Over the last few weeks, as the weight on my squats has gotten heavier I've been noticing some pain in my quadricep. Not the normal muscle soreness, it's a little sharper and feels "deeper" in the muscle. It also seems to go horizontally across the quadricep.
Looking up a muscle diagram it seems to be right around where the dot for Rectus Femoris is in this diagram:
Maybe just a touch lower, possibly where it starts turning into tendon. (Kind of hard to pinpoint, sorry.)
I found this article talking about Rectus Femoris pain: http://www.triggerpointtherapist.com/blog/knee-pain-trigger-points/rectus-femoris-trigger-point-quadriceps/
And it talks about how tight calves (specifically the soleus muscle) can cause you to overcompensate using your quads when doing squats. My calves are super tight and that includes the soleus so... probably onto something there. The only caveat is I'm not getting the knee pain as they describe it, or at the same times (they say it's worse at night.)
What I do get is it will "ping" sometimes when standing up from a seated position, or climbing a stair. Between sets of squats my quads feel really, really tight almost like the muscle is clenching around that spot. That said, it doesn't seem to interfere with me actually doing the squats at all and I've been able to continue increasing the weight just fine.
So what do I do about it? The article suggests a trigger point massage but it also seems to be selling a book for it so...
Would just stretching more help? I've been considering some yoga between lifting days anyway.
Should I rest the muscle longer to let it heal? The longest I've rested since noticing this is 3 days... I'd rather not skip too many workouts and lose momentum.
