First Pics, Need Help w/ legs - have injury

[ppowell]

To all of you who helped me out last year, thanks. I'm 32 and I started working out again 1 year ago after never really working out seriously. The body for life workout 3 days a week and a ton of protein helped my add about 20 lbs in 9 months. I'm holding at 180 now. My long-term goal is around 200 by next fall/winter. I'm fortunate to have a naturally lean body, so I eat most anything, but I don't gain that easy.

Legs: I have a torn PCL in my left knee. Posterior Crutiery Ligament (forgive spelling) controls front/back stability. Dr. said they don't fix them these days unless unstable. I have about 1/2" play forward to back. Anyway, I scared to do heavy squats. I can do leg ext. all day. I know I need to work on my legs I just don't know exactly what to do. I have a gym in my home, so I workout when I want to, but w/ limited equipment. I have considered doing leg ext. till I puke, then doing squats so it won't have to be so much weight. Any ideas.

Please critique. I need all the help I can get.

[BigNic]

im pretty sure if you could do leg ext. all day you can handle some heavy squats. In my experience leg ext are actually more taxing on the knee

[ppowell]

im pretty sure if you could do leg ext. all day you can handle some heavy squats. In my experience leg ext are actually more taxing on the knee

My knee doesn't pop every rep of leg ext. It does w/ squats. Don't ask me, I just hear the sound.

[TylerDurden]

The recommended treatment is focusing on strengthening the stablizers. focusing on the hamstrings and closed chained quadricepts excersizes ( AVOIDING SEATED KNEE EXTENSIONS) and proprioreceptive training with a balance board and physio ball.

So, if you've been doing knee extensions without pain, instability, or anterior to posterior dislocation then i imagine that your PCL is not completely torn. Therefore, its considered stable and i wouldn't think twice about doing squats. Maybe for safety you should wear a brace. You should not come all the way up, stopping before your legs lock out. This way the pressure remains on the muscles and not the bones and ligaments. The worst thing that can happen is a rotational force, or hyperextension. These are the two positions to avoid with a PCL sprain. To avoid the hyperextension, you should train the hamstrings.