Possible muscle belly tear, keep training?

[phoenix]

Mark,

First off, thanks providing the excellent books and forum to help me get started with strength training intelligently.

I haven’t had any reason to post before (search function), but I was hoping you could take a look at an injury I sustained while being a drunken fool. I landed on my leg poorly, I believe it hyperextended, and the next morning I woke up not being able to walk without discomfort. This happened a week ago on Friday. Here is a picture from yesterday and some background info.

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1245/leginjury.jpg

Info:
22yo, M, 5’8’’, 198lb (gaining avg 1/wk on TM)
SQ 335x5 (lb)
DL 364x5
BP 195x5
From searching, I believe it is a muscle belly injury from the bruising in the area and the fact that it resulted from a traumatic event. The days following were scheduled rest days for me (been doing TM for a few weeks), so I iced, took ibuprofen, and did high rep air squats a few times a day to get some blood flowing. There wasn’t unbearable pain, only a strong discomfort. By Monday I decided to delay my volume workout, because I felt I was favoring my bad leg when walking and squatting without a bar. Wednesday I got up early to do my volume day, planning to go light in my squats and deadlifts if I didn’t feel confident my form was good / something didn’t feel right. I ended up doing the entire workout working through the discomfort. My leg felt significantly improved after training. Yesterday morning I woke up and my leg was still pretty sore and uncomfortable (after 11 hours of sleep / binge eating all day). Today I did my TM recovery day and the leg felt the same if not worse than during the volume day, but it feels significantly improved now. I still have full ROM, and I can’t seem to find a position to aggravate it other than flexing my knee almost as far as it will go.

I am inclined to think that since my ability to perform doesn’t seem to have been altered, I should not be a baby, ignore the lingering discomfort, and train on as planned. However, because it is still visibly messed up and I don’t want to make things worse by going for deadlift and squat PRs too soon on an intensity day, I thought I would ask for your advice. From the looks of it, do you think there is any cause for concern / a need to lower the weight, or just keep training?

Thanks

[Mark Rippetoe]

A hyperextended knee will not be a muscle belly injury. It will affect the ligaments of the meniscii to some extent. If it's better this quickly, I'd just train through it carefully.

[phoenix]

Understood. Speaking of getting better quickly, it feels significantly better this morning after my recovery workout yesterday (compared to being really stiff every other morning), but the brusing is still pretty visible. I'll monitor it and post an update if I screw it up again somehow while training in the weeks to come. Thank you for your time (and this forum as a resource).

[tnumrych]

Rip,

Forgive me for this question, I plead ignorance on the subject.
I have a question regarding the picture of his knee: Is the visible redness a hematoma? If so, aren't the tissues you mention relatively avascular ergo the redness is a product of muscular damage?

[Mark Rippetoe]

This is quite a bit of specificity to request from a guy looking at a picture on the internet. I have no idea what actually happened to his knee, and I won't hazard a guess about why he has a purple mark after an injury I did not witness.