 Our next caller is Juan from Quebec, Canada. Hey, what's up Juan? How can we help you? Hey guys. So first of all, I've been listening for over two years and I have nothing but respect for y'all and so please keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you. And so a little bit of background on my question. It's regarding my knees. So since the last year due to the pandemic and the lockdown, I had quite the change in my lifestyle. So my activity levels decreased. I stopped walking a lot and the gyms got closed over here for over eight months. And that was pretty hard on my lifestyle. I was at the time, I was following maps and a bollocks. So I was lifting consistently. Then after that, after a couple of months into lockdown, I noticed a clicking noise on my knees. So every time I would go past 90 degrees on a squat, I would hear like this grinding noise, this grinding like sound that it would be just, it's just a noise like it doesn't, like I don't feel it. It doesn't hurt, but it's just an annoying noise that's not normal, of course. So I did a couple of things. So first of all, I just thought it was a lack of priming. So I got into priming that like it helped just a little bit, but it didn't have like a big effect on it. Then I did some research and I thought it was a muscle imbalance. So like there's several muscles attached to the knee joint and I thought it was a muscle imbalance. So I started foam rolling and I also modified. I took maps and a bollocks and I modified it. So it wouldn't be so heavy on my quads because I noticed my quads were getting bigger than, you know, my posterior shame on my legs. So I modified my ups and a bollocks and that's what I've been doing so far. And so my question is, can the clicking noise be due like to the muscle imbalance or is it just another factor such as mobility of my ankles or hips or just my posture in general when I work out? It's welcome to get an older one. Yeah, that's it. We're done. It's either going to be your hips or your ankles. It's probably where it's going to go. So feet, ankles, or hips. So I would do mobility work on both of those on a regular basis. Like daily, I would do two 10, 15 minute sessions a day working on mobility in those areas. And then when you do your squats and your lunges, go lighter, go lighter for a while so you can focus on working on better connection and mobility. A couple of weeks ago on my Instagram, I posted a video in my garage squatting barefoot. If you turn the volume up on it, you can hear my ankles and my joints, like in my knees, the entire time. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't bother me. Sometimes I notice it like when I go out and I squat and I'm pretty cold. So if I didn't do like a really good job of warming my body up and priming really well and I kind of get into it, I noticed that you can hear it. But it's pretty common. And if it's not causing any pain and you don't see any major discrepancy in your movement, in other words, if you look at your squat and video it and it looks pretty damn good, like you're moving really nice, I don't think that I would assume that it's a muscle imbalance. One of the best ways to test like a muscle imbalance, like a discrepancy in left or right, is to do something like the 90-90 in Prime Pro and does one side look way different than the other? Can I do this internal rotation on one side with the other side? I can't do it at all. That would point me in the direction that there's probably a muscle imbalance going on that we need to address. There's a really good chance that you're just the clicking you hear is like air and the joints just kind of popping and if it's not hurting you, it's pretty normal. Yeah, really just to be concerned if it's not tracking properly and you could feel if it's like an instability issue where your knee might travel inwards or outwards a little bit more when you're squatting. But if it's just like a noise and a clicking noise, I mean going slower and adding more tension is going to allow more support around the joints always. But yeah, like Adam said, it's a lot of times like even my shoulder I do a lot of work, a lot of mobility work on my shoulder and every now and then it clicks and it's just kind of one of those things that you just kind of work through. But I'm always trying to address it at least and slowing down and adding and priming and warming my body up properly. Yeah, you mentioned grinding. So there's clicking and then there's grinding and also pain, right? If you feel pain and if you feel grinding, that's something to pay attention to which is different than just popping and clicking which oftentimes doesn't mean anything bad. So if you are feeling grinding other under the kneecap, then these are all dance moves, by the way. Yeah, not that kind of grinding just grinding, popping, locking, all that stuff. Yeah, I'm into it. If you are feeling pain or grinding, then I would focus on working on the hip ankle and foot mobility every single day, going lighter on your leg exercises and allowing your mobility to improve until the point where you don't feel those things. If it's clicking and there's no pain, and you've got good form, it's probably nothing to worry about. Did you only notice this after you put on weight during the pandemic? Or has this always been kind of something you've noticed? No, I noticed it after the pandemic. I assume it was just like, I stopped moving as much as before. So I just assumed it was like lack of movement in general. Was it like just a little bit of weight you put on or did you get like Justin fat? No. I mean, that's all in. That's the case. And don't feel bad, Justin went through the same thing during the pandemic. We had a CGI, his body in there. I gained the COVID-19, I'll just be honest. Yeah, his glutes were grinding. It was impressive. That's good though. No, I didn't put on that much weight. It was just a couple of pounds. I think it was mainly muscle. But it was mainly on my legs though. Okay, you're probably good. Thanks for calling Juan. Juan, you already have Prime Pro. Is that correct? Yeah, I do have Prime Pro. Okay. And you're following what? Anabolic right now? What are you following right now? Yeah, I'm following anabolic at home. Right now, I was hesitant to go back to the gym because I knew I would go heavy. I would have the tendency to go heavy on the squats and stuff like that. So I just wanted to ask, you're telling me to go lighter for a couple of I would say, wait months maybe? Yeah. I would also consider moving into maps performance after that too. I think that would do you some good. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I can do that. All right. Perfect one. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you guys. Bye. Yeah, the clicking versus pain. You know, that's a big one, right? What's that sound? It's normally, I mean, if there's no pain, it's almost always the air in the joints or even like the muscle fibers like kind of flopping over each other. Yeah. And then it's what an active tissue, not really respond. Yeah. And the pot is like when you crack your knuckles, it's like, imagine taking a suction cup and pulling it off a window. That's what the sound is coming from. It's alarming though. So I'll get, you know, I give it to him. But it's if it hurts or if you feel grinding, that's very different. Like grinding could be issues. That'll lead to pain typically. Yeah. And I know, I mean, it's a distinct different feeling like there's popping and then there's like, Oh man, throughout the whole rep, I feel my knee grind almost like you need WD 40 in there or something like that. Did you hear that video that I posted a couple of weeks ago? I did. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Turn the sound up. A few people commented, they noticed it. What's that sound? Yeah, you can hear as they come down. The sound of age. I do notice it though more. I do, if I neglect priming really well, if I do a good job of like priming and then doing like some. So another thing that I've been doing lately that I like in my garage is I have the suspension trainer attached to the PRX and I'll do like 30 like body weight squats and I use the suspension trainer to help me stay upright and to kind of pinch my shoulder. And I just, I bust out 30 full range, real deep squats and then I do some priming and I do that with Cossack squats. I'll hold on to the suspension trainer, get real, try and get real deep on one side and then move to the other and get that lateral activation. For me, at least that's what helps the most.