I wasn't going to post this as I feel embarrassed that I am always asking for help.
I tried to use the search but couldn't find any answers.
But Depalma asked on the HIIT thread why would I cut down on my cardio since I love it.
Okay so with sprinting first I had calf pain and got over that; then as I was increasing my HIIT on my TM I have gotten pain in the back of my knees --not the knee joint but the tendons, ligaments? behind my knees.
A consistent achy feeling.
I tried icing and it didn't do anything.
It was getting better with a day off and I should probably not have done cardio day before yesterday.
I didn't do HIIT just an hour of fast walking (4.3)and yesterday I did UBWL and Abs.
Today is my day off but now again I have that ache behind my knees.
Tommorrow I am supposed to do HIIT and the next day lower body squats, deadlifts and lunges.
I LOVE to workout but I"m scared that if I push through this knee stuff I'll have to take more time off.
I never had pains when I was just doing power walking, but I love sprinting even more.
Should I just do UBWL this week?
And stay off my knees?
My daughter and husband think I'm too obsessed, but honestly I just feel so much better when I exercise it's hard for me to miss a session.
Wish I had a personal trainer I could ask, but I'm doing this all on my own --so very much appreciate that I can ask you guys -hope I don't sound too whiney.

Give the pain some time to settle down.

How often are you doing HIIT?
How long have you been doing power walking/regular walking prior to HIIT?

It might be a simple case of too much too soon. You might have to build up a bigger base of moderate to higher intensity steady state with occassional HIIT and build from there?

Hi Depalma,
Thanks so much for responding.
I've been doing HIIT since Feb. 16 but I started out very low at 5.0 with a recovery of 3.5 working up to 6.4 in about a month so I know it's not really HIIT but I was getting there going up by .1 each session, 3 x a week. WL the other 3 days.
The only thing is I was doing the HIIT for 30 -37 minutes and ss for a total of 60.
I figured my HIIT was so low that I needed to do it longer to make up for the fact that it was not yet faster.
But when the back of my knee started to ache that's when I thought I needed to cut the HIIT back.
As I said I didn't do any HIIT last Friday but an hour on the TM -35 min power walking at 4.3 -the rest warm up and cool down at 4.0.
The last time I did HIIT ( last Wednesday after which the back of my knees started to hurt) I only did 27 min HIIT with the rest ss (63 min total) after a 5 min rest as Cosgrove suggests.
I lost 33 lbs over a year eating clean and doing ss endurance TM cardio because I did not know any better and I loved it so much --power walking for 90 mins or so 6 days a week.
Going from about 3 miles an hour for an hour at my fastest when I started losing weight in October of 2006 to 4.2 miles for an hour ( the rest warm up and cool down) when I stopped to try HIIT this February.
I also started WL but in a very small way as I had been a runner before I broke my leg about 12 years ago ( not the leg btw where the knee ache is sorest) but stupidly never did any WL then.
I am really enjoying the WL now and am excited as I go up in weight but spent a long time on leg press and extension machines because I didn't know any better there too.
I only started doing squats, lunges and deadlifts first with body weight and now with 20 total dumbells on Feb. 20.
I love the WL and never had any problems with my LBWL workout.
It was only when I started running that I got first the calf pain and now the back of the knee ache.
I did get new shoes ( stupidly 2 sets) of New Balance Cross Trainers which the salesman recommended.
Unfortunately I live in a small college town.
I got the shoes at a special shoe store where they work with people who have feet problems but they are not runners and never checked my gait etc.

Katie, I think you really need to make a choice. If you like doing your endurance cardio, do your endurance cardio and leave it at that. If you want to make weight lifting and fat loss a priority then you need to commit to them. As it is you're doing a ton of counter-productive activity that is not necessary and which is overtaxing your body and leaving you with too many little injuries! You're burning all the calories (more, really) with weight lifting and HIIT that you ordinarily burn doing steady state cardio. You don't need the extra. If you want to do that much cardio then make that, not weights and HIIT, your priority.

