It sounds to me like tendonitis.

That is a very frequent misdiagnosis.

[Update: 12/30/2017]

Press 127.5 x 5,5,5 (PR)
Deadlift 285 x 5
Squats random BS working on form. last set 225 x 5

Press:
Definitely could have got and stayed more tight during the reps.

Deadlift:
Tried it in socks this time and even though it felt heavy it felt way better than with my lifting shoes. Thanks Cha! Will have to order some flat shoes to pull in now.

Squat:
So yesterday knees felt OK, but today they were aching when squatting down around the house.
Spent ~45mins trying to mess around with form at super light weights. Got pretty frustrated because I feel now like I have no clue WTF I'm doing. Nothing feels right.
The closest SS coach is 9+ hours drive away. I haven't found any 'good' looking gyms around me that look promising for coaching. I think I am going to buy online coaching.


[No Press video]

Deadlift:


Squat 225 side:


Squat knees out check (keep in mind the video is slightly tilted):



Funny story. I've been worried because I have been 'crooked' coming out of the rack. I was trying to fix it. And then today I discovered something...

[Update: 1/2/2018]

Bench 165 x 5,5,5 (tied PR)
Chins 1, 1, 1.8, 1, 1

Turns out I actually am doing Chins fine, for the first few reps. But after 2 or 3 I fail to be able to get the lockout. Probably just need to take more time between sets and add more sets.

Trying to let the knee issues heal a little so no squats today. Well, I did some air squats in front of the mirror.
Barely feel any irritation walking up/down stairs at the gym. But if I approach a parallel squat position I'm feeling it.

[Update: 1/4/2018]

OHP 130 x 5,5,5
Chins 1 x 6

Notes:
SBD sleeves came in, but are just too small (I'm aware of the tricks to get them on). New pair should be here Saturday.
I'm just going to rest the knees (no dead/squat) until next week. Depending on how they feel after that I'll try to resume squats with a light day, or once a week, or if they still suck a lot I'll start doing the pin-squat rehab protocol.

I think I'm going to stop LP at the first set of missed reps and not reset. I just feel like at this point I don't care to get the most out of LP (I'll get there eventually) and I'd rather do something that gave me more volume with slightly lower weights so I could practice the movements more. If I had an in person SS coach I'd want to run it all the way through. IDK, We'll see.

Here's my last OHP set.

[Update: 1/6/2018]

Bench 167.5 x 5, 5, 5
Chins x 1 x 5
Chin negatives x 1 x 5

Bench:
Felt very easy. New PR and this time with very strict form.

Notes:
An SS certified coach was kind enough to review my squats. In his opinion my old form (300lb video) was good, with no noticable knee slide. And my new "form improvement" video is not good (sitting back too much, toes lifting off the floor).
He said from his experience my knee issues are most likely just overuse / too much volume.

Knees actually felt great today. Was tempted to squat or deadlift but I figured I'd wait until my SBD sleeves came in (later today).
After the coaches opinion, I think I'm going to limit squats to 2x/week if I feel good until I get back to 300+ and then I might switch that over to some intermediate style programming.

[Update: 1/9/2017]

OHP 132.5 x 5,5,5
Squat 255 x 5, 265 x 5,5
Chins x 1, 2, 1, 1, 1

OHP: Went up well enough. I really suck at OHP2.0, I don't think I'm going to figure it out this close to the end of my LP. So I think I'm just going to strict press until LP runs out and then work on 2.0 when I get to work with lighter weight.

Squats:
Knees haven't been bothering me for 3 days. And the SBD sleeves are in. No better time.
It's 6ish hours after the gym and so far nothing is bothering me *knock on wood*. I'm very happy with the sleeves so far. Can feel a big difference.

Chins: will either start adding bands or go back to rows (or both).

Those ohp numbers are ridiculous

[Update: 1/11/2018]

Bench 170 x 5,5,5
Squat 275 x 5,5,5
Deadlift 255 x 5

Bench: Felt good.

