Topic: Knee Pain

[Andy Dick]

There is none, I am able to squat heavy but am forced to keep the olympic lifts less due to pounding on my knee.  So instead of keeping my squats low to keep them in a relationship to my lifts I am allowed to just keep pushing my squats until I am able to start moving my olympic lifts up faster.  Then they will probably back off some.

[Andy Dick]

Ok this will probably be the last post on this topic I make.  I hope it is/was informative to some.  Currently, the knee has been feeling very good.  I had a stupendous lift day today:

Snatch 60x2 65x2 70x2 72.5x2 75x2
Clean and Jerk 95x1 97.5x1 100x1

The knee is currently feeling pretty good to boot.  Try not to get too bogged down on the lift numbers, I basically was to work up to 70 in the snatch and then 95 in the clean and jerk (today was supposed to be more focus on snatch than C&J).  Then my plan was if the knee still felt well to bump the weights 2.5 kg for the remaining 2 sets to see how it feels.  If my knee is still feeling good Monday I will no longer be under any sort of weight restriction in the lifts.

[Mike Sheard]

I think Knee problems may be more common than back problems in weightlifting, does anyone know how much truth there is in that?

[Andy Dick]

For what it is worth I think I may have narrowed down the cause of my knee soreness.  As of late perhaps the last 2 weeks I have been suffering more soreness than any of the other weeks coming back.  As evidence by my logs also as you will see the last 2 weeks I have had significantly more misses as well.  I blame the misses on 2 factors 1. just feeling crummy, 2. probably (the biggest factor) my technique has been off.  They just do not feel the same as they did when I was missing less often.  They feel less powerful and they keep landing out front of me.  Earlier this week during my snatch workout I noticed after about my 3rd miss out front that I had to save that my knee immediately started feeling sore.  The 3 prior misses (1 per set) were all forward and I was running forward on the the ascent to save them.  The other thing I noticed is I am landing more forward on my toes instead of flat footed.  I believe the combination of the improper technique and catch is putting bad stress on my knees causing the problem.  (I liken it to if I was constantly squatting sitting on my toes instead of keeping my weight back towads my heels and feet flat on the ground - ie the textbook example of a bad squat).

[Andy Dick]

This is starting to read like a soap opera.  This may be the beginning of the end for me.  I had a talk with the athletic trainer that has been helping me with my knee.  I was updating him on my knee from my workouts at the end of the week.  I was very sore in my quads and hammys lifting Thursday, I was to squat.  Goal was to do 6x5 working up to 315# for the last two sets.  I only finished set 4 with 305# then quit because my knee was sore every squat.  Oddly enough it felt good the remainder of the day and the next day.  On Saturday I told him my knee started acting up during split squat presses when my hurt knee was the back knee.  I played some beach volleyball with some friends, nothing serious that night and it got sore during the game.  But then felt fine on Sunday.

He told me that I may have to come to grips with the fact that there is some sort of defect in my knee and or something floating around in there causing the problem.  He said the length of time I have been struggling with this and the odd nature of soreness coming and going very rapidly does not bode well for something less serious.  He stressed that I need an MRI to make sure we know exactly what is wrong.  But we both agreed that it was out of the question based on me having no insurance.  My situation seems very grim and may require surgery but depending on how bad things are in my knee when I can actually get it checked out could mean the end.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Very sorry to hear this news, Andy. Keep your head up.

[Mike Sheard]

I suffered for years with knee pain, yet recently it has hardly been any trouble at all... and I always thought something was wrong, the twinges, lack of muscular control particually after squatting, but maybe just a few conditioning sets or alternative exercises may be a good idea for long term relief and help with weightlifting and every day life in the future... but I wish you the best of luck whatever you choose to do.

Mike

[Andy Dick]

I am not going to make a final decision until I get the MRI.  All we can do now is just play it by ear if something makes it sore then lay off it.  Yesterday it was sore every set of squat 225 warm up and on (it has not felt this bad since I took the two weeks of months ago, except starting the workout it felt perfectly fine).  I tried to work through it and that was a mistake it is very sore today.  My 2 options I have coming is I may be eligable for badger care (state insurance) in September when my wife has her baby, depends if they deem I make too much money or not.  Otherwise, once my wife gets through with her schooling she will be able to get a nursing job which will hopefully get insurance which may be the beginning of next year.  The third, and also a long shot, is the HS makes my position full time, which they keep promising but are not doing, as of right now they have not officially said it is not going to be full time but all signs and hints point to it being part time.