Have had a tiny bit of knee pain on and off for a couple of weeks. Have taken some time off squats and bent over rows, going to try again tomorrow and then build in rows again later if knee is ok. Nothing major I don’t think, runners knee/quad tendon inflammation. Pain top middle of knee and even then it’s only 2/10 or so on pain scale. Age isn’t stopping my numbers too much, I’m the biggest/strongest I’ve been, but I am definitely getting more niggles.
It was my elbow a few months ago (golfers elbow), 6-8 weeks for that to go. Back to bicep curls again, but am still staying away from pull ups. I need to build those back in carefully soon. Now it’s my knee.
Nearly back to PB bench. 2kgs shy of 174kg. Squats pushing into new territory, currently 255kg, assuming my knee doesn’t set me back. Probably a decent bit above 255kg, but I always progress as slowly/safety as I can. I stay away from deads these days, but do other back work. I don’t really count my 300+kg shrugs, but they’re quite fun and I’m happy to even move that weight tbh.
It’s actually quite frustrating when you know the strength is there, but your joints don’t allow it! I think I’m going to really struggle when I get to an age where I have to stop dropping numbers or can’t do this anymore, even briefly compromising my training has been tough mentally.
You could try to supplementing with collagen.
I have a fairly major knee issue which I am trying to live with. To keep it short my left knee which I had an acl reconstruction on back in 2004 has became loose since 2020 when I went for a run. For 3 years I had really bad pain, inflammation and laxity.
I started supplementing with collagen in Oct 2022, first I started with a small dose 3g... then eventually I bought powered and started taking 10g just before gym session.
It absolutely helped me. It brought the pain from a stinging 8 down to a 3-4. However I still had flare ups.
Since Christmas 2023 I have increased my dose from 10g to 20g (medical papers that have researched the optimal dose say 15g, but I take 20g as it's just easier to take 2 scoops) and I have noticed a big improvement.
Knee is much more tolerant and resilient. I still have laxity in the knee but that's why I am doing my Bulgarian Split Squats.
You could also try adding a turmeric supplement as well.
Also just to note you should try to keep your vitamin c up when you take collagen as the vitamin c helps the body use the collagen.
I take 500mg vitamin c tablet.
---
As a side note, back in 2014 I was at my strongest. However I ended up dislocating my shoulder. For 7 years I had laxity and pain in my left shoulder. I was out of the gym for years etc... Over the years it got more stable but still remained sore. In 2021 I got back in the gym to try to rehab my knee.
However I couldn't press without pain. Anything over 60kg on the bench would hurt and shoulder presses where even worse.
As I mentioned above I started with the collagen to help my knee, but then I suddenly noticed a few months later that the pain in my shoulder had more or less gone which was a welcome surprise.
