Dealing with possible knee injury

[edisav]

In the last few days I decided to retake my MA training after many years of inactivity. I started really easy, and yesterday I was doing some careful stretching exercises for my legs after warming up well. While doing this, I felt pain and discomfort on my left knee and stopped doing those exercises.

Today, I woke up with a very mild pain on my knee and it's been hurting all day, but what worries me is a sort of creaking/popping sound that I hear when I flex my leg. However, if I flex it several times, I only hear it two or three times and then I don't hear it anymore, until I repeat the same sequence of movements.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Should I see a dr.? Should I stop training for now? Could this be serious? Any suggestions/fedback is welcome.

Thanks

[bigred389]

Yeah I've had it happen and it happens to me now. In my case my doc said it was probably patellofemoral pain syndrome, mainly due to a tight IT band and calves.

For me a combination of thorough stretching before and after training, glucosamine, and switching running from concrete pavement to soft track/treadmills cures it.
That said, usually it comes back when I haven't been diligent about stretching after workouts, so that's what probably does the trick.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean it's the exact same problem you have.

I'd recommend trying to figure out what muscles in particular are hurting/tighter than normal. If you can isolate it to that, it might be worth doing some stretches.
It can also be the result of muscle imbalance, so you might want to train specific muscle groups.

[SweepEm]

Start taking Glucosamine and Chondroitin daily.

Your joints will treat you right as you get older if you do...

If you don't, you'll pay the price, sooner or later

[gregimotis]

Start taking Glucosamine and Chondroitin daily.

Your joints will treat you right as you get older if you do...

If you don't, you'll pay the price, sooner or later

Glucosamine is like the joint miracle drug.

This supplement plus increasing my water intake to at least a gallon/day has cured all kinds of little problems in my joints and back.

[treelizard]

I'm having a similar problem with my right knee. It hurts a little after doing squats, running, rowing, etc. I hear a really tiny crack every once in a while when I squat, but it doesn't really hurt at the time, only after I'm all done, and the pain goes away after a while or even sometimes right after I stretch out. I've had three people look at my form and they all said it was fine. I'm planning on cutting out nightshades (I hear those lead to joint pain) and also looking into glucosamine or MSM but I want to make sure I'm not hurting it in addition to making it feel better. I called a friend of mine who does sports massage to see if he can do phone diagnosis, cos I really hate doctors... The pain is on the bottom, probably on the outside of my leg in line or slightly below the kneecap.

[yoshinkan]

The best advice I know, what worked for me is to take Glucosamine and Chondroitin daily.

It's a no BS, I couldn't even walk (because of a leg lock in BJJ which twisted my internal knee ligament... 10 years ago!)

After 5 hours of taking Glucosamine and Chondroitin, I went running on the beech, I was stuck! It really works.

Also, I don't like doctors, they used to tell me that I must stop doing sports?!

[treelizard]

Yeah, I was planning on self-medicating with some kind of combination of yucca root tablets, glucosamine and lycium (goji) berries. I've been using dit da on it too. But the last thing I want is for it to feel better and me to unknowingly make it worse.

[OmaPlata]

go to a massage parlour and have it rubbed down right before you get your happy ending, or before and after, or just before. or just after