Topic: Knee Pain

[Andy Dick]

Yes, soreness usually accompanies jumping when not warmed up.

[Arturo Gómez]

So, there are not ligament osteo or menischal lesion.
 That is probably a tendinitis, it vanishes with 2 weeks of rest and a month of only progressive deep squat.

[Matt Rupiper]

Andy,
I take offense to your comment on 'opinion.'  I am only providing you with the consensus of evidence and research. 

Yes you can get an MRI and not have surgery.  Let's just say in the case of back surgery, when an MRI is ordered, you are three times more likely to have surgery than when undergoing an x-ray.   What is that based on?  An image.  Images show anatomy only, not pain.  In the majority of cases they demonstrate anatomical abnormalities that have no causal relationship to the symptoms.  Medical imaging has very high rates of asymptomatic finding resulting in unnecessary surgical interventions.  When the physician shows you the image with arthritic changes and/or meniscal defects and suggests surgery, how will that sway your beliefs? 

If you don't mind me asking, do you compete in olympic weightlifting? It appears that this is the only activity aggravating your symptoms. 

[Andy Dick]

Matt,

No offense was meant by using the word "opinion," on the contrary I was trying to encourage continued advice because I did not want to seem like I was just disregarding what you or Arturo were saying or meerly trying to argue.  I said opinion because there are may different things I am hearing on this on both sides.  Those that have put hands on my knee keep saying get the MRI.  Then you and Arturo are saying otherwise.  I have not made a decision yet nor can I because my insurance does not go into effect until the 1st.

Are there different measures I should take?  Should I take the extended time off to see if there is any improvement and just risk it first?  As I said I was secretly hoping if I got the imaging that the doc (the ortho I would try to see is very surgery only as the last resort minded) would said you have nothing really abnormal you just need to take time off and that would be fine.  If he said otherwise then I would recontemplate my options.

I am trying to continue to compete in weightlifting.  But everytime I start to make strides or my weights start to really improve my knee gets painful resulting to me having to take time off again and then resulting stagnation bcause I keep losing ground.  I am not ready to give up the fight and stop training that is why so much consideration on my options with my knee is involved.

[Arturo Gómez]

There are two classes of problems in the knee
1) broken structures: rotulian tendon, cross ligament, meniscs, bones, etc. They are incapacitant (you can´t jump, run or make deep squat. Mechanical manipulation gives a good diganostic. They need surgery.
2) Inflamation, degeneration, micro ruptures. The movements and stability are conserved, but they causes pain (as an advice of the body: "lack of control, lack of control!!!"). They need more sofisticated means to be detected with precision. If  not osteoporosis, tumor, etc,  they  vanishes with rest, good nutrition, and accurated training or fisiotherapy.

I think that  your case is the second. When you need surgery , you don´t need MRI,  and you can´t  almost  walk. If you need MRI, in fact you may get well with a good care and forget MRI. They are two separated worlds

[Matt Rupiper]

Andy,

The reason about your competition status is because I've notice through your training logs that your knee flares up toward your higher percentages in the lifts.  I also notice your squat numbers are WAY above your classic lift numbers.  Looking at your numbers, right now I can't squat your numbers, but my classic lifts are higher. 

Maybe a change in training may help.  Keep your squat numbers low and closer to your classic lift numbers.  That would cut your overall tonnage by a large amount in my opinion. Here is more of my opinion, stick to classic lift assistance exercises and lower the squats to no more than 10% higher than the clean and snatch. Another option is to work strict technique and speed for a while (a few months) with lift weight squats. 

As I tell everyone, I believe you should always be informed...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15346110

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11585485

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19877094

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12905471

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11426019

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20587698

[Matt Rupiper]

A few more to chew on....
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21460400
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21820843
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21126847

[Matt Erdman]

Thanks for the links.