Squat: Felt heavier than it should have. I definitely was in my own head with form and with fear of tendon pain. Need to let that go.

Deadlift: been 10 days since last deadlift so I went with a 20% deload. Form felt horrible. No idea what happened.

Diet has been slightly lacking last few days. Like I missed calories by 500-800 a couple nights and only got 150ish grams protein each night. Did well today.

SBD Sleeves still feel awesome. Glad I got them.

Thanks! Looking forward to putting the blue plates on in 2 days. That was always a milestone. Wasn't sure I'd even get there while still on novice LP.

[Update: 1/13/2018]

OHP 135 x 5,5,5
Squat 285 x 5,5,5
Rows 135 x 5,5,5

OHP: First milestone PR. Had a moment on the last rep where I thought I was going to have to bail the weight, but I somehow locked it out.

Squats:
Played around with some stuff but mostly tried to get out of my own head. Knees feeling even better so far.
Loving these SBD sleeves still.

Rows: probably could've added more, but I was pretty tired from the OHP/squats. I'll jump 10lbs for a week or two probably.

Diet:
Been slacking on hitting enough calories lately. I've been 198-199 for like 2 weeks now.

Squat looks good - no/minimal lower back movement in the hole. The video only shows four reps, though, but the weight looked easy. I bet you've got 315x5x3+ on this LP before you slow down.

Thanks Montecore!
Can confirm I actually hit 5 on this set. Just accidentally cut the first one when uploading to YouTube.
I got all the reps on my Insta, where it really counts.

Yeah, weight was super easy. I actually accidentally hit 6 reps first set because I was more focused on playing around with different form cues.
I hit a 300 x 5 x 3 that was easy enough (2 weeks ago) that I think you're right about 315+. Probably also depends on if I get myself to eat not -500+ from what I want to be.

[Update: 1/16/2018]

Squat 295 x 5,5,5
Bench 172.5 x 5,5,5
Deadlift 275 x 5

Squat:
Felt very easy. Esp first two sets. Third set I misplaced feet and misgrooved first rep. Still had no issue finishing the set.
Went squat first this time because getting the SBD sleeves on once I'm sweating is a PITA.
Might be going a bit too deep here.

Bench:
Felt fine / easy. Curious about form.

Deadlift:
Was supposed to be 265 but I felt good. Still have some **** to work on here.

DL and bench looked good; maybe you could increase your arch a bit on bench and get a little tighter overall, but considering that was a PR (I'm assuming, cause red font) it looked pretty easy.

I agree about squat; I think that extra depth at the bottom is pretty much exclusively from your pelvis shifting after you reach parallel/slightly below. Maybe try cutting depth a bit and see if that fixes things?

[Update: 1/18/2018]

Squat 300 x 5,5,5 (tied PR)
OHP 137.5 x 4,4,4 (FAIL)
Rows 145 x 5,5,6

Squat:
Felt surprisingly easy Form looks goodish to me.

OHP:
First fail of any rep on this SS run
My left hand is bruised, has been for over a week. Not sure exactly how long. But it was the worst tonight and bothered me pretty bad during these.
Even so, I don't think I would have gotten 5 on all sets. It's a legit fail.
I know protocol is to deload but I am thinking about just starting the bridge for OHPs.

Rows: still way too light. 10lb increases will continue.

Nice squats! The reps looked much improved, especially the last one. 315 across: soon.

Thanks Montecore!

[Update: 1/20/2018]

Squat 305 x 5,5,5
Bench 175 x 5,5,5
Deadlift 285 x 5 (tied PR)

Squat:
Felt great. The movement isn't as smooth as I'd like but I think it's coming along. Everything felt super easy/light except for the very last rep which I felt like I misgrooved. Still had 1.5 in the tank IMO.

Bench:
Very first rep I 'tweaked' something in my right arm. Like from the inside of the elbow and slightly up the bicep?
Either way finished the sets no problems. Felt pretty easy TBH.
Something is going on where the bar is twisting and on my right-hand side the bar is a good bit further towards my feet. Definitely gets worse further into the set.
Anyone have any ideas??

