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Knee rehab stuff; Don't just work through pain: rehab it
Topic Started: Aug 17 2005, 08:49 PM (1,576 Views)
Frozenkilt
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I noticed a couple of our members complaining of knee troubles. Here's some of the stuff Matt Wanat and I were talking about for this stuff:

1. Find a roller and be really consistent about using it.

These are those rehab foam rollers that you lie on your side and grind along the IT band. My knees were fucked up for 2 years because I didn't rehab them properly and the IT band loosening was one of the big things that helped.

2. Stretch your hips and quads frequently.

During workouts, after workouts and even after a hot shower when all the muscles and tendons are loose anyway. If everything is looser, the patella will track better anyway.

3. Limited range partial squats.

Like with a rolled up towel or small basketball, etc between your knees. Concentrate on having your VMO fire first and squeezing the ball on the way up. When the VMO fires first in a squat, the knee tracks better. Reps in the 15-20 range.

4. One legged partial squats with the other leg up on a bench behind you.

This is great for VMO work. Again, sets of 15-20. You can do these all day, like 1 set every hour or two.

Don't mess with the patella tracking stuff. If you just work through it, you can end up really fucked up and all it really takes is a little preventative maintenance.

--------------------

Stretches:

For the hips, if you have a decent set of stairs, you can try this one:

With the top step sitting just above your hip (you lying on your back) and one leg up against the rail or just curled up at the top stair, just let the other leg hang over and out. You should feel a pretty good stretch right at the front of the hip. I think the Runner's Stretch with the back leg up on a bench or something and then pushing your hip forward works too.

For the quads, just standing on one leg while you grab the other leg and pull it behind you works pretty well.

The partials are all BW, yeah. It's all just to train your body to fire with the VMO first and to give it some specific work. Helps things track better.

Oh and hamstring work. Make sure you keep up on your heavy hamstring work. I find the RDL to be magic for this.

This stuff builds over time. You probably just ignored it until it actually got over a certain threshold of pain or irritation.

- Sean
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Frozenkilt
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A few other things I would say to ANYONE who trains and competes in a strength sport:

1. Don't buy into the whole macho 'NO-NO-NO' thing. Invest in a pair of Rehband knee sleeves and keep those things warm during heavy training and competition. If you have to, invest in the ones that help your patella track normally.

Warm joints are happy joints and you'll have your knees around long after you stop competing.

2. Make sure your knees aren't travelling TOO far out in front of your toes when you squat. It's almost impossible to get any real depth without them going forward a bit unless you're specifically built for it, but work on getting your form right so that the forward lean of the shin isn't too excessive. A form check every few workouts is a good thing. Proper squats help your knees. Improper squats hurt them. Be aware of slight tenderness that doesn't fade in a couple of hours.

3. Ibuprofin an hour before heavy training is good. David Shaw used to do this on his heavy deadlift days. He pulled 800 in his garage and wasn't destroyed when he quit.

4. Icing the knees even when they don't hurt is a good idea. If you've got the time, icing them after a heavy workout, even if they feel fine, is not a bad idea. There's a lot of tension going through those bad boys. A little refreshing ice soak will help make sure they don't get sore.

5. If there is a particular exercise that really hurts your knees, avoid it. It might be a temporary thing, it might not be but in either case, work around it.

Treat your knees nicely, kids. Don't end up going through 2 years of pain and 7 months of squatting <100# in a partial ROM because you were too stupid to see the signs. And keep this in mind: if you do the proper prehab and taking care of your knees, you can start squatting even more weight then ever before without any pain.

- Sean
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Llamapower
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Not The Mama
Thanks Sean, very helpful.

I've actually just finished icing my knee now. :)
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Jamie
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Awesome stuff, Sean. I'm going to save some of this.

Here's a link that someone posted on the old forum (think it might have been either Sean or Colin, actually):
"The Stretching Handbook"
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Llamapower
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Jamie McEwan
Aug 17 2005, 11:09 PM
Awesome stuff, Sean. I'm going to save some of this.

Here's a link that someone posted on the old forum (think it might have been either Sean or Colin, actually):
"The Stretching Handbook"

I tried to do the stretch in the picture in that article Jamie, but my thighs are a bit big and I cant really do it very well. :(
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Jamie
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Damn you Colin! If you'd drop the squats and deadlifts maybe we could make some progress with your stretching! ;)

Seriously, though, I've never tried any of the stuff--just saved the link for the future. I've heard SUMO has some joint problems so maybe he's small enough to get some use out of that link.
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Frozenkilt
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Lower Extremity Balance Stuff

- Sean
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Matt Frost
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What's a VMO?
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GrantB
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Vastus Medialis Obliques.

It's the lower part of the inner quad.
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Frozenkilt
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The "teardrop" by your knee.

- Sean
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Matt Frost
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Oh, the part that I had a really odd spasm in recently.

BTW, did you read my post below about my knee incident? Wanted to hear your thoughts on it.
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Krill
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This was extremely valuable. I was relatively sendentary up until February when I started training seriously. Then I jumped right into strongman training and have had persistent knee pain since. The stuff in this thread is helping.

I played different sports and lifted weights, but strongman training puts a tremendous beating on the body. I have never had a knee injury, but my knees have been aching all the time. This post really explains why.

Thanks for the great thread.
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