[alancraig]

Somehow, I irritated my left knee in the past week or so. I think it was from doing squats heavier than I should have. It feels completely normal when I walk around. Walking upstairs is good. But walking downstairs isn’t great. Really, it feels inflamed and kind of weak when I go downstairs. I tried running just a few steps today and it felt the same.

I think I could push through it and it would feel better after running a few minutes.

I’m supposed to start my marathon training tomorrow. While I don’t want to lose fitness, I don’t want to do something stupid and have to take a longer break.

I’m not asking for a diagnosis or specific medical advice. But what would you do? Rest it for a few days and see how it feels? Do some other lower impact cardio activities for a few days? I’ve you’ve ever bumped your knee into something hard, that’s what it feels like happened. Not terrible, but not like normal. Any suggestions?

[Charles]

This is a difficult call.

For myself in similar situations I will do a self assessment during the warmup, I may extend the warmup period if necessary, and if something is not right call it a day. I’m conservative when it comes to health and try to avoid any temptation to push through – school of hard knocks lesson 101.

If you decide you can train, you may want to throttle back on any down hill sections of your run – the eccentric forces are a hidden trauma that could exasperate your condition and slow down your recovery. Even in normal conditions down hill running has a longer recovery time than level or incline running.

Good luck!

[alancraig]

I’m doing one of Steve Palladino’s power based programs. So I emailed Steve to get his take on this. He suggested not running again until the knee has felt normal for a week or so. So I’ve done (deep end) pool running for the past 2 days. It’s a good cardio workout and feels comparable to running, but without the impact.

Today, it feels noticeably better than yesterday. Almost completely better, but just slightly “off”. At this rate, I’m guessing that I’ll be able to jump back in around the middle of next week. I guess I’ll keep doing the pool running workouts and some strength training until then. I might lose some running fitness, but hopefully not that much – and hopefully it comes back pretty quickly. Thanks for your response!

[Author]

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