Your opinion on a knee injury

[Dave 321]

Rip,

I recently started doing the smolov squat base cycle which has a lot of volume in it. I got about half way through the cycle, it was getting tough and I was finding it hard to keep my form in check, so my knees were coming in pretty badly at the bottom then about half way up I'd remember to force them out again.

Something happened during these squats to my right knee and it now hurts when I'm at approximately the half squat position; right around the area where the quad attaches to the patella on the left hand side of the quad.

I can walk fine and I can sit at the bottom of an un-weighted squat (hams to calfs) without any pain, it just hurts when the quads do they're part of getting me up again.

Have you had any experience of injuries caused by knees coming in like this and what would you suggest as a remedy?

Thanks,

Dave

[Mark Rippetoe]

What were doing before you started the "smolov squat base cycle"?

[Dave 321]

I was just following the plain old texas method layout, but I had about a month of not being able to get a full training week in so I regressed pretty badly. After that I came back to the TM and just didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I've got a competition on the 24th of september so I decided to get the 3 week base cycle done which would finish on the 10th of september giving me about 2 weeks to fuck about/recover/test maxes.

I actually squatted heavy again yesterday and as the weight became heavier I could feel it in my knee less and less, but standing up from a chair still hurts. Seems a bit backwards...

[Mark Rippetoe]

So you went from partial Texas method (maybe the part without the 5x5 across?) to a high-volume 4x/week squat cycle, and you wonder why your knees hurt. Is this correct?

[Dave 321]

No.

I had been doing the texas method as it is supposed to be done for around a month - month and a half without really getting anywhere... Not even to where I was before I couldn't get in any good training. Then I started smolov to try and kickstart things, and just because I was bored shitless of sets of 5.

I was asking what problems can be caused by the knees coming in, and what to do about it if it doesn't go away. I've never had any knee trouble before and this had me a little worried. BUT, it seems to have cleared up more so again after training.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Had you been doing TM as it supposed to be done, you would have made progress, if it was the correct program for your level of training advancement. Knees coming in puts a medial stress on the patellar tendon. Knees in proper alignment removes the strain. You have probably corrected the technique problem.