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Leg workout imbalance?

Foreigner

Foreigner

Bluelighter
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Mar 18, 2009
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I'm just getting into doing leg workouts to re-build the major muscle groups of my legs because they atrophied in the past year. I've been using machines for this. I've been doing leg workouts for about a month now.

Today I have some knee pain on one leg. I had proper form during my workout, and the pain went away when I stretched my quads today.

I include all major muscle groups in my workout for the most part. My concern is that maybe one muscle group is becoming over-developed and this is causing instability in my knee joint.

Is there any way to know for sure that this is the cause? I don't know how to properly diagnose this. It's not like there are huge weight differences in the areas I'm working out. It's all pretty symmetrical. And please don't tell me to see a doctor, they don't know anything.

I almost never have knee pain, so there's no underlying condition. The pain is on the lateral (outside) side.
 
what kind of machines? avoid leg extensions, and if using a leg press or squatting try to go no lower than what would produce a 90 degree bend at the knee and keep pelvis centred above feet to avoid shifting undue stress to the knees. a smaller range of motion will help prevent injury when weight is involved, though if you really want to do deeper squats then switching to goblet squats can help
 
How often are you training legs?

I find that when I do yoga a couple times per week, the general pains associated with weight training are significantly less. I have also started doing cryotherapy, which I feel more in my lower body.

As for imbalances, one way to kind of tell is to have someone observe your form on a compound free-weight exercise as you approach failure. For example, I have stronger shoulders than chest and I am prone to flaring my elbows out on bench to use more shoulder power. This has really caused a lot of (right) shoulder pain in the past.
 
i heard from a kinesiologist but it seems to be common wisdom

Physiologists at the Mayo Clinic determined that leg extensions place significantly more stress on your knees than squats. Why? Because the resistance is placed near your ankles, which leads to high amounts of torque being applied to your knee joint every time you lower the weight. What’s more, Auburn University scientists found that people who squat long-term have tighter, stronger knee ligaments than those who don’t squat at all.
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http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/6-exercise-machines-do-without

used to work my legs heavily when i was younger, fortunately no lasting damage but for years had random soreness in the knees, now i just do unweighted or goblet squats and have slimmer legs than i used to but at least i can go for a run whenever i want without discomfort.
 
My gut feeling from a somewhat knowledgeable but not formally educated position would be that rather than a muscular imbalance, one knee joint is just getting a little fatigued. You might want to go easier on leg day for a while until this feels better. I know we've all done it but just training through the early signs of an injury is not advisable.

I would say try to use less machines as the range of movement is naturally limited and the supplementary muscle groups you use and your innate ability to balance will be impaired. It is also possible the support given by the machine means that while you may be able to lift heavier, something around the knee area (ligament, cartilage, other soft tissue? whatever you find in that region) is not getting the chance to develop fast enough.

Perhaps try stopping the machines for a while and just doing lighter but unassisted squat variations. Maybe scrap the bilateral work entirely for a day and focus on just bodyweight and dumbbell-weighted single leg squats. Have you tried pistol squats? Try these if not, in my experience if you have never done them before even if you can squat a lot with a barbell you will really struggle both to maintain balance and even get a reasonable amount of one leg reps. It is my feeling that they will definitely make your knees stronger also (although again, I have no science to back this up, just how it feels anecdotally when performing them).
 
Ditch the machines and switch to free weight exercises like barbell squats. Machines restrict your motion to a specific path which may not be natural for your body. I've found leg extensions are especially hard on the knees especially if you're using any significant amount of weight. I think they're useful for bodybuilding but that's about it.

thujone said:
a smaller range of motion will help prevent injury when weight is involved
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I disagree... You want to be using full ROM imo. For squats I'm not saying that you have to go ATG but if you're not at least breaking parallel you're likely going to limit your flexibility which in the long run is going to make you more prone to injuries. I know, because I used to squat high when I was lifting and it took me probably a good half a year to correct my form because my hams were so tight. Also, in a lot of cases in the gym I've seen people use way more weight doing partials than what they could do with full reps which puts more strain on the joints. As long as your form is on point and provided you don't have any existing injuries there's no reason you shouldn't be utilizing the full movement.
 
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nuttynutskin said:
I disagree... You want to be using full ROM imo. For squats I'm not saying that you have to go ATG but if you're not at least breaking parallel you're likely going to limit your flexibility which in the long run is going to make you more prone to injuries. I know, because I used to squat high when I was lifting and it took me probably a good half a year to correct my form because my hams were so tight. Also, in a lot of cases in the gym I've seen people use way more weight doing partials than what they could do with full reps which puts more strain on the joints. As long as your form is on point and provided you don't have any existing injuries there's no reason you shouldn't be utilizing the full movement.
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exactly why i was advising limited range, because good form takes a while to master. even Bruce Lee, an experienced lifter by anyone's measure, fucked his back up launching into his usual Good Morning routine with more weight than was appropriate. doing a more limited RoM on that day might have saved him the pain. that's not to say a person shouldn't be pushing towards greater range with experience but if you have issues with flexibility there are safer alternatives like yoga that won't punish you as badly if you should accidentally mess up.
 
If you have issues with flexibility or form you should work on those early on, not after you start lifting. It's a lot harder to relearn how to do a lift properly after you've already been training, I know from experience. And as far as Bruce Lee, you said it yourself that he was using more weight than was appropriate, so that tells me that he should've gone lighter that day, not that he should've compromised his ROM. If you have an injury that's one thing, but if not to me there's no reason to not be using full range of motion unless you're just lazy. If you can't do that with weight then do it with just bodyweight until you get the flexibility you need.
 
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true bodyweight-only or lighter weights is also a practical way, though try convincing new lifters that working with less weight will improve their gains :) a bunch of the real wisdom just sounds counter-intuitive at first
 
Most new lifters are morons tho. I know I was.

I can remember one time when I had just started getting interested in lifting I was at a sporting goods store and they had a chest press machine. Being the idiot I was at the time I decided I wanted to see if I could do the whole stack and proceeded to grind one rep out and POP! Fucked my left shoulder up so bad I couldn't even raise my arm past horizontal. It took me probably at least 2 weeks before I could do anything. Moral of the story for beginning lifters (and anybody really)? Leave your ego at the door and focus on good form.
 
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lol i did the same thing, injured left shoulder benching and that was fortunately my biggest injury. whenever i do free-weight chest flies now i'm 100% focused every rep, whenever i hear cartilage pop it stresses me out a bit.
 
Yup there's a lot of lifters out there with torn rotator cuffs that probably don't even know it. I've kind of fallen off of my training for a while, but when I was still serious about it that injury would still nag me now and then if I fudged on form or was going heavier than I should've been.
 
Ya, my only real nagging injury is my right rotator cuff, which undoubtedly came from going too heavy on fixed-path exercises (chest press, Smith machine, etc). I had a couple "blowout" incidents during my Planet Fitness days. If I don't stay absolutely on top of my stretching and dumbbell rotator cuff work, this can get aggravated if my form on barbell bench is at all compromised when trying to max out. It casts a shadow of anxiety on my otherwise enjoyable pursuit of powerlifting.

I agree that lightening the load and using full ROM is better than a shorter ROM with the same weight. Partial ROM does have it's place, but typically it is for overloading, not healing injuries.
 
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