Any thoughts on this injury? Please help! (paulpauly)

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:47:30 GMT

Hello Dan,

I wished had discovered this section sooner, I could have benefitted from your advice. Just as a quick FYI, 36 year old male, about 240-245 lbs., respectable muscle size and strength (at least until recently).

Ever since my first post on here, I have been pretty much just been talking about this darn broken arm I got and how it was handled after. Since I haven’t been able to focus on upper body as much, I have been focusing on legs more and making pretty good gains, using primarily hack squats (machine), single leg press, leg extensions, leg curls and seated leg curls. I hadn’t attempted much free weights because of the arm.

One exercise I recently did was the one legged squat (or lunge?) On the Smith machine, a machine I normally don’t like because I could just never get into it, but thought it might be better for now because of my arm. The first time I did the exercise, it was so-so. I felt like it was putting too much of the wrong kind of pressure of the outer head of my quads for some reason. Well I tried it again last night and still felt too much of the wrong kind of pain. I decided to try barbell lunges instead. My arm is getting better so I thought it would be okay to try it with a barbell. Well, on the fourth set, I heard a weird sound, hard to describe, not a pop or tear per se, just like a “crunch”. I stopped the exercise and got some pain in the outer head of the quad and in the uppermost part of the thigh, almost near the hip/groin area. It happened right in the lowermost position of the lunge with my left leg. I think maybe that Smith exercise set me up for this, not sure. The pain is not excruciating now, I can walk okay, maybe a slight limp. But stairs are an issue and I am assuming any kind of leg work will be. It seems now like most of my front quads hurt when I contract or when getting out of a chair. My life sucks lately, first a broken arm now this!

Any expert ideas or opinions on what kind of injury this could be? I would hate to have to go to a doctor again and the whole routine like I did with my arm. I am hoping this goes away on it’s own, but who knows. I have been injured more in this past year than in the rest of my life. I would please appreciate any thoughts on this latest problem, please. And no, I am not a hypocondriac or somehow like to injure myself, I just seem to be having lousy luck!

Thank you Dan

This question needs to be answered by Dan, so please redirect it to him. Thanks, Old Navy