If you want to do HIIT, please don't treat it like endurance exercise. The whole point of it (well, one of the points) is that you can replace an hour of steady state cardio with 20 minutes of intervals. You're not SUPPOSED to be able to do it for 40 minutes.

I do the sprints too and I've found them to be VERY taxing on my body, especially now that I'm doing it more frequently. I'm getting all kinds of aches and pains in the knees and shins. I think I need to alternate treadmill intervals with something else. Katie, you said that you work out from home and only have a treadmill--you could try jumping rope or something like that as an alternative.

Try alternating cutting back a bit, but you probably don't have to cut out he SS that you love. SS still has its place in fat loss, I agree with AC that it's much further down the hierarchy than most people place it, but it still has a place. It also still has a place in cardiovascular health, and if it contributes to your enjoyment, then it has enormous benefits there. Is it optimal when trying to build strength? No. But HAPPINESS is optimal, IMO.

Try doing one day of 20-30 minutes of your intervals, then one day of 30-45 minutes of SS, then a day of rest. This, of course, after your knee is better. See how that goes. If you aren't back in pain after a few weeks, you can slowly progress the amount of work. You are doing a lot of work right now. You might just need to give your body a bit of a break.

Baff and Depalma,
Thank you both for responding.
Actually I lost all my weight doing ss cardio but....I know now that I lost muscle too.
I am maybe odd but I LOVE ALL CARDIO.
Maybe one day I will hate doing intervals like so many say but that is why I am building slowly, going up .1 at a session.
Baff I know you are doing over 9 miles a minute and because I am only up to 6.3 that is why I was doing more time --to make up for the lack of intensity but where I am is intense for me now, and from your post I get that increasing time was not a smart move.
It really doesn't matter to me whether I do ss or intervals, just as long as I can do cardio.
I have lost the weight and maintained for over a year now, so it's no longer about weight loss for me but keeping it off, yes.
However, that being said, I am getting more into WL now (starting to love it too!) and you both have really good points---I guess I have been overdoing it, but when I am doing it I enjoy it so much I just keep on riding those great endorphins.
I so appreciate both of you for taking the time to respond.
So I'm going to give my knee a rest and then go back to intervals for shorter periods.
But given what you said at the end of your post Baff I'm wondering if I should get an exercise bike too so I have something to alternate intervals ( other than the tm). Not sure whether jumping rope wouldn't put as much stress on my legs/knees.
Good bikes seem to run upwards of $1000 but are still cheaper than ellipticals.

Hi Katie,

Just my 2 cts in chiming in. I noticed that you do HIIT since 6 weeks. When i started working out i also got a lot of pains in ligaments and such, from overuse.
The point as i understood is that your muscles grow faster than your joints and ligaments can accomodate.
So it is possible that your ligaments need more time to catch up. i agree with you and depalma, give the aches some time and do not work through the pain. These injuries heal very slowly in my experience, but in my case my ligaments caught up. But it took more like 3 - 6 months in my case.
I also added yoga to my routine, and in some way that seems to have some prevenative working for this type injuries for me.

Good luck,
rabbit

Gosh Rabbit -3 to 6 months -Yikes--hope it doesn't take me so long.
I have done yoga for years and actually I have been wondering if the yoga stretches ( because I stretch so fully) are actually making the knee pain worse.
Anyway I clearly have been overdoing it and I am pulling back --not going to push through the knee pain.
Thanks for letting me know how it was with you.

Katie--Have you considered seeing a sports medicine specialist? This is clearly very important to your lifestyle; maybe an expert opinion on what's wrong and what you need to do to fix it would be helpful. I have a personal trainer and as much as I love him, I definitely think a sports medicine specialist is the expert to go to for something like this (and my trainer would agree). If there aren't any specialists in your town, maybe there is a larger town within a reasonable distance that it would be worth making a trip to. Or maybe your doctor could recommend a specialist that you could at least consult with over the phone (I don't know if anyone does this, but the doctors I've seen about my knee problem don't seem to need to spend a lot of time actually examining my knee).

