Signs: Knee Problems

I think this could be an informative thread for people who might be experiencing knee problems or if a problem occurs.

I am just looking for tell tale signs of knee problems coming on and/or any pain associated with a XXXX kind of injury.

I was out today and I've always had my left knee pop, ever since I hyperextended it on a trampoline about 4-5 years ago. It never bothered me and I didn't do anything when it happened, just rest and ice for two days. I've wakeboarded ever since the injury first happened with no problems but my knee does creak and make different noises once in a great while and it does get sore if I stand for 5+ hours.

Just looking for input for me as well as others from people who have experienced knee problems. Please list what happened, what was injured, pain involved, and any other misc. info.

(Message edited by lseghatch on June 11, 2007)

Give yourself another 10 yrs...Then start complaining!

I'm 19 and have cased the wake enough times to consider now a good time to learn my lesson.

I'm 16 and after taking a hard crash this winter snowboarding learning 3's, if I don't crack my back before I ride when I land in the flats I feel slight pain. A couple years down the road I bet I'll be paying the price...

whoop just realized this was totally irrelevant to knee injuries, sorry.

(Message edited by wakeslife on June 11, 2007)

I'll trade you guys my 44 year old knees for your 16 and 19 year old knees any time. I would be down at the gym tomorrow and dunking on a couple guys.

I hear ya Air. I'm 45 and there are days my eyeballs even hurt.

im 20 and had knee surgery just over 5 months ago, torn acl and meniscus....i hyperextended it twice and never got an MRI, and then i did it one more time and just blew it out...cant wakeboard all summer but im starting to get on the skate so hopefully that will keep me entertained this summer. but when i did it, it popped really bad and there was a very sharp pain in my knee, it got really swollen and was super sore in the back of my knee for about a week, after that it didnt really feel that bad even though my acl and meniscus were torn. so if it keeps popping you might want to go get an MRI, my Dr said that i had torn my acl slightly each time i hyperextended it before and the third time it was just too weak to hold up. so getting it checked out is never a bad idea, and you should prob get a brace and wear it everytime you ride they help a ton.
good luck with the knee, they can really be a pain the the ass.

I am wondering how I will be walking in 15 years.

I dislocated my right knee 20 years ago.... and fractured my left one about 5 years ago.THe fractured one doesn't bother me at all ....the right one has hurt for 20 years...but I found the secret to making it it almost 100%...............................ride a stationary bike with light tension 20- 30 min. a day 3 -5 times a week. That has made my knee virtually pain free. In normal use I have no pain but if I do two days of boarding with huge jumps I may feel a little........but light years better than before I started riding.With the riding you get more blood flow into the area...which helps in healing.

I had bad knees from abusing them riding sleds in MN growing up going off huge jumps/buildings and taking impact after impact. A couple of years ago I tore the MCL in one knee and the ACL in another (separate incidents). My knee doc taught me some things I'll pass along:

1. The key to strong knees is strong upper legs. Work them out.

2. You can't 'strengthen' the small stabilizing muscles in your knees using big weights. I bought an Indo board and do squats holding 50 pounds on the board. My knees are better than they have been in 15 years.

3. I take Glucosamine twice a day. It's cheap, and seems to have really helped me, although it might be that it helped my knees recover from injury...nonetheless I'm a believer.

I just stiff legged a landing off the A frame at OWC Sunday and my knee looks like a grapefruit compared to my other one. I jammed it good. Got a Dr appointment tomorrow. I'm hoping it's just soft tissue damage and swelling hat will heal on it's own. I'm 51 and my knees haven't given me any trouble... Yet, knock on wood.

Great information, keep it comeing. When I hyperextended it, it didn't go too far back. It just made that noise (for those of you who have done it you know what it is) and I instantly took my weigh off of it and collapsed. There wasn't much swelling but it sure was sore.

As for working out, I go to the gym 4 days a week to lift and have started doing single leg squats with no weight on the bar as one of my leg work outs.

I'm hoping that I've learned my lesson (or at least some lesson) on my most recent injury -- and the lesson is . . . keep both legs equally strong. I tore my left ACL snow-skiing two years ago and had surgery. While I rehabbed the left knee during the 4 months after surgery, I slowly stopped working each leg independently from each other. It's quite obvious now that I've been compensating for my lack of strength in the left knee as I landed a simple w2w early in the season and my right ACL popped. Spent a month in PT -- my right leg is STILL stronger than the left one. I now spend a good portion of my workouts working each leg independently so that I can get the left leg up to speed -- I need it to be able to hold its own (and then some) for when I have surgery on the right knee.

You might want to add some hamstring exercises as well, not only ones that work on knee flexion but hip extentsion(sp) as well,ie. swiss ball bridges, single leg deadlift, romanian deadlifts. I also like indo board squats and walking backwards on the treadmill at a slow speed on an incline with a wider than normal stride, without holding on. stretch your hams between sets to help gain your full range of motion back.start slow and light and add exercises as you gain strength back.