kanuki10

Sometimes the outside of my right knee gives me alot of grief. It usualy happens outside of the gym. Say I am doing house work, have to squat down, come back up and both knees make some noise, but the right one can get darn painful. This has only happened a handfull of times when doing squats or presses. I blame simply squating cold, not having prepared muscles and cold joints. One day at work it was really bad. I sat down on a bench to re-tie my shoe, and of course I am focusing on my knee, and how much it hurts. Then something odd happens. I start to drag my foot closer to me, so as to tie my lace, I lean at the hips, keeping my back straight. I feel a tight contraction in my hamstring/knee area and and then a very loud, audible pop. I stop, and brace for some kind of pain, but nothing comes. I stand up, walk around, and the pain is actually greatly reduced.
I now pop my knee before every leg day, before warming up on a bike, and I tend to have far fewer problems. I have applied the same logic to my left shoulder and elbow, both of which have also given me trouble.
So my question is, could poping my joints lead to any problems? Is the popping actually helping me? Why is the pain alleiviated by poping? Do theese joint pains simply come from exerting force along a range of motion before the joint is lubed and warm? I rarely feel this pain in the gym, and I do make a point of warming up, so are the two related?

KCSuperman

I wouldn't think so.

kanuki10

You wouldn't think so to which quesiton? I posed quite a few.