My aching knee

"Sam the Bam" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I was in the weight room last night, worked the
quad machine and the leg press, nothing unusual.
An hour later, my knee started to hurt. Very
strange, as there was no trauma, and I never had
a problem with the knee before.

This morning it was stiff and sore. I have iced
it on and off, though I have to walk around on it,
can't rest it properly. I assume, for the present,
that it will heal by itself, so I'm not going to
a quack immediately.

I'm not looking for a long distance diagnosis,
but have questions re treatment. How long should
one do the ice, what is the schedule? I also have
an electric blanket, when to start the heat
treatment? Should one interleave ice and heat?
The blanket has a sponge, for either dry or wet
heat, what's up with that?

For a start, Google:

Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation

The acronym "RICE" (of course, you can't Google "rice" and get what you
want here) will give you lots of good hits to read about caring for soft
tissue injuries. I entered all four, separated by commas, just as I've
shown above.

-S-
http://www.kbnj.com

Sam,
I have knees that have been worn down from years and years of
basketball, soccer, etc. From my experience, the leg press machine
hurts my knees far worse than doing standard free weight squats. I
have been doing deep squats and despite what some might think they seem
a lot easier on my knees than regular squats. I decreased the weight
that I lift at, but the deep squat workout is a challenge and I am
really tired after it. I have also noticed that free weights lifts are
also less hurtful for me with my bad shoulder than machines presses. I
like the workout from free weights better too.
As far as icing is concerned, if my knee hurts I will sometimes ice
it for around 30 minutes at a time, I will alternate knees. I like to
wear knee braces when I am working out, primarily to keep my knees
warm. I haven't used a heating pad on them, but would figure that it
would be good to use several days later when the swelling has gone
down. I do remember our trainer having me soak my ankle in ice
followed by the hot tub when I used to play basketball, this was done
several days after an ankle injury.

Good luck with the knees,
James