Apr

13

Knee Pain After Training Legs (Squats or Leg Press)

Filed Under Knees | 

I used to get massive pains in my knees after training either squats or leg press until it got to the point I would only train legs once a month.

In my case I had some previous problems with my knees during the time that I played Basketball and started Bodybuilding at the same time. Yes, a bodybuuilding basketballer, not an intelligent combination. I put in 20kg in the first three months and this is when my knees started to hurt.

Removed from that now though my knees were hurting after training legs for the following reasons that I was able to fix…

There were several reasons for the knee pain but they could all be put down to the same original factor, see if you can spot it.


First we was using too much weight. When we squatted and did not go down far enough. We used to take it down to the old “until the legs are parallel to the ground”. This gives a lot of leeway. Until the bottom of the hamstrings are parallel, or until the top of the quads are parallel. We opted for the former - it was much easier.

So I was overloading my joints by using weights my muscles could not really handle.

We were also using knee wraps and weight belts at this stage because we could lift more weight. But we were not just putting on the knee wraps we were pulling them to full stretch as we wrapped them around our knees. When we stood up we could barely bend our knees without the help of several hundred pounds on our back.

This of course increased our poundages but in the proces was putting unholy pressure on our knees from all sorts of unnatural angles.

One guy even took to squatting in a pair of stretch levi jeans with knee wraps for additional ’strength’.

We would often free fall the weight to the bottom position and then use the elastics to bounce us part of the way up!

On the Leg Press we then went and for some reason I cannot remember we thought putting your feet low on the plate and pressing from there was better. This lead to at the bottom of the movement our knees practically being forced out of their sockets by 700lbs or so. Very unnatural, very uncomfortable, and painful.

Finally we would finish our leg workouts with a Leg Extension Machine which we would then load up to maximum weight then hang another 60lbs of dumbells off it with chains. We would then proceed to rock back and forth in the seat throwing as much body weight in as we could to get momentum. I am sure this was the killer exercise. Everytime I finished these I could barely bend my knees from the pain.

Here’s How I Fixed My Knee Pain

First I stopped using kneee wraps and a weight belt.
I started to squat with a lighter weight and to go down as far as I could go
At the bottom of the squat I would rest for a 1 count then back up - no bouncing
Controlling the weight on the downward movement for all exercises
I wore loose, stretch material shorts for leg trraining
For Leg Press I only put my feet in positions which were naturally comfortable - regardless of what some idiot in a bodybuilding magazine had written
Leg Extensions we moved to a lighter slow rep type workout, 3 count up, hold for 2, then release over 3 seconds. This gave us more of a burn and less knee pain.
I took up soft sand jogging at the beach which helped allmy stabilising muscles build up and gave my legs a nice easy pump.

There are other factorsr involved in knee pain. If you have had persistant knee pain for over a month it is worthwhile going to your doctor and seeing a specialist for an x-ray to check what is happening in there. Damaged tendons, bonechips floating freely, etc all call for specialist intervention to remedy the problem.

You do not have to live a life with knee pain, many simple operations can fix even the worst knee pain.

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