https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jacked-athlete-podcast/id1462537296?i=1000705054319
“At the time, all the information out there was the way you dealt with jumper’s knee pain, the consensus was, Don’t let your knees go past your toes, because that’s going to irritate it. Rest. Ice them. No direct quad training.”
Tendon pain: “It gets better and then it gets worse. And then you do something and it gets worse. You’re like, wait, why did that hurt? I don’t understand. Let me stretch and foam roll more. And then like you get an analgesic effect from just like kind of doing like stuff passive stuff. And then you go right back to doing a thing and then it’s fucking hurt again. And it’s way worse than it’s ever been. So you stop doing everything for a while. Then you come back and you’re like, I’m good. But you’re wrong. You’re not good because you’re weaker.”
“The worse it got, the more I avoided loading my quads and bending my knees. The more I avoided loading my quads and bending my knees, the worse it got.”
“The first few years of dealing with jumper’s knee pain, it would get to the point I couldn’t even walk up and down stairs without fucking limping. It was bad.”
“Jumper’s knee is not jumper’s knee, it’s decelerator’s knee… it’s not the concentric portion of a movement that flares up the tendon. It’s the rapid deceleration or the rapid loading of that tendon and either like suddenly trying to stop or change direction, which are both kind of the same thing actually when you think about it.”
“You load up a shit ton of weight on someone’s back. The easiest, fastest way to adapt, to learn how to move that weight as quickly as possible, as fast as possible from A to B is to sit back into your hips, keep your weight into the heels. And most of these guys from high school on are coached to squat that way. There’s not nearly enough direct quad loading like these high schools, collegiate programs. There aren’t leg extensions in most of these weight rooms, right? Most of their squats are not being done in Olympic lifting shoes or heel wedges. That is changing. I’m seeing more of that. But for the most part, you’re ending up with this super hinge, quote unquote, hip dominant. And why? Because every fucking strength coach who has their CSCS, who’s, who’s mentor went before them said, power comes from your hips. You got to load the hips. Cause that’s where the power comes from. And they’re not wrong. But if you develop these powerful, robust hips and you’ve never fucking directly train your quads, and then you go out onto the field and you try and stop, start and change direction suddenly. You’re going to get jumper’s knee dude. Like that’s what’s it. That is what happens.”
“When someone has jumper’s knee, most of the time, you can say, how strong are your quads? Or show me a squat. I watch them squat, and maybe it looks good with the light weight, but the second it starts getting anywhere near challenging, they’re not fucking using their quads. They’re not bending their knees. They’re bending their hips. And even, I’ll say, okay, I see what’s going on here. Let me get you on a hack squat. What’s the first thing they do? They don’t put their feet low and underneath their hips. They put their feet high and wide as possible so they can avoid bending their knees.”
“I’ll get, you know, guys who can technically squat five, 600 pounds, not fucking kidding. Put them on a leg extension with 50 pounds and by rep 12, they’re fucking quivering, shaking. It’s, and they’re miserable.”
“I became more aware of like what kinds of plyos and jumps were more likely to really piss a tendon off. So like, you know, doing a, doing like really high hurdle hops, you know, and for a period of time, not a great idea. Doing ⁓ skips for height as high as I possibly could with my, my tendons already cranky, not a great idea. Whereas slower jumps, I could do a depth jump, but a drop jump could be a problem, right? So like these, where I have those like almost shallower knee angles where I’m trying to reverse and there’s just more velocity and there’s what I would assume to be a much more intense demand on the tendon to load eccentrically because the muscles aren’t moving as much, the joint isn’t moving as much. Those were typically the things that really pissed me off. So I had to live in that slower ground contact, a lot of two foot jumping, not a lot of single leg stuff. Like it took me a while to get to a place where I could single leg hop or single leg bound and add velocity without having issues.”
“I’ve never ever pissed off a jumper’s knee from a landing from my jump.”
“You’re not landing the way you took off… You’re usually landing like one foot than the other foot and your entire body is folding and crumbling and you’re dissipating the force differently. So it’s like comparing apples to oranges.”
ATG Split Squat: “While you’re getting a lot of range of motion and flexion at the knee, if you really look at it side by side, just look at the joint and the way the quad is interacting with the knee joint. Is that any more close of an angle than a really deep hack squat? No, knee can only bend so much.”
ATG Split Squat: “How much can you actually load up that movement relative to something like a hack squat or a leg press or a leg extension? And because of the nature of that movement, you’re starting basically in your heel and your center of mass is here, heel here. And then the knee drops forward and your center of mass shifts. So you’re only really loading that tissue at the most deepest end range of that position and then you’re back out. So it does a poor job of loading. The strength curve is dog shit. And there are other ways to get that same amount of knee bend reliably consistently with more balance. Dog shit movement.”
Poliquin Step Up: “Exact same principle. A lot of tendon load, not a lot of muscular load. Very short range of motion, incredibly hard to load up. Is there any stability for you to really send it and drive intent? Absolutely fucking not. Get it out of here.”
