Advice & Opinions

Hello there.

I am currently a 39 year old male. Very active and physically fit. Workout at the gym daily and for the past few months have been hitting legs every 4th day. I also go hiking very often, at least a few times a month and go on walks very often.

In February of 2023 I was doing front squats at the gym and went down very low, paused and exploded up. As I began to press I heard a pop and was in extreme pain. Fast forward a month later I was getting surgery to repair a lateral meniscus tear in which the doc said he removed a bit of whatever flap was loose and causing the pain. Surgery went smoothly, recovery went great doingbd daily PT exercises. I was back in the gym within 6 weeks and very slowly began to integrate leg workouts over the next year. I eventually got back to exactly how I was before the injury if not even better.

This last week we had a snowstorm and my gym was closed so I went to a different gym in my area, a Crunch Fitness, and it was leg day. I did machines that I haven’t done in a while and exerted myself at close to 90-95% capacity. The workout was great and there was no moment I can’t pinpoint where something went wrong. But the next day I began to have a little discomfort in the knee I had surgery on almost exactly 3 years ago. I then was able to have another leg workout which went fine. Now yesterday I was helping my girlfriend move some stuff and had to squat down alot and then after that for the rest of the day and ever since my knee has been so tight. It’s visibly swollen and seems like it has fluid built up. It’s hard to bend my knee back past 45 degrees as it feels tight. There isn’t pain really just discomfort due to the tightness.

Any advice? Should I just rest it? Since there was never a point of something happening to cause pain I’m very unsure if I could have an actual meniscus injury again. Any advice is appreciated.