What's a good program to do without squats?

[lou t]

I'm going to skip deadlifts tomorrow and see if it helps. I think I should hold of on those until the knee feels more normal. Right now walking up stairs and getting out of a chair is unpleasant. Apparently Monday's squats really irritated it.

Rest up

[Meshuggah]

Behind The Back (Hack) Deadlifts. They've always helped my knees feel good.

[Soda]

It seems to be slowly getting better by "skipping leg day". In the meantime I've made some improvements on my bench press by doing both Bench and Press at every workout, 3x per week (sometimes heavy, sometimes light).

[David A. Rowe]

Osgood-Schlatter Disease: Read About Surgery and Treatment

Sounds like Osgood-Schlatter's Disease brought on by blunt force trauma. I had it growing up... pushed it so long in martial arts that my doctor put me in a leg immobilizer for 4 months. It finally went away after a while, but any time I'd bump or bang it it would inflame again. If there's a potential you have it, the only thing that really seems to heal it (from my experience) is time. I have a bone calcification on top of my tibia that juts out a bit since I pushed it long enough that it affected my growth plate.

[Soda]

Hmmm... You could be right. It is very sensitive to being bumped or dinged by any little thing (such as being careless with a 45 lb plate, I found.)

After two weeks of no lower body work I did deadlifts on Friday and it felt fine afterwards. However on Sunday I went for a 10 mile bike ride and it felt terrible afterwards. On Monday I tried squatting (reset by 10%) for 1x5 and it doesn't seem worse today. May have even been therapeutic. I think I might get away with squatting 1x5 on Monday and deadlifting 1x5 on Friday. In other words keeping the volume and frequency low to give it more healing time.

Does Osgood-Schlatter mean the bone was cracked?

[Soda]

I did some squats on Monday and it definitely made it worse. So I'm going to have stop those for a while apparently. (At least a month?) The good news is that massage seems to help with the pain. Eccentric leg presses might also be helping.

Unfortunately, I strained my left pectoral muscle while bench pressing today. So I can't even do upper body work now.

[David A. Rowe]

Usually, in adolescents, it's not a cracked bone but inflammation of the growth plate at the top of your tibia. Unfortunately, the patellar tendon attaches here so it's easy to aggravate without actually bumping it. It hasn't bothered me greatly in the past 10 years, but it HAS hurt like a son of a bitch whenever I bang it to this day. It may take a month... it may take 10 months. You've got to rest it up until it's ready to go again.

A good massage therapist can work wonders, and being that you're an athlete you're going to have a big need for one if you want everything in tip-top shape. There's a reason why all the major sports teams (college and professional) have massage therapists on staff. Could do some work on your leg muscles and take some tension off that tendon. Go for your pec strain, too.

Good luck. Hope you get back to lifting soon.

[Robert NL]

Pavell's bear program.

Deadlifts and presses.

[Soda]

@darowe, it does seem to be very slowly improving. I haven't done squats in a few weeks now and I'm noticing the pain has decreased although it's not totally gone. Deadlifts don't seem to bother it-it's the deep flexion that irritates it.

@Robert, that looks like an interesting program. If I understand it correctly, it seems similar to reverse pyramid training but with extra volume. You do a set of five, then another set of five at 90% of that, and then as many sets of five at 80% as you feel up to. Will that be too much deadlift volume?

[David A. Rowe]

The more you post on it, the more I think you have it or something similar. Continue resting it. Deadlifts do not put as much tension on the patellar tendon, as you noticed, so if they work keep it up. Be advised... this may be a long squat layoff.