Reverse sled drags: “Here’s the redeeming one. If you’re someone whose knee pain is bad, you know what I mean? And you’re just looking for an option, a very low, it’s a wonderful rehab exercise. It can do a great job of just getting blood into the quads and being this really sort of like, basically essentially dipping your toe into the water to be able to like get some relief from knee pain and just get blood going and just like, you know, get movement into the joint. However, long term, like there’s a, there’s an expiration date on that movement and its ability to move the needle, particularly if the number one thing that’s going to likely improve your jumper’s knee pain is quad strength.”
Reverse Sled Drags: “Here’s the other thing. There’s no eccentric loading. There’s no eccentric loading on the portion, which by the way, when you’re experiencing jumper’s knee is the most important quality to training, right? Because it’s the eccentric portion of the movement that’s going to cause you trouble. That eccentric loading portion of the movement is incredibly important.”
ATG for knee pain: “If you’re someone who’s weak as shit and you’re not an athlete, those things are enough for you to be fit and work out and get out of knee pain, great. But when you’re talking about real athleticism, people who are moving and changing directions, who are big, fast and strong, those things are a drop in the ocean. If you’ve got kitten knees and you need kitten solutions, cool.”
But here’s, that’s the pattern people get caught in Jake, where it’s like, you do just enough to feel better. And like, trust me, you get a pump in your quads, it doesn’t matter what you do. Pick any exercise, get a fucking nasty pump in your quads. Your knees are gonna feel better, period. They’re gonna feel better right then and there, right? But that window is the same trap I fell into for many, many years and a lot of athletes fall into where they do just enough to feel better.
And so the leap you make in your brain is like, it feels better, therefore it’s working, therefore this is a good exercise. But the problem becomes is because you’re never actually doing anything to progressively strengthen that joint, that tissue over a long period of time, you’re like a fucking buoy in the middle of a storm in an ocean. And sometimes the storm comes down and you’re like, ⁓ okay, things are gonna get better. Fucking wrong, because inevitably.
it’s going to flare up again. And that’s just, you know, I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish that just like doing just enough to feel better, stretching, foam rolling, getting a nice pump in the quads was enough to effectively eliminate jumper’s knee pain long-term. It’s just not. And really my experience has been is it doesn’t matter what tendon it is. If you’ve gotten at, no matter if it’s Achilles, ⁓
And your shoulder, it’s quad tendon, patellar tendon, once a certain line is crossed and it’s gotten to a place of irritation or, you know, there’s structurally, there’s been some damage, it’s been compromised. Once that line is crossed, just doing enough to feel better is not going to likely be enough to get better. I wish that wasn’t the case.
Jake (37:31)
⁓ I wanted to talk on other tendons. I had another one on the patella though. ⁓ I was gonna ask it earlier. ⁓ no, this is what it was. You said there’s no magical exercises and I was like, if there was one I would say leg extension and I initially probably said that like the first two, three years. But since then, and it’s always the people that do phone consults, it’s like they, not all of them, but I’ve probably had.
50, maybe 100 through DMs to that like leg extension is just awful for their tendon. Like just blows them up, makes it way worse. They’re trying to ⁓ change the angle, like go do more extension or maybe even more flexion, trying to lighten the load, trying to, and it’s like, they just cannot figure it out. Usually I do get them to figure it out by going to a lighter weight, longer time or just more extended, but sometimes it just really doesn’t agree with them. ⁓ Have you seen this with the NFL guys or I guess anyone you’ve seen?
Tim Riley (38:13)
Anyways.
Yes.
Jake (38:28)
Because we speak so highly of the leg extension, but have you had people where it just doesn’t work for them?
Tim Riley (38:34)
Yeah, it’s just not agreeable. have the other exercise that I actually think is equally, if not more impactful. If it’s done regularly, consistently and close enough to failure. Okay. Those are the criteria. The sissy squat. Okay. And, but here’s the thing. People will butcher a sissy squat and they’ll, they’ll get their knees to the floor.
But okay, so check this out. So let’s just say ⁓ this is the knee. Okay, so this is the femur and this is the calf. What’ll happen is people will shift themselves forward, but they’ll never actually close that angle between the femur and the tibia. Okay, so they’re thrusting themselves forward at this angle, but there’s nothing actually being loaded through flexion, eccentrically, in that movement.
When people do it correctly, they fold the knee like a lawn chair and their chest is essentially facing the roof when the bottom of that movement. Okay. That’s how it’s done correctly. And then what happens is you get a fucking insane amount of eccentric loading at both the hip and knee joint. Okay. It’s the only thing I’m aware of apart from doing like a leg extension where you’re able to completely lay down and for whatever reason. ⁓
The pad is able to go up all the way up underneath your ass on the machine. There’s nothing that’s going to be able to load your rec fem in that way at the hip and knee at the same time. The goal here is to control the eccentric as long as possible. It should be miserable, but you need to move slowly, particularly if that tendon’s pissed off, because remember it’s decelerator’s knee. And if you’re going to thrust yourself into that position where that tissue is that eccentrically overloaded, you don’t want to do it with speed. Not initially. Bad idea. Okay.
