For starters, it’s pretty common for an individual who lifts heavy-weights on a regular basis (whether it’s performing squatting or deadlifting movements) to feel something in their knees. It’s also common for an individual to wonder whether it’s a good idea or not to continue lifting sad heavyweights (or start) if they have bad knees. In my own experience lifting heavy weights with bad knees (in my case, knees that were simply in pain) isn’t the worst thing in the world.
*Before we go any further, I want to make it clear that the information in this article is taken from data that's been researched by other individuals who I'm not associated with. It's only meant to inform and isn't meant to be a substitute for seeing your physician.
*for more on what powerlifting is check out this article
There are ways to get around the pain (or rehab your knees) as well as ways to correct a few of the issues that may be causing the pain in your knees. For example, when I first started lifting heavy I had a major issue with my squat form that caused me to put a lot of the pressure or weight on my knee joints instead of on the surrounding tissue. This is one of the things that I corrected that I’ll be talking about in the article.
This journal actually does a great job of explaining injury dealt to bodily tissue in strength sports.
This is a video by AthleanX giving his explanation of knee pain
That raises the question of “Is it bad to powerlift at all?”
We mess our knees up on a regular basis (well, not really mess up but we do use them and harm them on a regular basis through that use). Don’t quote me on this but, we do put wear and tear on our body parts as we use them. With that being said, you’re going to put stress on your joints if you lift any kind of weight (especially if it’s 2-3x your own like you’ll see most powerlifters do) - that’s just a part of the game. If your joints (and their health) are of that much importance to you (not that they shouldn’t be but, you have to expect some accelerated wear if you’re doing this sport) you should probably join another sport. Just saying.
According to a study done by Sports Medicine Reports,
Sudden injuries account for approximately 60%-75% of all injuries observed, when comparing football and power lifters, and often vary widely in type and severity (2,30). New data suggest that sprains/strains account for approximately 46% of injuries, and the most common mechanism is dropping of a weight (65%). This study also suggests that free weights account for more than 90% of these injuries (17).
https://journals.lww.com/acsm-csmr/fulltext/2010/09000/An_Overview_of_Strength_Training_Injuries__Acute.14.aspxx
*the reason I put this in this article is to demonstrate to you that there is always a possibility of injuring yourself in sports like powerlifting, weightlifting, crossfit etc.
For this article, we're only going to focus on Acute injuries. These are (according to Lavallee, Mark E. and Balam, Tucker of Sports Medicine Review) injuries that occur with rapid onset secondary to a traumatic event.
These injuries can be broken down into 2 types: Emergent and Non-Urgent.
Acute Emergent Injuries
These include both musculoskeletal and nonmusculoskeletal injuries. Nonmusculoskeletal acute, emergent injuries that occur during resistance training include subarachnoid hemorrhages (13), spontaneous pneumothorax, hernias, myocardial infarction, stroke, and epistaxis. Fractures, dislocations, and tendon ruptures are the most commonly encountered musculoskeletal acute injuries.
Acute Non-Urgent Injuries
These include both musculoskeletal and nonmusculoskeletal injuries. Nonmusculoskeletal acute, emergent injuries that occur during resistance training include subarachnoid hemorrhages (13), spontaneous pneumothorax, hernias, myocardial infarction, stroke, and epistaxis. Fractures, dislocations, and tendon ruptures are the most commonly encountered musculoskeletal acute injuries.
Now that we have some backstory, let’s get into a few ways to still progress if your knees were as screwed as mine were a few months (about 8) ago.
Ways to still progress if you harm your knees
Warm those surrounding muscles up
I’m telling you, I was/am one of those guys who just hate warming up - that’s the reason why my knees ended up being in so much pain when I would go to squat 3-400 lbs. The muscles that were actually supposed to support the weight weren’t given the proper attention and thus didn’t activate - which led to my knees taking the brunt of the weight. Needless to say, it’s important to actually activate the squatting and deadlifting muscles before you actually attempt to put any load on them.
So, that raises the question of what we can do to activate those muscles.
The glutes are an incredibly important muscle group when it comes to squatting (they actually handle a great deal of the weight we lift during the squat which is why it’s important to warm them up (as well as the quads, hamstrings, etc).
