and what you are currently feeling. When you are saying leg curls, I am assuming you are talking about hamstring curls which does not fit as well with pain in the front of your knee. Sometimes you can just catch an area in your knee/joint when moving in a way you have not in a while and have some sharp symptoms that typically resolve in 2-3 weeks with regressing load. If I were you, I would likely find the exercises that you can do without much issue right now and emphasize those. That may be using a bike for cardio and relying more on compound exercises versus open chain ones like curls.
Hello again! Thank you for the fast answer. What you mean by “needing a full work up”? Also, my gym has no stationary bike for cardio. The only cardio equipament in my gym are 2 treadmills. Also, 2 more questions:
-
How can I emphasize compound movements during Hypertrophy I? What kind of changes should I make?
-
Do you have any recommendations regarding a good PT in Romania?
Meaning a full consultation. Giving advice on the message board is often missing the nuance that comes with an individual consultation and almost always ends up with more general recommendations. To that end, going through a template and customizing the recommendations is beyond the scope of the forum. I likely would not be doing any prescribed open chain (knee extension/flexion) movements until this calms down and would audible squat and hinge variations to the most tolerable right now. I do not know any PTs in Romania.
Thank you for your answer, Derek! I’ll emphasize the compounds, stop doing open-chains until my symptoms vanish. I will reduce the load on the compounds and if symptoms do not vanish, I’ll probably increase the reps and add a tempo component to them, but something tells me that basic tweaks like reducing load on the bar will be enough to improve my symptoms. Thank you again and keep up the good work!