⁓ You close off that ⁓ hamstring and calf angle, you know, that you get into much knee flexion as possible. And then on the way back up, that’s where you use the assistance. And you probably will. I’m at a place where I don’t need to anymore. My knees also don’t hurt anymore. I mean, I don’t know. ⁓ And then here’s what people will also do. When they come back up, they’ll try and sit their hips back.
So they’ll try and take tension off of the quads by getting into hip flexion. So as you come back up, you wanna make sure your hips stay extended and push all the way back up through the full range of motion. Here’s the deal, and this is the last thing I touched on before, okay? You have to do it right, you have to do it through full range of motion, and you have to push it close to failure. If you’re not within two RIR, you’re not going to get what you need to get out of that exercise.
And like for most people doing that the first time, like they’ll do four reps, Jake. And that’s like one RIR, they’re fucking smoked. But there’s something really magical, air quotes magical that happens if you can get people to load rect fem through the hip, through an extended hip and through a fully flexed knee in that position, that’s like fucking money. ⁓ So yeah, that would be my magical exercise. And then like, you know.
If people get good at it, you can throw a weight vest on somebody. You can get them to just hold a dumbbell on the eccentric portion only, set that motherfucker down right in front of their lap, and then pull themselves back up. So there’s ways to really load that sucker up. But honestly, like even just body weight, if you’re getting to the point where you’re doing 10 reps and you’re like one to two reps away from failure, you’re fucking quad pump. You’re gonna be blown up. It’s great, yeah.
Jake (42:19)
Okay, the other exercise I think I’m thinking of with the the rec fam the hip and the knee reverse Nordic. Have you tried reverse Nordic you have an ex? ⁓
Tim Riley (42:27)
hate them.
So here’s the problem. It’s like, it’s funny, it’s like, it’s the same thing. What are you talking about? But what I find is like in that reverse Nordic, because you’re already starting with like this parallel tibia on the floor. And your tibia is on the floor, right? There just isn’t enough loading to me that’s happening where you’re able because like, before you’re
When you’re starting in the sissy squat, as your knee begins to bend and your hips begin to move back, that’s a lot of time under tension that you get to have that you otherwise probably don’t get with the Nordic, with the, ⁓ wait, what’s the variation, the name you said, I’m sorry, where you’re, the reverse Nordic, right? ⁓ And then also too, you almost always just because of the nature of the exercise, you have to start off with a band and you can’t get all the way back.
Jake (43:11)
Reverse Nordic. Reverse Nordic.
Tim Riley (43:25)
The cool thing about doing a sissy squat relative to that is like because you can use your body weight to force you into that more knee bent position and you have your hands to support you to allow for that to happen. You can kind of auto-regulate what you need. So you have an opportunity to load through a more full range of motion consistently rep after rep. Whereas like with the assist ignore it for me, it’s like kind of awkward and like you probably need a band and like that’s not always consistent.
and it just feels a little bit more tedious. And frankly, like, it’s not as hard. It’s just not as hard. And like, I feel like that sissy squat, like, it needs to be hard. Like, you need to be like, my fucking God, I hate this a little bit, you know, when you’re trying to load the quad like that. Yeah. But it’s probably, I mean, I’m sure some people do it and they love it it’s probably fine. But that’s just been my experience.
Jake (44:16)
Have you, so like a progression, you kind of said the just adding weight. I think I’ve heard people say single leg. Is that a thing you’ve seen or you’ve tried or?
Tim Riley (44:20)
Mm-hmm.
Holy
fuck, I’ve never tried that. Honestly, I’ve never even seen that. Yeah, I’ve never, I mean, honestly, that would be so impressive to me. And like, anyone, I mean, I don’t know, the more I think about it, like, depending on how much support you’re giving yourself, you could probably start doing single leg right away. But like, I haven’t found it necessary. And here’s the other thing, I’m a big fucking dude. Like, I’m 235, I’m 6’3″.
Jake (44:30)
Maybe I’m making it up then. I thought I heard it.
Tim Riley (44:54)
I’ve got a lot of body weight like moving into that and like doing 10 reps at that body weight is like, it’s a lot of load, you know? ⁓ So yeah, I just, don’t have enough experience. have zero experience doing it single leg. So I can’t say, ⁓ but I would imagine if you can do several reps, single leg sissy squat like that, you probably don’t have much knee pain. That’s incredible.
Jake (45:18)
Okay, I always, I guess when I talk the patellar tendon, I’m like, quads is number one. I’m like, ⁓ something like the leg extension or a squat pattern, something where like you’re just extending the knees basically is good. But then I’m like, let’s do something to also address like rec fem with like, you could do a sissy squat or like a split squat or something like that. And I’m like, that’s pretty thorough quad strength development. But then like talking about other areas, and I think it was David who, David had that foam roller bridge, know, the calf and the calf.
Tim Riley (45:38)
Mm-hmm.
