I’m putting together a plan for the upcoming indoor season and have been reviewing the CF GPP and SPP material. I am going to pretty much follow a CF short-to-long setup as closely as I can (with appropriate adjustments to volumes for my specific situation.)
However, I have been having knee troubles for quite a while now. Mostly it is manageable and I can do virtually all of the training and competition activities that I want to. But anytime that I try to get back to heavy squats or deadlifts, I end up with medial meniscus pain. Not terrible, but enough that it is sore for the next day or so and it inhibits my workouts. It pisses me off because I really like doing squats and am actually rather good at them. I’m continuing to play around with changing my technique, shoes, setup, etc to see if I can alleviate the pain, but so far nothing has worked consistently. When it gets heavy, I get pain.
I seem to be able to handle sprints, up plyos and even power cleans and snatches without a problem.
So my question is: how do I compensate for the lack of squats in my program? I’m concerned that I am only able to work the velocity side of the curve and will end up plateauing or (worse) getting injured by not including heavy strength work.
If I were in your shoes and your lower body strength was up to par, I would keep the ol’s heavy with post chain work and maybe slightly increase the sprint and jump work. Maybe you could try rack pulls etc.
Like tamfb said, heavier cleans would work. I’d also look into higher rep (10-15) SLDLs or RDLs. If your quads need work and you can handle plyos, I’ve found great results in using altitude landings (in a quarter or parallel squat) to build strength.
I’ll go fishing here. I posted a few days ago about the Bahamas TV announcers talking about how Allyson Felix was so strong in leg press but didn’t squat. I just caught the end of the conversation. Someone had to hear it? Details?
Word has it that Wariner’s main lower body lift is leg press.
But anytime that I try to get back to heavy squats or deadlifts, I end up with medial meniscus pain.
Do you have the tendencies to push out your knees a lot and keep your feet parallel?
You don’t use the Smith Machine, right?
Did you try partial (1/2-1/4), narrow stance back squats with slightly externally rotated feet?
Basically I find it hard to believe that just any squat variation is giving you pain in the medial meniscus.
altitude landings
Sometime the very origin of meniscus problems, not recommendable in this case.
I tend to do an Olympic-style squat - relatively narrow stance, feet pointing mostly forward. I tend to get pain if I let my knees drift inward, so yes I try to push out my knees.
You don’t use the Smith Machine, right?
Only to hang my towel.
Did you try partial (1/2-1/4), narrow stance back squats with slightly externally rotated feet?
Basically I find it hard to believe that just any squat variation is giving you pain in the medial meniscus.
I haven’t tried partial squats. They would probably be ok. The pain happens mostly when going deep. However, are partial squats worth it? I have always gone deep to make sure I get glute and hamstring involvement.
Altitude jumps…Sometime the very origin of meniscus problems, not recommendable in this case.
Agreed! Hard landings including altitude jumps and down plyos are not good for me.
Lunges will cause pain too. Basically deep knee angles coupled with heavy weights seem to be a problem.
Not sure about whether my knee is going to far forwards. I tend to do a pretty good job of “sitting back” while squatting. When the random personal trainer comes to chat, they usually comment that I have excellent squat form and depth.
I can try this. How high for the step up? My knee has had problems since I had a partial meniscus tear about 5 years ago. It healed without surgery, but now it aches if I treat it badly.
Have you tried low bar squats with a shoulder width or wider stance? Or maybe squatting onto a just below parallel box? In either case the knee angle in the bottom position is not as acute as a deep high bar squat.
I had a lateral meniscus injury less than a year ago. Front squats or olympic style high bar squats gave me problems, but shoulder width low bar squats were no problem.
Progress over a few weeks until you can manage a 90deg bend in your leg at the start position.
so - wk 1 might be 45deg
wk 2 - 60deg
wk 3 - 75deg etc etc
90deg will involve your glutes n upper hammies well. Esp if the joints/hips/ankles etc are straight, and you really control the downwards speed and don’t just Flop down.
That’s not strictly true. I do like squats it’s just most track athletes don’t perform them at a consistant depth so you have to supervise closely.
In another recent thread I spoke about using the power clean as the main strength exercise PROVIDING technique is sound and 1RM is close to 1.5x body weight.
Conversely, I believe the deadlift can be used as the main strength lift until 1RM exceeds 2.5x body weight (e.g. 200kg for an 80kg athlete). IMO this is the point where the CNS fatigue will be detrimental to other, more specific, training components. When deadlifts are substituted for squats the training frequency, volume and intensity must all decrease (which may be a benefit in terms of time commitment). 3x3r @ ~80% 2/wk is a good starting point.
Thanks David…your contibutions are always respected! I was going to try and bait you by initially saying ‘David W hates squats in his programmes…thoughts’
The 3rx5 stuff you gave me are working great. Thanks
