MPFL reconstruction and sharp knee pain

[hartley55]

I have been doing the SSLP for about 2 months now. I had MPFL reconstruction back in February so i am a little over 5 months since. The usual rehab protocol takes about 6 months to get sport ready (being able to play game speed at someone's respective sport). My surgeon actually encouraged doing barbell squats as part of my recovery but did not specify high bar or low bar. Since i was recovering I did not want to overdo myself so I started my progression around 60lbs and have been adding 5 every workout.

I have never done low bar squats prior to this program and have been self teaching through the book and various SS videos on youtube. As well as getting some online pointers from the great folks on this forum.

Today I squatted 205lbsx3x5. I noticed that I have a sharp knee pain on the top of my knee cap when I try to get up after sitting. My question is this a function of the squat, user error or just a function of needing a bit more time to heal? I remember reading that the squat shouldn't put any strain on the ACL or MCL but what about the MPFL? I don't think it is from my form since my knees are out during the squat. I do have hardware in my knee in the form of a screw and some absorbable anchors located in my patella.

I'm not sure if this is just a work through the pain scenario or give it some time and ease up on the load of my squat for a bit.

Thanks for any input

[Tom Campitelli]

I don't have any experience with this procedure and without seeing what your squat looks like, I cannot speculate on what if any form issues you may have. Given that you are five months out from surgery, I would not imagine this is as a result of insufficient healing, however. We'll see if anyone else has something useful to add.

[hartley55]

Here is my last set of 210 today. Any criticism is welcome. Hopefully this can help differentiate if this is user error or a function of something else.

Squat 210 - YouTube

[Tom Campitelli]

Your first rep was high, but the rest looked fine. Is the pain getting worse, staying the same, or getting better?

[hartley55]

I would say it is about the same. It's never during the session. It's been an hour or two after. Like i said before it usually acts up trying to get up when sitting or going up stairs.

[Tom Campitelli]

Ahh, this is tendinopathy-esque. This further argues for the hypothesis that your repair is healed, but may be bothered by the loading, or, perhaps, may have happened anyway. You have a couple of choices here. You can cease squatting, down some NSAIDs, and see if the pain subsides in a week, or so. Look up a loading dose of ibuprofen on these boards. That is probably the first thing to do. If that clears it up, gently start squatting again and see what happens. My bet is that the pain will recur. If that happens, then it is probably time to play with some eccentric/isometric variants of the squat. Down some ibuprofen and let's see how things go. In the meantime, get yourself some knee sleeves, too.

[hartley55]

Okay ill give that a try and see how it goes. Thanks for all the input Tom!