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Looks like I really needed to rest from all squatting and jumping for a good long while.

I read a very old book online about knee effusion. The suggested treatment was months -- not just weeks -- of total rest. I finally gave in and stopped all lower body training. Remember I was at the point where walking more than a quarter mile or standing more than fifteen minutes would cause my knees to fill up!

I haven't squatted with a barbell since early December except for a couple overhead squats a few weeks ago. My knees got better almost daily with the rest. Pain cleared up after about a month and effusion stopped refilling and actually went down. My left knee remained just a tiny bit puffy and so I finally drained it one more time a couple weeks ago. Got only 6-7 cc of clear fluid which has not come back.

I can squat down with knees forward without pain, though I get uncomfortable if I remain in that position more than a minute. I have walked for miles without causing effusion. I've even jogged here and there. My knees still get a little tired if I carry a lot of stuff as I did during my own move and a friend's recently. But I am largely pain and effusion free now because I've stopped traumatizing my knees with frequent heavy squatting.

This brings me to my problem. I'm obviously afraid that squat and jump training will never be tolerated well by my banged up knees. I figure I should take a page from the American style of training and limit my squats to once per week when I test them again. Clearly I wasn't giving my knees enough time to recover between heavy loading and use. I am also wondering if I should wait another three months before reintroducing squats.

My stated plan is to wait another three months, then do a linear progression with squats only one day per week, using wraps and starting with 1RM - 150 lbs and adding 10 lbs per session till I am doing triples with my old 1RM four months later.

This is actually an old routine popularized by Ricky Dale Crain. Two sets of five regular followed by two sets of five paused with ~50 lbs less. Halfway through switch to triples. Nice limited volume, half of which is paused squats which are must gentler on the knees. Very low frequency. I also like how it starts with very light weights, the kind I'll be forced to use because my squat will likely be around 60% of my old pre-layoff max (It was after my last layoff of several weeks).

Both my knees have been shaky in the midrange squat position, just as I start to descend and until I get below parallel. They were feeling strained and weak in the dip before any jumps and while I would climb stairs. Even getting into a quarter squat position to deadlift was uncomfortable. I could squat fine, but my the knees themselves just didn't seem to be getting any more solid.

Since I was weak in the half and quarter squat positions, I figured I'd get strong in exactly those positions. I started doing heavy ass quarter squats to pins with knees way over toes. Escalating sets of five. Not to up my squat, but to condition my knee joints.

We're cautioned to avoid that movement and that position with load, but it did the trick. Knees snapped right back into shape. The effect was as immediate as when I started PVC pipe rolling my quads and IT band. Immediate improvement in function. This won't up my squat directly, but I suspect it will stop knee weakness from holding me back.

Interesting to note: the effusion I usually suffer from squatting is staying away since I did those heavy quarter squats.

Linear progression on a Texas Method set up to get my detrained ass back to my old levels. Consuming mass quantities because I have discovered that my strength levels are directly tied to what I weigh.

My question is on what to do on my light days. I was thinking front squat instead of back squat and only as heavy as allows me to maintain perfect form.

But what about an explosive movement? I am not built for Olympic style weightlifting and I really don't know how effective that stuff is for me. That's why I started using jumping + bands as my power training.

I'm not even sure I should resume dedicated jump training while my strength levels are so low anyway.

Any thoughts? Maybe just do front squat with upper body press and pull?

Injured and then on the road for a couple of months. No squats since early July. Squatted last night, September 15.

275 was a quivering struggle. Quads started shaking on reps with 145. My max squat was 365 two and a half months ago. Now it's 90 lbs less.

Amazing how the squat evaporates so much faster than any other lift.

Anybody else have experiences with this?

I did something a little unorthodox in the base mesocycle.

I started each day by working up to a max single. Sometimes I would add wraps and see what I could get with that. Then I would do the work sets with wraps with numbers based off the wrapped single at the beginning of the cycle.

(Wraps are "loose" and consistently add 5% to my lifts.)

During the cycle my 1RM without wraps went from 335 to 365 while my 1RM with wraps went from 355 to 385.

I find it amazing that I got 30 lbs on my squats even as I accumulated fatigue. The base mesocycle is simply overreaching which is then followed by supercompensation after the unload week.

Do you think the 30 lbs of added squat strength represent part of the results I would have gotten if I just waited? That is to say, might I have seen 50 lbs of gain if I hadn't kept testing, but now will only see 20 more?

Or is it possible I have NOT YET SEEN the results of supercompensation because I've been doing nothing but accumulating fatigue? Might there be ANOTHER 40-50 lbs of gain to be revealed? Seems unlikely, but it is fun to think about.

Anyone want to place any bets on this?

Kelly Baggett:

Manufactured Strength Vs Natural Strength

Before I get into it I'd like to point out that no supplemental training method is perfect and has a perfect transfer to sport. The practice of adding strength and size thru weight training in an attempt to apply the benefits of that strength and size to a sport is effective but it won't ever be perfect. You're basically manufacturing something that wasn't there to begin with - You're allowing your body to adapt to one stimulus and then applying those adaptations to another area. It really is cheating in a way. The only thing that isn't cheating would be actually playing the sport and letting your body adapt naturally. However, we know there are limits to that. But this is one reason why people that have "natural" strength, size, and power will generally have a "functional" strength advantage over those who have to manufacture it. Reggie White, Lawrence Taylor, and Mike Tyson rarely if ever lifted a weight. Compare them to muscled up guys like Frank Bruno, Tony Mandarich, and Vernon Gholston. Manufacturing size and strength isn't perfect regardless of how you acquire it, but it beats the alternative and can allow you to compete at a level you wouldn't have.