Jake (45:48)
hamstring connection thing and I’ve given that to a number of people and like some of them it’s like magically relieves the front of their knee. I think it’s more patellofemoral when that’s the case but ⁓ that’s kind of my like number two when I’m talking about just static or strength exercises is like let’s get the quads going with something but then like let’s address the calf hamstring thing. ⁓ Yeah what if I see you use it all the time. Yeah what have you found with it?
Tim Riley (46:16)
love it. So in my the jumpers V program I made like, like I said, like I was pulling things from you and David and then stuff I kind of figured out on my own, like, before you even start the session, you’re doing some sissy squats to get your quads loaded up through full range of motion. And you’re doing a foam roller bridge. And because I’ve found for myself personally, and then when I started using it with athletes, I was able to confirm that where it’s like, some people respond better to one than the other.
⁓ but most people, if you have jumper’s knee, both of those things can be beneficial. like with the foam roller bridge, what I’ll notice it’s, it’s like, you could set your clock to it. If someone has jumper’s knee or they’ve had a legitimate knee injury, an ACL, whatever, LCL, MCL, if they’ve had a knee injury on whatever leg it is and you get them on that foam roller bridge and they actually, cause people will do it and they won’t.
They won’t let their calf show up to the party. They’ll drop their heel. You have to be actively pushing in to the foam roller with your forefoot, pushing hard into the calf. They’ll cramp up immediately. And the other side, albeit fucking miserable for them, they’ll be able to hang in there 20, 25 seconds before they start to get so fatigued that they want to cramp. But like on the side that has jumper’s knee or there’s been an insult, an injury, they’ll cramp up quickly.
I’m not gonna pretend like I understand why that’s happening. I have theories, you know? I think that the way that your muscles co-contract around a knee are probably impacted because of the way you’re utilizing the knee and whatever compensation you have adapted to be able to function without actually loading the knee, you know? And like you can see that when you watch someone do a single leg jump off of a box and then land, if they have jumper’s knee or if they’ve had an ACL,
you’ll see them be able to like when they jump, they’ll have a certain knee angle and it usually matches their torso angle. And then when they land that knee or that shin angle and torso angle will usually match up. On the side that’s been injured when they land, you’ll see that that shin angle is really high. And then their torso angle has the pitch forward even more because they have to load back into the hip because they’re refusing to load that knee. Something about that process
impacts the ability for the gastroc hamstring and quad to co-contract and stabilize that knee. And it could be a chicken or the egg thing. Maybe that was the issue to begin with. And that’s what played a role because the way I’ve kind of made sense of this in my mind, and it could be totally fucking wrong. So take what I’m saying with a grain of salt, but it appears to me, ⁓ particularly with the knee, like your quad, your hamstring, your calf.
They work in dynamic movement as stabilizers for the knee joint.
quite literally stabilizing the knee so that it does not move, right? There’s very little knee bend happening when it’s time to stop, time to change direction. There is that moment in time where the knee isn’t moving, it’s not supposed to. And that affords your tendons the opportunity to elongate underneath that eccentric loading, right? And that’s where the propulsion eventually comes from, the change in direction, the stopping the… And something about…
not bending the knee or having knee pain throws the timing of that off because you’re not doing it. You’re utilizing other strategies. ⁓ And there’s something that happens when you reintroduce a movement like a foam roller bridge where you are putting your joint, your knee in a position where those co-contractions have to occur. Your body’s, there’s no other options. It’s like the ultimate constraint led approach.
when it comes to trying to get muscles to work together to stabilize that joint. ⁓ And then here’s the other thing, know, everything I’m pontificating on about why it happens, why it doesn’t happen. Here’s the kicker. None of it fucking matters because it works. It works, it makes a difference. It makes a difference. whether it’s, and then what you’ll notice is like if people are consistent with it.
they’ll stop cramping on that side. They’ll report that their knee feels better. You’ll notice that they have a tendency to actually start bending that knee more in movement, assuming that they’re also doing things in the gym that cause them, that encourage them to move through flexion and build, you know, like quad strength. So I think it’s the ultimate one-two punch really, you know, getting isometrics and getting stronger.
calf muscles, hamstring muscles showing up to the party in combination with that quad and getting them all to work together to stabilize the knee. Yeah, knee flexion and knee stabilization.
Jake (51:20)
Yeah, it can be magic. It can be magic for a lot of people. It’s such a weird exercise to think of. Yeah, yeah.
Tim Riley (51:29)
It’s so weird. It
sucks so bad, by the way, too. I’m sure, I would assume the diehards that listen to your podcast have probably heard about this exercise, seen it or done it. But man, if you haven’t done it, do it. Just do it. Particularly if you’re dealing with jumper’s knee pain right now, or you’ve had a previous injury, do it on that leg, then do it on the other leg. Do it. Fuck around and find out.
Jake (51:54)
Yeah,
that.
Tim Riley (51:56)
And then report back to me. Re-listen to this part of the podcast, you know? Yeah.
