This could be IT band stuff. Do you have access to a massage therapist willing to give you what Rip calls a "vicious" IT band (iliotibial band) release massage? I would probably start there if I were you.
Hi Mark,
I've been doing SS for about 3 months now but haven't been able to squat for 3 weeks because of pain in my left knee. The pain is located on the left (outer) side of the knee, about 2,5 inches from the centre of the kneecap and vertically just above the level of the bottom of the kneecap.
I accumulated the pain over the course of about 2 weeks with it being very minor at first but gradually getting worse until my knee hurt whenever I bent my leg which is when I stopped squatting. After not squatting for 3 weeks and foam rolling and stretching regularly, the pain has gotten fairly mild although I can still feel it when I air-squat and I feel it very clearly if I press on my knee with my finger (with the area affected being very small, <0,5 inches in diameter). However, after I warm up enough, all of the pain disappears so I never actually felt pain at the gym. I'm fairly certain the cause of all this was knee-caving and a lack of stretching and foam rolling which will be fixed in the future.
Now finally onto my question! I visited a physical therapist (as it's free, I'd have to pay for a doctor) and he told me I should leave out squats, deadlifts and PC's for a month or until the pain is completely gone. He also said squats should never be done with more than 1/2 ROM so while I'm sure he meant well, he wasn't too knowledgeable about weightlifting. So, I'm just wondering if a total layoff from anything heavy involving my knee is actually warranted or if I could start working out as usual, focus on my form and stretching and foam rolling to see if I could still lessen the pain in the long run or might this put me at risk of causing major damage to my knee? I have no prior injuries so as you can seem I'm extremely unaware of how to deal with them.
Thanks for getting me started in weightlifting and greetings from Sweden.
This could be IT band stuff. Do you have access to a massage therapist willing to give you what Rip calls a "vicious" IT band (iliotibial band) release massage? I would probably start there if I were you.
This sounds similar to some knee pain I've had in the past that seemed to be IT band related. I found that replacing the foam roller with PVC pipe (thanks to one of the Jim Wendler videos on here) helped a lot. I also just worked the crap out of the IT band myself using the handle-end of a screwdriver to really get at it. It's worth a shot to try.