I'm not the first to bring this up, but I still don't see much distinction between barbell use and steroid use.

I know that steroids are currently considered cheating and that they're illegal, but neither makes much sense. Steroids help you get stronger, but so do barbells. Steroid use can result in long-term health complications, but again so can barbells as can sports in general, especially contact sports like boxing and American football.

Again, I know that steroids are against the rules. I just don't think it makes any sort of sense. It's like drug prohibition in general. Alcohol is more destructive than just about any other drug that you go to prison for possessing, yet it's perfectly legal; alcohol destroys health, induces aggression, impairs judgment (and leads to horrible life-wrecking outcomes), yet we can buy it and consume as much of it as we want...but can't smoke weed or snort cocaine because they're "bad" for us...

I digress, but I hope the digression underscores the point.

In my own case, I've more than doubled my strength levels from where they were in my early twenties, at least by a couple of measures. I'm far more athletic than I was 15 years ago when I was in my "prime" because of barbell use, particularly the almighty barbell back squat. I've gone from 130 lbs to 180 lbs by taking my unequipped full squat from ~150 to ~350. I've sort of wrecked my knees in the pursuit of squat strength, but I can still do every physical activity better than my 18-20-year-old self could; my knees just hurt a lot more when I do it.

There are those who would argue that I used my "natural" or inherent chemistry in building up my strength. But the fact is I used the assistance of a very unnatural artifact of industrial civilization--the rotating collar barbell--to alter the structure and functioning of my body. I built strength that did not come naturally by "unnatural" means. In the past only natural athletes, those who were big, strong and fast just because that's how they were, had a chance of competing at any meaningful level. Barbell training changed that and gave the naturally small, weak and slow a way to make themselves bigger, stronger and faster than they would have been otherwise, even with diligent participation in their sport. Serious athletes nowadays go outside their sport to acquire strength with barbells (and with steroids) and then apply that new strength in their sport. 

I would not have become so much bigger, stronger and faster just by running, swinging from trees and lifting rocks. It took very detailed programming of the use of man-made objects to get me where I am. The man-made objects in my case were the barbell, weight plates and a squat rack. Would it have really been so bad if I added chemical supplementation to that to take me even further?

Our culture is one steeped in myths about the wickedness of drugs (except alcohol, at least these days). It's not unlike the American South where there are cultural fears that black men are ticking white-women-rape bombs. Steroids are like the lurking Negroes of the world of S&C lily white womanhood in the Old South. Those who would protect the virtue of the S&C world gotta string up them damn steroids every chance they get.

Also, there's this pride in building strength "naturally" that makes me chuckle. I'm a guy who cheered when he got his first 135-lb back squat because that was a hug accomplishment to me when I was a 120-lb adult. I built my strength "naturally" up to a 365-lb squat recently (using loose knee wraps; I'm getting old). But how "natural" was that strength really? "Natural" strength would be the 200-lb 15-year-old who squats 315 deep for a few reps the first time he walks into a gym (I believe Andy Bolton worked up to 405 his first time under the bar).

I'm not writing this to convince anyone. My mind's made up and I'm sure yours is too. I just know that while I acknowledge that steroid-use is cheating under almost all current rules (except untested powerlifting feds), I think that policy is the outcome of hysteria and something like superstition.

Thanks for reading.

I took the advice to keep my shins near-vertical in most of my squatting. I wasn't playing any sports (just powerlifting) and over time I've discovered that I've lost strength in my knees in the knees-over-toes position. This is the position the knees assume when braking a quick run or descending into a powerful jump.

I've started doing higher bar squats which get the knees out a little farther over the toes, as well as some occasional front squats. They've helped, but I've still been feeling very unstable in the knees forward position.

Lately I've adopted daily bodyweight Hindu squats so my knees could get some strength in that position, but recently I discovered that quarter/half Hindu squats are even better. This is the position that PTs have been trendily warning people from getting into. But if you don't use it, you'll lose it. I'm regaining strength in that position and my knees are feeling better.

To see what I mean, stand up straight. Rise up onto the balls of your feet and let your knees bend so that they go way forward of the toes. Keep the torso upright and descend just a few inches so that your torso remains upright and you end up well above a parallel squat.

I'd lost the ability to maintain that position at all. I'm reacquiring it now. I do high rep bodyweight-only sets of Hindu squats to the full and half positions. I will hold both every few reps or so.

It's sad that the trend for the past few years has been to treat knees-forward as unnatural and even dangerous. I trace it to one style of squatting suited to multi-ply geared powerlifting becoming enormously popular. We've been pretending that quads aren't that important for athletic movement and that athletes never have their knees way in front of their toes on the field. But being strong in the knees forward position isn't just the prerogative of athletes; it's a basic trait of healthy knees. Being able to good-morning squat several hundred pounds while being too weak in the knees to squat with knees forward screams of imbalance.