Patella issues

[danlightbulb]

Just watched Rip's video about the box squat. Taking away the stretch reflex could allow me to train without the knee pain? Can the box squat be a sucessful progressive loading programme in its own right? And could strengthening the box squat first lead to ability to normal squat later on once the muscles and tendons regain some strength?

When I trained normal squat I had a tendency to go too deep and didnt/couldnt have a regular coach there to yell at me. I didnt/dont get a very strong stretch reflex at the bottom position so had to manually cut them off which i find hard to judge. I dont feel deep enough when actually im too deep. The day i first got injured i was pushing for a PR having been intensely training for weeks and i lost tension in the bottom of one of my reps, knees slid forward suddenly which i had to catch, and i felt something go awry. Maybe a box squat would work well for me?

[Johnsonville]

Box squatting was a temporary fix for my patellar tendinitis for a while but it eventually came back when the weight got heavy. I was doing three sets of five at 435 when I stopped due to having a hard time getting out of bed or driving because my knees hurt so bad. From there I tried only deadlifting and wasted a bunch of time because my deadlift went to shit from not squatting and my legs got weak too. I went to a ssc and drilled the hell out of the low bar squat and have been good since. So I’d try to find a ssc around you and learn the proper lift and maybe wrap your knees if they are that bad. Also from my own experience my box squat didn’t translate to low bar much at all. I tried doing 225 low bar while box squatting in the 400s and was blown away at how hard it was. .

[danlightbulb]

So I’d try to find a ssc around you and learn the proper lift and maybe wrap your knees if they are that bad.

In the Uk there is just one SSC in london. I have seen him about 3 times, which did help identify that I was squatting too narrow for my lanky legs. He also said I had a strange deadlift - his words! Part of the problem I think is that i have very short torso. Im not tall at 5'11 but my legs and arms are long and my torso short and lacking depth. My deadlift start position has my bum higher than my shoulders - i.e my back angle >90° from the vertical.

Id like to see the SSC again but its too costly for me to see him regularly unfortunately, in terms of travel costs and making the special trip.

On the subject of knee wraps. I do have some thick SBD knee sleeves however I have read that compressing the kneecap into the joint can accelerate wear on the cartilage? For this reason I have always been in two minds about using them.

Ive posted about this before also but my kneecaps are very prominent - they sit almost outside of my knee joint not a neat round circle nicely tucked into the joint like most people have.

Probably need to accept im gonna be training just to stave off old age rather than pushing any PRs from now on.