yeah, I got some squats to depth and it changed nothing in the way my knee felt, so I figured **** it, why not do a full meet? Dr K had no objections. He did say that I should get an MRI.

Thanks!


Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks!


I have videos of all the lifts, but I haven't had time to organize them yet. I wrapped my left knee for all my bench attempts. I'm the only person I've ever seen wrap one knee to bench press, lol.


I just made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for this Wednesday. I'm fully expecting him to tell me I need to get an MRI.

Wow, that 650 pull looked fast. Well done!

thanks!

I got a copy of the meet results. They did not count my age coefficient for the open class. If they had, I would have won best lifter. Instead I took 3rd in the open.

3rd open > winning anything based on age.

Awesome job! How old are you now?

Great stuff cha. I expect a huge post injury PR next meet!

ok.

Thanks! I am 52.

Thanks! meh. idk how that will go. See my next post.

Knee update:

As I was watching tv last night before bed, the pain in my left knee got very bad. This is much worse than its been at any time since I started having problems. I probably only slept for an hour or two last night because the pain was unbearable. On the drive to the doctor today, the pain got worse as I got a mile or two away. I rate it about 9 on a scale of 1 - 10.

The doc took several xrays. I don't need an mri. The xrays showed bone spurs/arthritis in both knees. The doc said based on the symptoms and what he saw in the xrays and the exam, my cartilage is roughed up and that is what is causing the pain. My chiro suggested a few weeks ago that roughed up cartilage under the kneecap might be the problem.

The ortho is not telling me to stop powerlifting, but I should take it easy for a month or so. There is no fast fix for this. There is no reason to do surgery, but there is nothing that can be done for the damaged cartilage or the bone spurs/arthritis. I just need to rest it a while and take NSAIDs and do all the other soft tissue and mobility work I do on myself and to keep getting ART from my chiro.

He said to keep looking for ways to minimize the pain during training. He mentioned knee wraps. I said I do that for heavy stuff and told him about how I also use compression bands above the knee on light sets and he said that is good and it makes sense to him.

It is still painful. I got some kind of non-narcotic pain killer to help me sleep tonight. I hope this stuff works.

Sorry to hear, I hope it gets better.

Time go bench only in competition for a while?

Thanks.

Bench hurts my knee way more than DL because I bend my knees and use a lot of leg drive when I bench. When I DL, my knee bend is way less, so that does not bother it. DL only would be the least bad on the knee, and push pull would be less bad than a full meet. We'll see how squatting goes after I rest it for a month.


Good news - I took 1600 mg of Advil yesterday and that is working. I slept through the whole night without taking a pain pill and woke up without knee pain. Since I got out of bed I can feel something still isnt right with the knee, but the bad pain is almost all gone. I'll probably keep taking Advil 3 times a day for a week.

8/6

bench press (legs straight to prevent knee stress)
45x10
95x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2
315x1

A teammate had a used triple ply Overkill shirt that fir me and he asked me to try it out. Why not?

3 board press
455x3 - very easy. This is a lot of shirt.
500x3 - easy.
550x2 - starting to get a bit harder.
600xf. - The bar path started straight up. I corrected it and got it moving again, which is pretty cool considering it was halfway up and stopped, but I couldnt get it locked out. This one took a lot out of me.

It should be noted that I got no leg drive on any of these, and my left foot slipped off the floor and was in the air on some of them. That's a lot of weight to move with no leg drive.

This shirt is ridiculous. People who cant bench 900+ probably should not be using a triple ply shirt like this. I would guess it would take me 800+ to touch anything to my chest in this shirt, and that amount of weight would probably either break my arms or get stapled to my chest. The guy who sold it to my teammate bombed out of multiple meets in it because he had trouble touching ~715. Other than doing high board work with ridiculous amounts of weight, I can not see how this shirt would be useful to me. The guy who owns it struggles to bench much over 400, so I cant see how it will ever be very useful to him.

A SHW teammate had the bar roll out of his hands with 550 on it. I was the primary side spotter on one side. It went down so fast we could barely see it. The board protected him a bit, but it barely took any of the load because me and the other side spotter were ready with our hands clasped together under the bar. It was scary, but he wasn't hurt at all. I helped save a life today

chaos pushups
10x2

cable rows
70x15
90x12
110x10

8/9

speed bench
45x15
95x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2x7

cable rows & face pulls

I am still benching with straight legs and I will be for a while.

