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So, I have been away from lifting for a while I had to move to Massachusetts and I had to let my weights go. At some point, two weeks ago I started to have a little bit of pain in my right knee, mostly when I locked it or on the stairs. I think it started one day when I had to sprint in a traffic light. It slowly became more painful, but I could deal with it.

Well, I finally got a Gym membership and I started, as usual with a 5x3 routine, full body, since I have been away from lifting for so long. Being afraid to the pain in my knee, I started with 135lb warm up and up to a 185lb work set. Well, after the squats the pain has almost vanish completely... can any body explain that one? has that ever happen to you?

I've had similar. I'm not long back from a knee injury. When it got bad I had to drop all bilateral movements and all I could work on - on the advice of a physiotherapist - was single leg squats along with some stretches and some activation stuff. When I started back on Bilateral movements, first being deadlifts and pull throughs, my knee would always feel better. It would feel much more 'solid' / stable, if that makes sense.

Sometimes, when it aches a littel during the day or whenever, a workout of box squats, front squats and / or DL's would make it feel great. If it's ever sore, I can always make it pain free during my warm up.

I'm not sure the reason behind it. I do know that it's not really an accurate assessment of where you are with the pain. When I first seen my physio, he said "no squats or deadlifts". So, I found a loop hole and done rack pulls. Felt great, until the next day! Then I got told "no bilateral means NO BILATERAL!". ooops. Anyway. point there was that it felt great straight after the exercise, but the next day I paid for it. This is the case with most 'joint pain'. You generally don't find out if you've pushed too far until later that night or the next day.

My theory behind it is a couple of things. Increased blood flow to an injured or sore joint almost always makes it feel better. You'll get that from training, especailly squats. Also, if your squating properly, you're going to get your glutes working hard. Glute dysfunction is the most common cause of knee injury, by squatting, your 'switching on' these muscles. Since the hip stabilises the knee, this would take less stress off the knee and could get rid of the pain.

Similarly, if you have a tight ITband which causes pain in the knee, you can get rid of the pain by foam rolling the TFL, which pulls on the ITband when tight. Foam roll it, and stretch it, and quite often, the pain will go away. especilly if you top it off with some glute activation.

KPj

How about patello-femoral syndrome, corrected by balancing quads? Just a theory, but plausible.

Sickboy, sometimes the vastus medialis pulls harder on the patella than does the vastus lateralis. The patella then doesn't track properly on the distal femur (thus another name of the same condition "patellar tracking disorder") leading to pain. When v medialis gets stronger, the problem corrects. See http://www.exrx.net/Kinesiology/Weaknes ... or13238820

BTW, it's also known by the total misnomer, "costomalacia patelae".

Thanks for the info, it did seem like a Vastus Medialis weakness. As a matter of fact the pain has almost totally vanish, since I started squatting again! I'll stick to the low weight for a while...

By the way, how long does it usually take to get back to your 1rm after a long period of inactivity? my 1rm went down almost 70lb!

I was taught not to lock out when doing leg presses or leg extensions due to the stress on the knee joint. So it's allright to lockout then?

I never lock the knees really, but I do not know if it is good or bad... I assume it can't be good...