hurt my knee, damn squats

[arnoldhart]

INTRO:

I've been lifting solidly for the past 9yrs(taking breaks every so often) and I rarely had any problems/injuries.
But lately as I've been getting older I've been finding that doing heavy squats are hurting my knees.

I've read plenty of threads in here about this and that, doing it wrong, etc,etc. I've gone heavy before and never had problems. My legs grow mad the heavier the weight i use. Lately I decide to slowly up my squat strength over the next couple of weeks. I take it easy, nothing to heavy too fast.


INJURY HERE:

I've been doing squats about 2X a week 3x5 both times. At first I my knees would feel a slight discomfort on the bottom of my squat on the heavy ones. But today was it, im finished and Im pissed.
My first set i did 325x5. no problem, felt ok.
Next set as soon as I got down (I go to parallel, no ATG and no half squats here) I got a sharp pain in my knee. I rerack and decide thats it, i cant afford to EFF my knee up any more. The pain was sharp and bad. But it feels better now.....until I try squating with no weight at all, then it hurts.



BOTTOMLINE:

I guess i will have to resort to Leg presses. not that I dont like the leg press, its just that there is no substitute for the squat. I see myself doing low-medium weight squats no problem, but its the heavy **** that really makes my legs grow.

I just started taking a glucosamine supplement and I will see if that works or not.

[j_polo9]

Reverse lunges with weight might be o.k. and are way easier on your knees than forward lunges which are horrible on my knees. Goood luck.

[Tyrbolift]

I greatly reduced my squatting knee pain just by simply stretching the quads before and between sets.

[Squeebo]

Did you start with 325 without warmup sets?

[arnoldhart]

Did you start with 325 without warmup sets?

lol, nope. i usually do at least 3 progressive warmup sets. Especially when i know im going heavy, i will do more warmups.


I will try the stretching thing in the future. i usually do some light stretching, but i will take it further.