Jake (52:00)
This was, well
this was one thing my colleague said with the guy with the quad tendon graft was he, it sounded like he’s been doing everything and I was like, full Merle or bridge and he’s like, I’ve never heard of it. And I’m like, all right, we’ll start doing it every day. Here’s, and I have two YouTube videos. One of them is with you. The second part’s with you. did a little interview with you ⁓ explaining it, but yeah, I just think those are two things. Like you gotta get the quads back and then we gotta do something to get that calf and the hamstrings. So like you get some stabilization of the knee.
Tim Riley (52:17)
Hahaha!
Jake (52:28)
Or I even think it’s when your foot hits the ground, you’re getting some, the calf and the hamstring can maybe work now because you’ve put it in an exercise where like they had to work together. I don’t know exactly what’s happening. It just has this, it can have this immediate effect where your knee is not feeling good and you do it and then you go back to the thing you were doing and it’s like, I feel so much better. So I think it is affecting something when you’re going back to the actual movement. ⁓
Tim Riley (52:44)
Mm-hmm.
Jake (52:55)
So I wanted to say, you talk about these NFL guys you see or any of these athletes and the best way to rehab a patellar tendon is like off season where you don’t need to, if you’re a basketball player, you can get off the court, football, you can get out of practices, you can get out of skill workouts and we can stop doing like the really hard decelerations or the jumps. And often,
Tim Riley (53:01)
Yeah.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Jake (53:21)
People can’t do that. So when you’re talking about rehabbing these people and like you’re addressing the quad strength You’re dressing like half hamstring you’re doing knee flexion You’re trying to look at like the their plyo movement and see that they can actually bend the bend the knee on the injured side How are you doing all this if they are going and aggravating their knee from the sport?
Tim Riley (53:37)
Yup. ⁓
So you have to have an honest conversation. We probably could have talked about this at beginning, but like,
There’s this association that like you shouldn’t be in pain.
And like, maybe you can make the argument that like, you couldn’t, you know, had things been done differently, potentially maybe you wouldn’t have been, but here we are. And the issue I run into is that.
Even in the off season, athletes wanna do their sport. And so I’ll tell them, I’m like, look man, here’s the deal. Like, this is gonna take a long time to recover from. You’re gonna have peaks and valleys. The goal that we’re going for is that the trend over any given period of time is that it’s always kind of getting better.
your ability to improve by this is going to be directly correlated almost always to how much you can eliminate the thing that makes it hurt the most. Okay? So like if you’re a jumper dude and every time you jump you it’s like starting back over at square one. Guess what? You got to stop dunking for a while. You got to stop. You have to stop. If you want it to get all the way better. And even then, like as I say that, like my experience has been it’s like even today, like I have no jumper’s knee pain.
But I’m telling you, if I go have a dunk session out of nowhere and I just dunk for two hours, best believe the next day my patellar tendons are gonna be sore. You know what I’m saying? So like.
Having that conversation where it’s like, look, like there’s going to be a direct correlation to how much skill work you’re doing with your position coach here on the field immediately after our leg days and how quickly you’re going to be able to and see marketable improvements in this patellar knee pain. like, that’s a, that’s a decision for them to make, but I do present that information. And I also say it in a way it’s like, look, good news. We’ve got some solutions here.
Bad news, you’re kind of fucked because it’s gonna require you doing less of the thing that pays the bills. Some guys, and now here’s the thing with football players, culturally speaking, the pain’s not a problem, fuck it. They hate it, they don’t want it, but culturally in football, unless there’s meat hanging off the bone or you have dislocated a joint, you’re fucking playing. You know what I mean? So it’s like…
It’s a little bit different, you know, and some guys care more than others and some guys are more sensitive than others. But generally speaking, it’s like, it’s jumper’s knee. You mean it’s not going to cause something to rupture. OK, put me in. I’m playing, you know, and then we’ll deal with the collateral after the fact. ⁓ Whereas like culturally speaking, like volleyball and like basketball, it’s like a little more, you know, they’re a little more sensitive. They just are, you know, they’re not tackling each other at full speed, you know, and getting dog cursed.
So yeah, having that conversation, setting the expectations. And then also like David, I watched him, I had him work with two of my players here while he was in town. Because like there’s things that I’m doing, but like these are the things that I, I’ve got the guy that I took these ideas from in town. You’re going to see that guy, you know?
And like David was able to like write a prescription for them. He’s like, oh, here’s the things they’re doing. All these things are great. Like, let’s just add in an extra day and you’re going to do X, Y, and Z. And you’re going to do those every, every other day, no matter what, regardless of whether you’re with Tim or not. I was like, amazing. Thank you. You know? So it’s going to, it’s going to take a long time. You’re going to have to be consistent and you’re going to have to be aware that like, you’re going to have good days and bad days. But if you keep doing these things, it will continue to get better, but it’s not ever going to completely go away until you completely remove the thing.
that’s causing it, sorry. And if you set that expectation, then one, you’ve been honest. Two, you’re not putting yourself in this weird position where it’s like they’re coming to you and every time it gets worse or better, it’s like, what do I do, Tim? You said it would get better. It’s like, motherfucker, I’m not Jesus. I can’t touch your fucking knee and make it, like no one can. If anyone says they can, they’re lying.
