Pain at back side of knee caps with deadlifts/squats

[Mark Plas]

Hi,

 

When I get into the starting position of a deadlift I always feel some pain in both my knees at the backside of the knee caps. I don’t even have to lift the weight. Simply moving into that position causes some pain/discomfort. The pain only comes when I tilt my pelvis forward in order to keep the natural arch in my lower back. When I don’t do that, I don’t feel pain.

 

I’ve got the same problem with squats, where I also need to tilt the pelvis forward in order to keep my back arched.

 

What can be the cause of this? And what can I do about it?

 

Thanks in advance,

Mark

 

 

[Blairbob]

 I'm having a hard time seeing how by tilting your pelvis forward, which I think means under, is keeping your lower back arched.

 

 Whether your hips or tucked under or out, it shouldn't be causing that sort of pain. That is something else.

[Mark Plas]

 I'm having a hard time seeing how by tilting your pelvis forward, which I think means under, is keeping your lower back arched.

 

With tilting forward I mean: The top of the pelvis moves to the front, the bottom of the pelvis moves to the back. The opposite of what you do when doing a hollow body hold. Also the opposite of what you call "hips tucked under".

 

Whether your hips or tucked under or out, it shouldn't be causing that sort of pain. That is something else.

Could stiff hamstrings cause something like this? The last weeks they feel rather stiff and I think it's because of some hamstring stretching I'm doing. Even though I'm not pushing myself during the stretching, my hamstrings are sore for a couple of days afterwards. I'm going to skip these stretches and see what happens...

[Craig Chambers]

Hi Mark,

 

I presume you are talking about anterior pelvic tilt from your description. This will increase your lumbar lordosis and 'close down' on several lumbar structures. The pain you are experiencing may be referred from the lumbar spine and associated neural structures, this could also explain the hamstring tightness that you have been experiencing, research exists that demonstrates the muscle emg activity increases when nerves have been sensitised. 

 

Please note that this is only a potential diagnosis among many, always beware people who offer definitive diagnosis over the web, I personally believe it to be unsafe at the very least. I suggest you get checked out by an appropriate professional.

 

(Just to explain I'm a physio here in the UK and regularly see this type of presentation. Can't advise who you should see as don't know your location/legislation. Here in the UK I would advise seeing a physio first)

 

Hope that was some help,

 

Craig

[Mark Plas]

Hi Craig,

 

Thanks for your information. I hope nothing is wrong with my lower back. I actually started doing deadlifts to get my back in shape and it has helped tremendously, up until the last few weeks.

 

But I may have some good news.

 

Today I first did some hamstring stretches with bent legs while also contracting the hamstring muscles and massaging them a bit. I did a couple of sets of 5-10 seconds. After that, I did deadlifts and they were more or less painless.

 

I think the pain started a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks after I began doing weighted pike stretches. Over the weeks, I was getting the feeling that instead of becoming more flexible, I was becoming stiffer! I probably overdid the pike stretches even though I didn't push myself at all. I'm going to skip these stretches for a while and see what happens. Today's experiment already proved to be useful: bent leg hamstring stretching in the warm up more or less solved it.

 

Hopefully I can get it fixed this way. If not, I'll go see a doctor.

 

Mark