Knee pain from squats (medial collateral ligament?)

[wdewind]

Age: 24
Gender: M
Current Training Status: Novice (max squat 235x5 at 180 body weight)

Chief Complaint: Knee pain on the inside of the right knee, I believe it is the medial collateral ligament (based on google image search), and I believe it is from squats. Occasional pain on the top of the patella, also right knee. I feel the pain when jumping, running, occasionally walking. Sometimes in clears up in minutes (ie: 5 minutes into a 10 minute walk it seems to stop hurting). Does not usually hurt while squatting, but if it does it hurts at the bottom of the rep. Sometimes hurts directly after, but it's not uncommon for it to not start hurting again until the day after squatting. This has been going on for about 2 months off and on, more recently more on than off.

Pain scale: Pain is probably a 3-5, it's not that bad but I know it's the "bad kind" of pain, and want to make sure it doesn't progress. Sometimes if I am running (like down the street for a bus or something, I'm not running for sport or anything) I feel a lot of pain and have to kind of hobble a little (that experience made me finally open this thread up). Mostly it is not hugely painful though.

What makes it better: Foam rolling legs seems to slightly help, I've also been using a lacrosse ball around the knee itself and that seems to help a little more than the foam rolling. Sometimes squatting even makes it feel better, though not recently.

What makes it worse: Running, jumping, any impact, sometimes squatting. Sometimes I feel it doing something as simple as standing up from sitting. Again, nothing terrible but definitely noticeable and not right.

How do your symptoms behave throughout the day: It does seem worse when I first wake up, and I sit at a desk all day (computer programmer) and that seems to make it hurt when I first get up and start walking again.

Signs and symptoms: I think I've mostly described this already, I haven't seen any visual sign of it. I can do most things without intense pain, but as mentioned sometimes even walking hurts a bit, and running hurts a lot more.

What I think I should do: Here is a video of me squatting 225 (sorry for what appears to be my buttcrack, it's just my underwear I swear! :P) http://youtu.be/pwTiva_V470. And here is another angle at 205 http://youtu.be/wntuUsUDORA, sorry for the moving around, I can get a better angle if needed. My knees seem to be caving in at the bottom of the rep, and I'm assuming that this is what is causing the injury. I also think my stance may be a bit wide. My read on that is that I should deload a bit, work on shoving knees out and work my way back up. I also have the name of a good PT in my area (recommended by Michael Wolf) that I will probably see for a diagnosis. Does all that sound right? Anything else you see in my videos that I could be doing better?

[hollismb]

Could be an issue with your pes anserine ("Goose's Foot"), in bursitis or tendonitis form (I'm guessing the latter): http://www.methodistorthopedics.com/...is-of-the-knee

[wdewind]

Thanks. It could be that, it's hard to tell from the illustration. Since this was moved to repetitive questions I'll assume it's just generic knee pain. I'll take a week off from squats, try again, if it still keeps happening will see PT.

[Trewarin]

Yeah, time off fixes everything.
As does PT.

Good decision.

[boot29342342]

I think you're right about the stance being too wide. If you narrow it by an inch or so, it should make it easier to shove the knees out so they don't wobble quite as much.

I recently started wearing Ace bandages for all squats, and that helped with my knee pain (I have an old medial meniscus injury). There is some discussion of knee problems and some supportive gear you can use in the squat chapter of SS; perhaps have another look.

Taking a week-long break and loading up on ibuprofen and then deloading the weight while fixing form is a relatively standard approach to tendon inflammation. I did this for another type of injury and it fixed it like a charm.

Anything else you see in my videos that I could be doing better?

Find someone to film your squats who hasn't signed the Dogme manifesto. The side view was painful to watch :-)

[hollismb]

Yeah, time off fixes everything.
As does PT.

Good decision.

Good one.

[wdewind]

Find someone to film your squats who hasn't signed the Dogme manifesto. The side view was painful to watch :-)

Yeah sorry about that haha, it was his first time filming and I didn't want to do too many sets that day because, you know, knee pain

Thanks for replies all.

[RickBarker]

I think he'll survive one week off, Tre.

[ayjay23]

Yeah sorry about that haha, it was his first time filming and I didn't want to do too many sets that day because, you know, knee pain

Thanks for replies all.

Hey wdewind,

any updates? I recently started getting some knee pain a lil below the patella area, and my searching brought me to your thread. I would love to hear some updates, and am curious how you solved yours. Thanks!

[wdewind]

Hi ayjay23,

Sorry for the delay just saw this. I haven't quite fixed my issues yet. I took about 3 weeks off from squatting (still did the rest of my workouts), and that definitely helped in the day to day pain. I start squatting again this week and the first time I squatted I got my two empty bar sets and first warmup at 95 and felt pain so immediately stopped and made an appointment with an ortho. Saturday I tried squatting again (low weight, just went up to 155) and focused on bringing my stance in and forcing knees out and felt essentially no pain, though I did feel a little pain after. Today I'm feeling fine and will try squatting again. Not really sure what's going on. Hopefully the ortho will give me an MRI and diagnosis.