Front Squats and Pain above knee- opinions?

[Arien Malec]

Originally Posted by Alex Nowasell

i had a problem about like this when i started upping my front squatting, its probably a tight muscle or some.......it just went away after awhile with plenty of icing and foam rolling.

Same here - for me, this is a clear early sign that I need to take a couple back-off days.

[Alex Nowasell]

i find that if i backed off to get rid of all the discomfort that i couldn't build up any work load. i think u just need to make sure the pain isn't pain that tells u, u need to stop or completely damage area

[Aaron Gainer]

Take a week off, do some relaxed stretching of all leg muscles along with massaging the lower body, and try again.

More than likely, your quads are super tight. I have the same problem, and find the above do wonders for it along with smart training!!!

[Steven Low]

If it's tendonitis, it should respond to this protocol

http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/08/on-tendonitis/

I still doubt that's tendonitis though, but can't hurt. The stretching/massage should be good for it regardless.

[Jonas Lind]

Really hard stretching of the quads and hips has worked wonders for my quad-tendon problems.

[Travis Hall]

Thanks for all the replies. It is probably from a host of factors- bad technique being one of them, I'm sure.

I saw a sports doc. He had a look at it and played with my knee a bunch and made me flex and push at different angles. His conclusion was mild tendinitis. He said it was the kind normally caused by impact. For example when stepping down from up high and the quad/leg adsorbing the shock on landing.

This surprised me as I couldn't think of anything I had done lately that could have brought this about. Just one of those things I guess...

His exercise/rehab recommendation was to get into air squat position and let my body 'fall down' and then 'catch/stop' the drop just before I felt the pain. So instead of a controlled squat, I would let gravity take over, maintaining proper form of course. I don't know if that is a clear description or not...

It has been a while now and I can do full air squats painlessly again. However I have been doing sets of five just to be careful. I used to do sets of ten pistols

Patience.

I will be seeing him again tomorrow to check up on some other things. I will bring up shin angle and see what he says.

Kind of turned me off squatting though. Maybe I will try high bar or low bar once I'm healed.