Squats after severed kneecap

[MrRedHat]

I’ve gone through a few Starting Strength workout sessions and I’m progressing great. About 20 years ago I severed my kneecap in the middle. Part of my kneecap was even sticking out my skin on my knee. During the surgery, the doctor screwed two screws in the middle of the kneecap and then ran some, for a lack of better terminology, stainless-steel wire rope through the screws over the top of my knee cap. He even made groves in the top my kneecap for the wires. Over the past twenty years, it seems like bone has grown over the wires because I used to be able to feel the wire, but now I don’t. At the time the doctor said the only other damage that I had was a little bit of cartilage damage. Otherwise, for the past 20 years it hasn’t bothered me.

Squats don’t hurt my knee and in fact they seem to have improved my knee. I used to have a “clicking” sound when I would ride my exercise bike and now that sound is almost gone. My bad knee leg is weaker than my good knee though. I do have a grinding sound, but it doesn’t hurt or bother me any.

I’m just curious if anyone else has gone through a similar situation and if there is anything I should be aware of when doing squats as I add more weight. I’m also wondering anyone thinks my kneecap is weaker than it was before the break? Or would it be stronger, seeing as I have screws and some wire holding it together? I would assume bone grows back just as strong as it was before?

[chrisd]

I’ve gone through a few Starting Strength workout sessions and I’m progressing great. About 20 years ago I severed my kneecap in the middle. Part of my kneecap was even sticking out my skin on my knee. During the surgery, the doctor screwed two screws in the middle of the kneecap and then ran some, for a lack of better terminology, stainless-steel wire rope through the screws over the top of my knee cap. He even made groves in the top my kneecap for the wires. Over the past twenty years, it seems like bone has grown over the wires because I used to be able to feel the wire, but now I don’t. At the time the doctor said the only other damage that I had was a little bit of cartilage damage. Otherwise, for the past 20 years it hasn’t bothered me.

Squats don’t hurt my knee and in fact they seem to have improved my knee. I used to have a “clicking” sound when I would ride my exercise bike and now that sound is almost gone. My bad knee leg is weaker than my good knee though. I do have a grinding sound, but it doesn’t hurt or bother me any.

I’m just curious if anyone else has gone through a similar situation and if there is anything I should be aware of when doing squats as I add more weight. I’m also wondering anyone thinks my kneecap is weaker than it was before the break? Or would it be stronger, seeing as I have screws and some wire holding it together? I would assume bone grows back just as strong as it was before?

The general opinion seems to be that bones grow back stronger. I think that's because the bone is thicker in the area of the healed break.

I suppose you'd have to test it by trying to break people's bones, so I doubt it's ever really been proved.