I’m looking at you ATG. like, you know what I mean? Like that’s just not reality. but yeah, like that’s typically what the conversation looks like.
Jake (58:16)
These were, I’m curious what David, what David, these were guys with patellar tendon. So.
Tim Riley (58:22)
Yeah, I have
a guy. He plays for the Cardinals. He ran 439 at his combine. He’s 230 pounds. So strong. mean, just unbelievably strong, but you know, and like I have him on the hack spot. I have him on leg extension and like his quads relative to his hips. Everything else like they’re just weak and I’m like trying to coach him through the concept of delaying the extension on these movements and
It was actually really nice having David come to the town because
David was able to take him and just like, all right, let’s take him off the weights for a minute and let’s just do like a body weight assessment, see. And eight reps of David just like holding his hand in front of his knee and not allowing him to sit back into his hips and actually force him to use his knee and stay in that mid range and get flexion and extension through the knee joint and nowhere really else. Eight reps split squat stance. He was fucking cooked, leg quivering and shaking. You know what I mean?
And that was actually really illuminating for me because it was like, damn, like I’ve had him on hat squat, on leg extension, doing all these things, but like, it seems like he’s still finding a way to avoid, load that quad. And then after that intervention with David, like I was like, that’s how it should all feel, man. That’s what I’ve been trying to show you. And it was like the light bulb went off.
And so moving forward, what I’m going to do, because I’ve done this in the past. I’ve just got away from it. You know how you just get away from things for no reason, you know, and then you, someone does it. You’re like, why the fuck did I ever stop doing that? So that’s what I would do. I would get them and that shrimp squat. You remember these, the shrimp squat. In fact, I was so obsessed with those for a while. Remember when we would go to big techs, I would do a strip squat on the super cat and load it up. Anyway, so, um,
Jake (1:00:17)
Yeah.
Tim Riley (1:00:18)
That’s, I’m like, my God, I just have to start doing this again where I have them do that shrimp squat first, body weight, where they have to load the knee, they have to load the quad, they get absolutely roasted just doing body weight. And that foot pressure, the way the knee bends, the way the knee shouldn’t move early into extension, right? Because all that means is like, you know, the idea of delayed knee extension, at least in the squat, is the same thing we’ve been talking about this whole time where people…
they don’t want to load their quads. They want to sit back into their hips. like a way of thinking about it is like what people have commonly referred to as like a quote unquote stripper squat, right? Where like they shoot their knees, their knees open up first, then the hips rise and then it turns into like this weird good morning thing. But getting athletes, and that’s what David did. He got him body weight, smoked his quad like that. And then the next day when we did a leg day, I had him doing single leg, I him doing Bulgarian. So I was like,
And I saw him and he was sure enough, he was like, he was anteriorly tilted. He was opening up the knee first and then extending his hip. I was like, no, no, no, you have to do it just like we showed you yesterday. And I held my hand there and he did eight reps and his fucking quad was ruined, right? Reped. It was a completely different exercise. So yeah, anyway, I’m rambling. I forgot what you said.
Jake (1:01:40)
Oh, was, what were the extra things? He had them, he had them added.
Tim Riley (1:01:44)
Okay, so that he, and then he gave him this really, this wall sit, but single leg. And then like, okay, so like here’s the wall, here’s his upper body, here’s his femurs, here’s his legs. So you start a little past 90 degrees. So there’s not that much knee flexion. The knee is still at like an open joint angle. Okay. Call it 120 degrees and pick up the other leg. So now it’s just single leg bodyweight and then push.
on the floor so that he’s pressing his hips and back into the wall. So there’s a contraction happening at the, in the quads and at the knee and hold that for five seconds, then rest for five seconds. Push for five seconds, rest for five seconds. So like turning it off and on and just getting used to the feel of what it means to actually activate your quad in that position. And then to make it harder, he did it like in four steps. He had him move the foot to like 90 degrees, which made it harder.
then a little past 90 degrees, call it 80 degrees, and then where it was like 70 degrees, like there’s a lot of knee flexion, and have him push and it was just nasty. He was getting cooked there. And so that, the split squats, and then I think it was a leg extension. And it was like, just like, hey, I want you to do these three movements, start with the isos, then the split squats, finish with the leg extension, and you’re gonna do two sets of each.
And it’s going to be on the days that you don’t do legs where the tendon is feeling a little beat up.