Baffled: have you tried setting the treadmill at a slight incline (maybe 1% or 2%)? I saw a sports medicine specialist this week for my knee problem (an overuse injury) and he said his first recommendation for runners with knee pain is to run on a treadmill at an incline. Running downhill or on a level surface is apparently very hard on your knees.

Also, I've been rubbing Blue-Emu Oil on my knees and it has made a big difference. My step mom recommended it. I was really skeptical but also really desperate, so I gave it a try and now I'm a believer. I forgot to use it for a week while I was on vacation and my knee pain came back, so I'm convinced that it is really making difference for me. Walgreens sometimes has it on sale for $10 a jar. I'm still skeptical of the blue-emu oil, but it has glucosamine in it, which I think is what is making the difference. My knee still isn't 100% because I can't run outdoors, but I can do 20 min of intervals at a pretty good pace (8 to 10 mph) on the treadmill with no problem. Back when I first injured my knee, I couldn't even run on the treadmill.

Thanks Barbara for responding. I'm going to check out the oil you recommend.
Also thanks for letting me know about the incline. I had been running flat so I"ll try setting it at 1 or 2%. Very helpful.
My knee is actually getting a lot better.
Just staying off the TM and not doing LBWL workouts.
I have been doing UBWL --it's great; I am increasing my weights steadily--Abs and Yoga but not the leg stretching which I think made my knee worse.
My weight has been staying the same so that is good too.
Also I found the town next to where I live ( 20 minutes away) does have a runners store.
I went and the nice manager looked at my gait etc. She also told me the shoes I am using ( cross trainers recommended by the other shoe store --why I don't understand?) are all wrong for running.
She said with a forward movement you have to have running shoes even if you are just power walking.
I'm hoping the wrong shoes contributed to my knee problem.
So I am going to use my new shoes for all TM work.
Anyway I'm thinking I'll start back with the intervals Sunday or Monday.
Hope by then I'll be fine.
I know my calf pain went away after I gave it some time off.
I think this knee issue was just from overuse and overstretching with the yoga.
I'm going to follow Baffled's advice and do 20 min interval training probably with a 10 min each ss warm up and cool down.
I'm really maintaining well at 120/121 so that isn't an issue though when I go away to visit my daughter in Toronto at the end of April I'll have to watch really carefully what I eat and do a lot of walking. But in a city that will be fun.

Hey Katie, love the user name as that is my daughter's real life name as well KatieK, as our last name starts with a K.

I think the new shoes will be huge. I can never use NB for my walking once I found how much better running shoes were for me. I think you will find relief there. Cross trainers are a weird breed - like a one shoe fits all - but yet, there's no such thing. IMO c/t's are really just for wl'ing, maybe recreational (but not brisk) walking that you would on a day sightseeing, and maybe biking or ellipticaling. But they don't "Cross" over into running, lol.

I agree you were killing it with the HIIT. I understand your need to be active every day and your love for ssc, as I lost my weight the same way before HIIT became a popular topic here (and when I thought I couldn't run bc of my weight - heck now I run across the soccer field when I need to get somewhere instead of the long walk around!) Anyway, my schedule is something like this:

Sunday: SS Cardio, 30 m

Mon: HIIT, 30 min. of alternating 1 min sprints on 5.0, and 4 min recoveries on 3.5 (sound familiar)? I have no urge to crank these up bc last year when I did, I quit. No longer enjoyed it. Felt overwhelmed.

Tue: SS cardio, 30 min; FBWL - 90 minutes in evening watching The Biggest Loser

Wed: off day on cardio since WL was so late the evening before

Thurs: HIIT, same as above

Fri: ss cardio, save as above & FBWO

Sat: HIIT, same as above

Katie - I agree about the shoes. They can make all the difference in the world if you're doing a fair bit of running. I think it's the best money you can spend, buying a good, properly fitted pair of running shoes. Let us know how it goes. Oh, and I would have asked you if you need any "Toronto Tips" but I guess since you're visiting your daughter, I can't really add anything. There are lots of great spots for getting in some runs too!