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Hi all, About a year ago I had surgery on my meniscus. Everything is mostly fine except occasionally my knee locks up. I have found that massaging the popliteus muscle unlocks the knee immediately and I can carry on. It's an easy fix to a annoying reoccurance. My question is: are there any exercises, stretches etc that will prevent my knee from locking up in the first place? I'm grateful for any suggestions, thank you!

I noticed when I was doing a set of seizas on a day where I had some tightness in my posterior knee that when I came to the last 20-30 degrees of flexion that my knee would pop. There was no pain from the pop but it seemed to make my knee tighten up. I saw an ortho who checked the integrity of my ligaments and had me do some meniscus tests of which all seemed attached and I could perform the tests with no pain. I was traveling this past week so I decided to see if some down time would help. Am back now in my full routine and the popping is still there. It is not a normal crack or pop that one can produce by purposely cracking their knuckles or neck. It is a big pop that almost feels like my tibia and femur are rubbing up against one another until the pop which feels almost like my tibia is popping into place as a result. The only thing that I can think of is that I did overextend my right leg a bit a few days before the popping began. Anyone have any ideas, similar experience or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, what are some good exercises to help strengthen knee joints, like MCL, ACL? I have been doing twisting squats and collapse squats as Coach said in his podcast with Tim Ferris, am I missing anything else? (:

Hi everyone, I'm a 31 year old male with a love for gymnastics (albeit no training in the field).. and also with a knee injury.. My knees were already cracking excessively for a few years (probably from a combination of starting with intensive martial arts, sitting cross legged for long times on meditation retreats and prolonged travel while eating a diet mostly based on fruits for an extended period of time). About 8 months ago, I saw a doctor who recommended me an exercise to help repair them (this happened in India, I was there for yoga training..). While trying the exercise (pushing the knee down while lying on my back) with the doctor, the left knee was overextended at the first trial. It is not causing me pain, but few times already I felt like I was falling through my left leg. And generally, my knees feel weaker than they used to be. Could following the gymnasticbodies training help recover the injury and make my knees strong again? Or rather, should I be careful not to undertake this training as it could put more stress and make the injury worse? Thanks for your thoughts and advice, Giyom

I'd greatly appreciate your advices on an "anatomical" question. I'm currently training for the middle split. When I got into the position (with anterior pelvic tilt and toes pointing forward) as soon as I get past 10 inches from the ground I feel a sharp pain in my hamstring tendon just behind the knee. It feels like if I put more pressure on it it would pop or tear. I don't feel any stretch in my hips nor in my hamstrings, only in that tendon precisely on both legs. So it stops me from progressing and going lower to actually stretch my hips and hamstrings. My hips are much more flexible when I'm doing a frog stance for instance, I can almost touch the ground. And when I'm doing the pike I don't feel any strain on my tendons. One can simply stretch a tendon ? Or Is it anatomically impossible ? Someone told me you can only stretch muscles, the tendons can only adapt to the load. If so my tendons might be too weak to support the load ? Would it be better then if I slightly bend my knees to reduce the pressure ? Or is a bid idea in order to progress in the right direction ? I know that there were quiet a few topics about knee pain while stretching for the middle split but the OP's were talking about hamstrings pain. I can clearly feel it's my tendon here that is messed up... It is the white area on the bottom left of the right picture (grade III - complete tear). P.S. : Sorry if my post ain't straight to the point or grammatically incorrect.. English is not my mother tongue please forgive me .

Hypothetical question/an issue I am curious about. Let's say a man has a perfect pike, excellent hamstring mobility and very good, but not yet perfectly matching compressional strength when doing pike lift. Jefferson curls bother his back, even when worked with only 20 lbs. He feels the loading over extends him. Also, when doing a less complex move, an RDL, he gets more strain in Low Back and shoulders, but nothing in the hamstring. His current strength level is technically foundation 2, but when dabbling in foundation 3, he does quite well. The whole reason this topic was explored in the first place was knee pain (around the patella)/he was feeling and a personal feeling of being too quad dominant (strength wise). FYI, Unloaded, pike is fine and pike lifts do not bother anything or cause an strains. I have my own views on how to handle this "hypothetical question", but I was wondering if any coaches have experienced this with themselves and there athletes and what they did to improve the athlete. Thanks

I was unable to find anything through my searches on google or the forum, maybe I'm searching with the wrong terminology.. Any position that I am in for over ~10 seconds that involves complete knee compression causes the back of my knee to feel stiffness/pain as I extend my leg and for several seconds afterwords (I usually just jiggle my leg to help loosen it). Examples of this compression would be sitting on my knees/shins with my feet extended, sitting in a deep squat, or laying quad stretches. Is this something that is normal to experience? The feeling has not lessened over time as I continue to use these movements..