So just getting another opportunity. And it’s funny because I haven’t had jumpers knee pain so long for myself. In that program I initially wrote frequency was really important. I forgot this. So I would do legs three times a week. I was training quads three times a week. And that was the thing. Cause I noticed like there was like this delicate balance between having frequency and intensity. And cause what would happen is like if I’m not getting enough frequency and training the quads, then like
I’m essentially getting detrained and like the more opportunities I got to actually load the tendon and load the quad, the better it was, at least from an analgesic perspective. So David essentially was like, I’m giving you an extra leg day. It’s something you can do pretty much anywhere and you’re gonna do it on the days where you don’t feel that sore that you’re not also doing leg days with 10. And then honestly, I think the biggest, the lowest I mean fruit was like David was actually
able to get the light switch on for him regarding like how it should feel regardless of what quad exercise you’re doing. Like there’s a level of intensity and suck that you should feel in your quad regardless of the movement. And if you’re not doing that, if you’re not feeling that, you’re doing it wrong. This is something bodybuilding gets right all the time that sports performance still shits the bed on all the time. In fact, I’m gonna make a post about this.
I’ve been meaning to, it’s come up. So bodybuilders inherently understand how you perform a movement impacts the tissue you’re trying to train. And it’s like you say that, it’s like no shit. But in the sports performance world, don’t really like, at the highest levels, it’s like we don’t really think about that. It’s just like you’re deadlifting it, pick it up off the floor, it up, period. Successful lifts, great job. That was a lot of weight. You moved it fast, you made the thing go ding.
Great, you know, same thing for the squat pattern. I ran it about this earlier at the beginning of the pod, where it’s just like, ⁓ you moved the fuck ton of weight real fast, the the boys were hype. You made the gym aware, go ding, perfect, you know? It’s like not perfect. Like you trained the ability to move weight fast from A to B, but what were you training to do that, to accomplish that? ⁓ Yeah, so.
Greatful David came in town, reminded me of some stuff like I’d kind of gotten away from, you know, and I was like, shit, I could have been more helpful for him these first couple of weeks, you know, but I was kind of resting on my laurels for the things that work for most athletes 90 % of the time and having him there, it was like, fuck, I’ve gotten lazy with that 10%, you know? ⁓ So yeah, anyway.
Jake (1:06:05)
Yeah.
The… Okay, the frequency thing you were getting at was like the… think… You were doing three days a week, but like you’re thinking more in those cases of like, I guess bad jumpers needs like more frequencies needed. Yeah, okay. Okay, I wanna… We’re like over an hour already, but let’s… I was gonna talk… I’m just gonna title this Patellar Tendons with Tim Riley instead of tendons, because we were gonna talk other tendons, because I know you’ve had this Achilles issue and this rotator cuff.
Tim Riley (1:06:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yep.
Jake (1:06:34)
So just,
Tim Riley (1:06:35)
Yep.
Jake (1:06:35)
if you can, for like, I don’t know, just run through these real quick. What’s been going on? How did the Achilles come up? How did the, yeah.
Tim Riley (1:06:40)
So the
Achilles came up because I, listen, I’ve been on this speed journey. My goal has been to hit 22 miles an hour over a 10 meter distance, right? I’m so close. I got to 21.7 and then I started really ramping up my sprint volume. And by the way, this is my first time being in spikes, being on the track. I spent my whole last year kind of brand new to this world.
I didn’t do track and field. I trained some track and field athletes, but not that many. so anyway, I’m doing every single sprint rep in spikes, every single one. And like, I remember talking to like Trey Hardy, who’s a silver medalist and like Matt Clark, a strength conditioning coach for K-State track and field, that I did that. And I was like, man, my fucking Achilles is pissed. And they’re like, how many reps are you running in spikes? I’m like, all of them. They’re like, that’s, you’re an idiot.
You know, so I’m doing my typical runs in spikes and doing everything in spikes. I’m a big guy. So I piss off my Achilles tendon first time ever. Right. And when it initially happened, I was being kind of laissez faire about it because I would just go and slam some heavy calf raises after and the next day I’d wake up and it’d be fine. But then one day I did that and it was not fine. I was like tender getting out of bed and I was like, no, I’ve fucking done it.
because I know how bad and how difficult it is to come back from an Achilles tendon, you know? And it’s more insertional, so it’s closer to the heel. like, you know, which, and I found out that like actually slamming it into deep ranges of motion was like the opposite thing you want to do. I figured that out real, real quick. And so what I started adopting was like some overcoming and yielding isometrics. And then I just had to, I had to get out of the spikes. had to get back into running shoes.
And I had to start progressing my plyos again, dude. So like the good news is like my experience with the jumper’s knee really prepared me to be able to be commonsensical about this. also 30, you know, I’ll be 35 next month. ⁓ I don’t want to rupture my Achilles. Fuck that. You know, I’ve I’ve jokingly but not jokingly said so long for a long time that if I rupture my Achilles or shred an ACL, I’m going to stop training like a quote unquote athlete.
and it’s gonna be the beginning of my villain arc. I’m gonna change my Instagram handle from Tim Riley Training to Trent Riley Training. I’m gonna get on gear and I’m just going to power build. You know what I mean? I’m just gonna get, I’m just gonna become a mutant. ⁓ But yeah, like the idea of tearing Achilles terrifies me because I love to sprint and jump and do that stuff. So I took it really seriously. I’m finally at a place now where it’s like, I’m good. I’m ready to get hurt again. You know what I mean? Like I’m gonna.
