Daily Mobility Exercises by Dr. Kelly Starrett Forums General Knee pain during/after squatting — what’s going on? Re: Knee pain during/after squatting — what’s going on?

#76182
AvatarNathan Richer
Participant

Hmm that last bit of info seems very important. One diagnosis would be this.

your injury resulted in the inhibition of your right glute. now when you squat, you rely on your quad to bring you up to compensate for lack of glute action. the quad’s overuse then tightens down all the structures around your knee and you feel pain there now.
so if you want to test this diagnosis, i would:
1. voodoo band around the knee. get those tissues around the knee to loosen up. continual squatting will keep tightening those up and result in pain. if this continues, it could develop into something far worse. smashing the quads and hamstrings wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
2. how’s the back injury? have you done a recent MRI to check the status of your spine?  if there are discs still bulging, i would find a good clinician to address the disc first before squatting ever again.
3. if the spine is ok, then i wonder about your posture. how good is it? you may be compensating in some way that is subtle.
4. good torso stabilization is key. do you breathe diaphragmatically? that is the correct way to stabilize, which is to use the diaphragm’s descent to create intra-abdominal pressure to stabilize.
5. your glute may need some retraining after so many years of being inhibited.  i would do right glute strengthening – ie. single leg glute bridges, single leg deadlifts, but also manage the right hip flexors – ie. couch stretch, gut smashing, smashing the rectus femoris, etc..
also if you try squatting, maybe with a lot less weight, make sure you pay extra attention to squeezing the glutes (esp the right glute) as you come up, as well as driving the hip forward as you get erect.
as for your disparity between the ankles, did this happen after your injury or was it like this before? it could be related to the lack of proper glute action if after the injury.