*this section lists a few movements that can be used in tandem with the 3 main movements. For more, check out the full article on assistance movements here.
Glutes: When I’m trying to warm my muscle groups up I simply do high repetitions of squats with low weights (either the bar or about 135) however, if you decide to take the isolation approach you can also do movements such as Glute bridges (movement that I do occasionally, Clams and modified clams ( I don’t do these but some people have and said that they work), Side plank with dip etc.
Hamstring: Leg curl, Banded Romanian Deadlift, etc.
Quads: Leg Extension, kettlebell squat etc.
Hips: This was a major problem point for me as well simply because my hips were incredibly stiff and weren’t used to the weight that was being placed on them. How did I get around this? Well, the main movements I would do were lying leg raises, loosen them up with the foam roller, etc.
The cool thing about this is that while it will make sure that your muscles are warm enough to get under heavy-weight, it will also increase your mobility and allow you to stack your muscles correctly so that you don’t place unnecessary stress on your joints - which should subsequently take away some of the pain you feel when you’re squatting.
Make sure those thighs are powerful enough
The thigh (or the inner thigh to be more specific) is another area of the body that we should pay attention to when we’re aware of a knee injury or dysfunction. Why am I comfortable saying this? Well, because I just learned it and thought that it would be interesting to share. Who knew that the muscles in our inner thigh had a habit of getting overly tight and had an adverse effect on knee health when the knees were/ are already in a bad place. This is where things get a bit complicated but essentially you want there to be an even balance between both sides of the muscles that support your joints (in this case, the knees). If your inner quads aren’t strong enough or aren’t being activated that will manifest itself in stress on the outer quads and subsequently the joint (in this case the knee again). Single leg movements such as single-leg squats or single leg work on the leg press should help counteract this.
I used the leg press quite a bit
When I first started noticing issues with my knee joints the second thing I thought to do (the first thing was to simply keep squatting and hope it went away) was to start going heavier on the leg press and to slow it down on the squat (start working on my form so I could figure out what the issue was). Doing this worked for me because it kept me in kind of a squatting position and allowed me to adjust so that some of the pressure was off of my knees. However, there are literally scientific reasons why the leg press works (at least, there are specific terms that accompany the reason why the leg press helps correct knee issues). Essentially the leg press is supposed to take us through a passive knee extension rather than an active one (it also allows us to go deeper).
Use eccentrics (this was a tip I found somewhere else)
This was an interesting little factoid I saw on the interwebs (on a reputable website no less). You want to make sure you include eccentric movements in your warmups. Why? Because it helps us work on our bracing and control in the downward motion of the exercise (which in turn gives us more power out of the hole What else does focusing on eccentric movements allow us to do? Well, it allows us to go heavier during periods when our knees simply aren’t up to the task of handling several hundred lbs on both the downward phase and the pressing phase of a movement. Cool right? Not only that but it can help a person who has yet to endure any real knee pain build a base to keep the pain away (or build up the surrounding muscle’s ability to handle the weight. An example of this would be the 2 up and 1 down technique on isolation movements (or the timed lowering on squats in my opinion).
Go back over your form
This is a huge one (or at least was for me. I had an issue where my left knee would cave in when I lowered on my squat (which supposedly hinted at a muscle imbalance in that side of my body (or on that leg). Let’s also not forget to mention the other standard issues that we tend to have with our squats such as the butt wink, curving of the back, not getting enough depth, not pushing the knees over the toes, etc. Find out what the weak points in your squat are (I’m constantly figuring out which points in my squat I need to improve) and work on them.
Conclusion
And there you have it, a few tips on surefire ways to work around injured or aching knees in your powerlifting training. Believe me, it’s completely normal to be in a bit of pain (or to have aches here and there when you’re doing things like lifting heavy-weights. What’s not normal is constant irritation and excessive pain in your knees. If you have any other topic you feel should be mentioned or any questions on this topic or it’s research feel free to either comment or reach out with your question in an email.
Resources:
https://barbend.com/activate-glutes-warmup/
https://www.livestrong.com/article/149520-hamstring-warm-up-exercises/
https://www.t-nation.com/training/the-strong-lifters-guide-to-healthy-knees
https://www.nps.org.au/consumers/acute-knee-injuries-explained#what-is-a-knee-joint?