Jake (1:09:08)
You
You
Tim Riley (1:09:30)
I’m gonna put the spikes back on. I’m only gonna put them on for my final two reps that are supposed to be my fastest runs. I’m not gonna do my tempos in them, you know what I mean? And I’m really gonna have to, but now, and then the one that I cannot, that has not helped, that just won’t get better, is this I have a subscap partial tear.
And it’s been a problem for a couple years now. And it took me finally getting an MRI. was like, God, it feels like a tendon. Like some days it’s fine. Other days it hurts so fucking bad. I’ll make a sudden movement and I get a sharp pain just like jumper’s knee. I was like, but that doesn’t make sense. You know? And then I got an MRI and I was like, yeah, your subscap is partially torn and you have chronic tendonitis in that tendon. And I was like, tight, awesome, explains everything. So, you know, basically like anything I did hurt.
And so I haven’t done a proper upper body workout in many months. I’ve been working with this PT where, you know, slowly getting through it. It is improving. ⁓ but I have no answers for you there when it comes to the shoulder. I’m still going through that process and I haven’t really been able to find anything that actually works yet. ⁓ yeah, the shoulder is tough.
Jake (1:10:42)
Yeah. It’s a partial tear. It’s
a tear of the tendon. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Riley (1:10:48)
Yes.
Fucking nightmare, dude. And I went, I was like, you know, let me go see a surgeon.
Jake (1:10:54)
Well here, this,
I don’t know if you, I did a recording with shoulder physio, Jared Powell, and he’s like the rotator cuff guy. So like if you ever need to talk to someone, ⁓ I would talk to him. Cause that’s how they go is they tear. They get partial tears. It’s like a, the analogy he uses is a sheet, but I’ve heard it as a sock too, that the rotator cuff, the way everything is built, they just get holes in them. And the holes don’t actually like heal themselves. Like Keith Barr talks about the hole in a patellar tendon healing itself.
Tim Riley (1:11:00)
Okay.
Jake (1:11:22)
or the Achilles healing itself, the holes in the rotator cuffs don’t really go through that process. They just kind of stay there. And then they can actually get a little bigger over time. yeah, people can just, because you don’t really, the surgeries are not really good to like try to fill those in or like replace them with something else, right now at least. So yeah, I think it’s just conservative rehab and trying to figure out what is the Goldilocks zone of loading and what’s the best loading thing to do. ⁓ yeah, the whole like,
Tim Riley (1:11:37)
Yeah.
Jake (1:11:52)
partial tear in the thing is really scary, but then if you accept that like 90 some or some percent of people by the age of like 50 or 60 are gonna have tears and how many of them have pain? Not many have pain. So it’s like, it’s just like tendinopathy of an Achilles or a patella in an athlete. You’re gonna have it there. You’re gonna have tendinosis. mean, you’re gonna have tendinosis. You might or you might not have pain. But yeah, the tear thing is scary to hear. But.
Tim Riley (1:12:15)
huh.
It
Jake (1:12:20)
It’s
Tim Riley (1:12:20)
sucks.
Jake (1:12:20)
normal, but it’s normal in a rotator cuff tendon. Like I probably got them all over my rotator cuff tendons and… No. Yeah, exactly, that’s the thing, yeah.
Tim Riley (1:12:24)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, it’s just for what, but this one’s painful. That’s the thing that’s, you know, it’s like, it’s like,
and to the point where it’s like, it’s impacting the way my tissues are showing up, this PTA I started working with, I was like, I got to the point, Jake, I couldn’t even raise my arm overhead. This is the most I’ve been able to raise my arm overhead in over a year. I’ve been stuck here, bro. So bad. And like no benching, pushups are off the table, like no pressing at all. ⁓ And like bad. And, ⁓
You know, I’m so I’m like doing all this soft tissue work, which is fucking miserable. But I had my PT show me like a diagram. He like drew a line down the middle of my body. My trap on this side. Was so like, you know, protective of the shoulder. This collarbone was pointing 45 degrees, not kidding, 45 degrees up in this collarbone was completely flat. I was basically like this all the time. I look like fucking Quasimodo. I’m like, how do people when they meet me not go like, hey, are you like deformed?
Jake (1:13:28)
Ha
Tim Riley (1:13:28)
Like what?
Like when I saw it, was jarring. was like, holy shit. I’ve been walking around like this for two years. Anyway, yeah.
Jake (1:13:36)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, how long? You’ve all even been dealing with it two years.
Tim Riley (1:13:41)
It’s been three years now and like it’s just it’s been gradually getting worse and now it’s finally starting to improve some. Like I did stem cells. I put $4,000 worth of stem cells in this thing. Nothing. And then everyone I talked to like, well, you have to do it a few times. I’m like a a few times. Are you and then like it might not work. I’m not putting 12 grand in this shoulder for it not to work. Dude, fuck you. Hell no. I’m not doing that. You know, so I don’t know.
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