pain/soreness above knee cap.

[karky]

Just above my knee cap at both knees i have a pain/soreness.
i only feel it when i flex, like if i walk up stairs, dont hills. its just above the knee cap, not in the entire quads.
any idea what this could be? could it have something to do with squatting? or is this just regular soreness (ive never felt it before)

Latley ive been doing olympic lifting, just got into it. and i was wondering, since on the Snatch i have to keep my back more upright than on regular back squat, could this have something to do with it? i also just started front squat which i was unfamiliar with before.. ive been on the oly lifting program for 3 weeks now, just entered my 4th week this tuesday.

[Bill Hartman]

Oly lifts, front squats, oly squats shift the moment in the squat toward the knee thus greater load on the knee and the patellar tendon. If this is acute, it may just be some tendonitis from overloading your tendons (too much too soon). A double dose of Aleve over a few days should help quite a bit if it's acute.

If this has been around for a while, it's tendonosis (a degeneration of the tendon) which will respond well to IASTM and controlled eccentric-only loading to tolerance. It'll take a while to resolve depending on severity. Stop the knee dominant exercises and emphasis pain-free posterior chain ex. Add eccentric only squats to tolerance progressing to single leg eccentric only squats. Ice will help with pain, but since it's not an inflammatory condition, anti-inflammatories won't help and may hinder progress.

Bill