For the last 8 or 10 weeks, after a lower body session of some jumps and then squats, my left knee, right above and medial to the patella, has been really sore for any activity like squatting, lunging, step ups, etc. There is no pain doing sprints, or even jumping if there is limited knee flexion, but as the knee approaches 90 degrees the pain gets worse and worse. The knee feels the best in the morning, and gradually seems to get more sore and achy as the day goes on and after training, even if the training itself was pain free.
Before this session it occasionally bothered me, never in training, just would seem to get stiff if I was standing for long periods of time. I never knew if it was just general “patellofemoral pain” or some type of quadriceps tendonopathy.
Physio has been treating it like a tendonosis injury, having me do single leg squats on a decline board, but it hasn’t progressed much at all, and the rehab just seems to aggravate it. I would have thought that if it is the tendon that is the problem, that tension on it regardless of knee position should hurt it, but I can do things like leg extensions at the end range of motion with no pain at all, its only as the amount of knee flexion increases that it gets painful.
I have also got some ART done on the quad a few times, not sure if it has helped or not though.
The one thing that makes me think of a plica type injury is that if my knee is motionless for a short while, and then I try to bend and/or straighten it, there is a distinct “snap” sound that comes from the medial side right above the patella, where the majority of the pain is coming from. The snap itself doesn’t hurt most of the time, but it seems like when the knee is aggravated the snap will be painful. Before I hurt the knee, I occasionally noticed this snap, but it was never associated with pain, and since I hurt it the snap seems to be louder and happen more often.
Does anyone have any advice for this type of thing? Thanks in advance