I had an MRI done on the knee today and am seeing a sports medicine specialist who does a lot of different types of procedures that have a good chance of helping improve this, hopefully permanently.

My chiro did some research and helped me find this guy. I talked on the phone with this doc for about a half hour the other day. I am impressed. I see him a week from today.

8/11

DL
235x5x2
325x3
415x2

suit
505x1
585x1 - I was going to do a double or two here, but the suit kind of smashed my nut a little when I put the first rep down. I am trying to baby my knee as well, so I figured I'd stop here and move on.

reverse hypers
180x15, 15, 20 lolcardio
These made me feel pretty good. I should do a lot more of them going forward. There is no stress at all on the knee and they work a lot of muscles that stabilize the knees. GHRs kind of bother my knee sometimes, so I am laying off them for now.

For some reason I thought you were closer to my age. You're still a youngster with hopefully a bunch of good lifting years ahead of you. Cheers!

Thanks! I think we are probably the two oldest active guys in this forum.

8/13

bench press (legs straight)
45x15
95x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2
315x1

size 54 rage x
3 board press
455x2
500x1

size 52 rage x
3 board press
545x1
585xf, f - the first one, it was a little slow off the board because of no leg drive. I got the left arm locked and the right one was about an inch away before it stalled. The second one was terrible - it went straight up about halfway and came down.

pushups
20
vs green band - 15

cable rows & face pulls

8/16

speed bench (legs straight)

45x15
95x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2x5
315x2x2

face pulls & cable rows

8/18

DL
225x5x2
315x3
405x2

suit
495x1
545x1
595x2

reverse hypers
180x15x2

I saw the sports medicine guy today and was very impressed with his knowledge and abilities, but the type of procedure he is recommending is expensive. I have decisions to make.

He showed me the MRI and explained that, then did a physical examination and explained more and did an ultrasound and explained more. My knee is not super bad and can likely be fixed permanently in one treatment, but its possible that it might need two. This would correct a loose/damaged ACL, a small patella tear, some cartilage damage and a few other things that are going on. The ACL being loose is apparently causing my kneecap to track too far to the outside and that might be causing pain and other issues. He said my right ACL is much more stable than the left one, and that my MCLs and PCLs are solid.

The procedure involves PRP and using my own bone marrow/stem cells and making about 6 injections into injured areas. It takes about 4 - 5 hours. I would likely be able to walk out of the office. I would be sore for 2 - 5 days after. I can resume light weights almost right away, and could start maxing out in 2 - 4 weeks.

second opinion.

About how much is it and how solid is the science behind it?

thanks

I've been talking to numerous doctors and other smart people about this asking for opinions. Basically, all the research shows good results, but there is not enough for what the NIH considers proof of it working.

There are a lot of different variations for this type of treatment. The people I talk to seem to be in agreement that the PRP using stem cells is the most effective type of treatment, and this doc knows more about what type of procedure is needed than anyone else I have talked to. He would be using stem cells.

$3850 for what I need for one treatment with six injections plus a follow up appointment. There's something under a 50% chance I might need two treatments. Some people who have terrible damage need three treatments, but I would not because the damage isnt terrible.

NIH has lots of stuff written on it. Here's one example that talks about its effects on Knee Osteoarthritis (a small part of my issue):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4287055/

That's only a small part of what I hope will be repaired by this. There's a lot of inconclusive, but promising stuff written about this.

The thing that I do like a lot is that I am convinced that this doc I am seeing is among the best and most experienced in the world at doing this type of stuff. I'm 100% sure that a lot of the other docs, NPs and PAs performing this type of procedure are hacks and that this guy is excellent.

Two reasons I said second opinion:

A loose acl causing patella tracking disorder doesn't make a ton of sense to me given it has no patella attachment. I suppose if the femur and tibula get out of alignment it could cause some patella issues as well, though.

PRP, thus far, seems like very expensive placebo. The data isn't good on it from what I've read but admittedly it's been a while.

Stem cells, however, sound promising. I'd visit multiple offices before agreeing to any procedure. One might be upselling (especially since it seems like insurance isn't covering), and one may find simple stem cell treatment alone would be just as effective and much less expensive.