Knee Pain After Workouts

AuthorMatthewV

For the past month, I've been training legs with heavier lifts and more frequency (twice a week). I'm getting nice results, but at 52 my knees (above knee cap to the interior) are sore when standing up from a stoop. As I teach elementary school...I stoop a lot! I've been chalking it up to normal muscles soreness from the workouts. No pain on stairs or walking...just standing from the stoop.

I'll take your thoughts...tia!

Matt

AnnPT77

My advice would be to get a diagnosis. Some knee pain comes from things that you can work though without causing further damage. Others cause further damage, and may possibly burn bridges when it comes to range of treatment options.

Even if it's something you can work through, physical therapy may be helpful. I have a combination of arthritis and torn meniscus. I'm cleared to do anything I can tolerate, but will likely need surgery eventually. Physical therapy helped me identify and improve movement patterns so that I put less stress on the problem area(s) going forward. (In my case, as an example, how I was going up stairs was a thing I could improve meaningfully.)

AuthorMatthewV

Solid advice!

ninerbuff

Likely tendonitis just based on your age. Having trained many clients over 50, training legs heavy 2 times a week can bring it on. Tendonitis is load overuse on a tendon usually in the shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles. Change your workout to one heavy workout then make the 2nd one more of an isolation or strict form focus on execution.
See if that reduces it.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

bubus05

At 50 in general I try to avoid any exercise that puts too much pressure on my knees. A knee injury is the last thing I need TBH. I am a regular in the gym and my main focus is on the upper body, even there I try to be careful, that doesn't mean I dont push myself but at our age we have to accept our body can't take the kind of heat like 25 years before. To work on my legs I spin or hit the road on my bike, a great workout, burns tons of calories relatively easy on the knees.

Chieflrg

AuthorMatthewV wrote: »

For the past month, I've been training legs with heavier lifts and more frequency (twice a week). I'm getting nice results, but at 52 my knees (above knee cap to the interior) are sore when standing up from a stoop. As I teach elementary school...I stoop a lot! I've been chalking it up to normal muscles soreness from the workouts. No pain on stairs or walking...just standing from the stoop.

I'll take your thoughts...tia!

Matt

Pretty common for middle aged lifters when adding both frequency and intensity.

Sounds like you are practicing self efficacy which doctors prefer instead of unnecessary visits and know when we are changing routines be it frequency, intensity, volume, etc...we expect some degree of feedback from the body.

Some things to consider which you may all ready have.

1. We don't "need" and really shouldn't fully recover from resistance training if we expect a strength, work compacity, etc...adaptations. We do need to practice proper load management both external and internal loads and balance what is appropriate to recover adequately for short and long term progress.
2. Using variations of lifts that include a wide variety of rep, set, intensity, etc...ranges are part of intelligent programming and following proper load management. This will bring strength and hypertrophy responses under the right conditions.
3. If you are increasing your intensity linearly, volume decreases may be neccessary to help with your load management.
4. If we are practicing proper load management any unusual pain we don't associate with normal muscle soreness should decrease over time.

I strongly suggest to keep your increases reasonable and utilize washouts or low stress week(s) within your training in relation to you as a individual. Hiring a experienced coach can help you with everything I stated.

DancingMoosie

It could be tendonitis from the quads not being strong enough for the lift, and then the tendon is pulled. I had similar pain above the knee. My solution was to lower the weight on squats, strengthen the quads without pulling the tendon. Also, lots of gentle quad stretches. You can Google where the pain is, watch some rehab and stretching videos.

33gail33

AuthorMatthewV wrote: »

For the past month, I've been training legs with heavier lifts and more frequency (twice a week). I'm getting nice results, but at 52 my knees (above knee cap to the interior) are sore when standing up from a stoop. As I teach elementary school...I stoop a lot! I've been chalking it up to normal muscles soreness from the workouts. No pain on stairs or walking...just standing from the stoop.

I'll take your thoughts...tia!

Matt

I have pain in that exact same location - mine is caused by osteoarthritis. (56 female)

AuthorMatthewV

Great advice everyone. Thank you!