Deadlift:
Felt 'easy', but I'm kinda in awe at how weak this feels compared to squats. Hopefully my LP is just going to last a super long time. I did have a super slow start because of being afraid that I had bad form / being scared to just lift something that feels heavy.

Protocol is to try the same weight up to 2 more times before deloading, actually. I don't know what "the bridge" is.

Re: Bench

I'm not a huge expert (you should probably post in the form check thread to attract more of those) but what I see is:

*Your grip looks narrow--see how when the bar is on your chest your forearms are tilting inward? You want them to pointing straight up.
*Your elbows are flaring outward--think "elbows in".
*Looks like your shoulders are getting progressively looser--keep pulling the shoulder blades together and trying to tuck them into your back pockets.

I would say drop weight and concentrate on being a form nazi.

I thought protocol was to try the same weight ONCE if you thought you missed reps because of form/bad sleep/diet that week, etc. Repeating the same weight that you fail twice just can't ever be a thing, that doesn't make any sense.
But fair enough, if I feel good in warm-ups tonight I'll try it once more.

Re: Bench
Great points. Grip is a tad narrow. And definitely I will work harder to keep the shoulders together. Grip width might actually help here because I think wider grip will make it easier to keep shoulders tight when locking out.
Think I might disagree about flaring -- I think my elbows stay reasonably tucked in. Maybe it's the angle? I've been wrong before though.

TY a lot for that. You've got me focused on keeping the shoulders tucked and tight.
Now as a return tip: don't quote the entire post, esp when it has images/videos in it. Ruining the aesthetics of my thread and **** .

[Update: 1/23/2018]

Squat 310 x 5,5,5
Press 115 x 5, 115 x 7, 135 x 5
Deadlift 290 x 5

Squat:
Felt good. Weeee.

Press:
Hand hurt like a mother****er during last warmup. Started playing around with different grips @ 95lbs. Found something that worked (rotate hands so thumbs point more towards floor and squeeze the ****ing **** out of the bar) and tried at 115. If I do the grip right it only hurts when I go to rerack. If my next press session hurts (that's next week) I'll have to take some time off pressing and maybe use hanging straps for squats because this thing has been hurting for long enough now.

Deadlift:
Used straps for the first time and lololol wow it's so much easier.

You figured out the secret

Dude nice #s!

Get some wrist wraps? I use them for SQ/BN/OHP. Would really recommend if you have any issues with wrists hurting, adds a ton of stability.

@ibavly hahaha as soon as I lifted the first rep I said to myself "so THAT'S how ibavly does it!".

@TooCuriousso1 thanks man!
Funny you mention wrist wraps I was just about to purchase some.
Think I'm going to go with the SBD flex ones. Sadly they are out of medium size in standard color so I have to get the special edition navy blue which is fine but now my straps won't match my knee sleeves which is kinda like what's the point in lifting anymore if I can't color coordinate for Instagram?

Pain isn't in my wrist tho, it's in my hand, in the mid-palm meat between the pinky and the ring finger. Looks like light bruising under the skin, might be a small muscle tear or something.

[Update: 1/25/2018]

Bench 177.5 x 5. (quit because of hand pain)
Squat 315 x 5,5,5

Idea was to not squat today because of the pain in my left palm. I thought bench would be ok because I grip lower on the palm, but it hurt once I started with working set. Weight felt easy to push, however.

I went to the racks to do some rows, but decided I'd at least do my warmup squats without gripping the bar. Warmup felt great so I decided to go for a single at 315 to see what it felt like. Once I did the first rep I was like **** it do 5. Then I decided to do 2 more sets.
It wasn't very safe to grip the bar the way I did, and on the last set I hurt my hand again any way
But at least I got 315. And TBH it felt surprisingly light.

Wrist wraps get here on Friday. I will see if I can squat in them with thumbs over, and if I can press with them, without bothering my palm. If I can't I'm just going to do leg-press and pulling movements (dead/rows with straps, and chins) until hand heals.