Knees forward in squat

fungie

Is there an acceptable amount of forward knee travel? I read things from its a myth to being very bad. My knees travel very far forward when squatting (videos attached), this position is very comfortable to me. Maybe its because I have long legs relative to height.

Saying that, this has caused alot of knee damage. I had patella tendonitis in one knee which is pretty much cleared and now I have patellofemoral pain in both knees. I am trying to push more off my heels at the moment to reduce knee stress.

Is there anything I can do technique wise or am I doomed to never be able squat without pain.

smcgiff

fungie wrote: »

Saying that, this has caused alot of knee damage.

Feck. You cannot change your body's dynamics, and I don't see your knees over extending. Not much technique can do about that.

The weights you're currently lifting may be a factor. That might be out of kilter. Maybe you need more strength in your legs first.

fungie

smcgiff wrote: »

Feck. You cannot change your body's dynamics, and I don't see your knees over extending. Not much technique can do about that.

The weights you're currently lifting may be a factor. That might be out of kilter. Maybe you need more strength in your legs first.

This was a light set I was doing to focus on pushing harder through my heels. I deadlift 150kg for sets so dont think posterior chain is a problem.

smcgiff

fungie wrote: »

This was a light set I was doing to focus on pushing harder through my heels. I deadlift 150kg for sets so dont think posterior chain is a problem.

That's what I mean by current, and not what you're lifting in the video.

Are your legs strong enough? That was my thought, but you think it's something else.

Hanley

Your knee travel isn't so much of the issue as it is that you break at the knees first.

Knees ahead of toes is fine, once you get there the right way - by opening the knees, sitting back and down and using your glutes and hams as well as your quads. You're doing none of that.

You don't want to break solely at the hips, but it should be both at approximately the same time.

As stated, your p-chain probably is weak. Looking at your squat set up I've a serious feeling you'll round your lower back a lot off the floor which will take most of the load off the muscles you need to be training.

And even if it doesn't, getting your deadlift to 180-200 will still help a lot.

Paddywiggum

take the focus off the knees for a sec, watch the line of travel of the bar in the second video, the side on view. from the moment the squat begins the bar is travelling diagonally forward. it needs to travel vertically as much as possible.

stop what your doing. you need to rebuild the squat, drop the weight dramatically. you need to sit back more and get down in the 'hole'. this will transfer the stress from your knees to your glutes, hams, quads.

you shouldnt be doing any exercise that is causing you pain, im sure you know this already. if you find difficulty sitting back, try box squatting for a while to get used to the position.

fungie

Thanks for all the feedback

Knees ahead of toes is fine, once you get there the right way - by opening the knees, sitting back and down and using your glutes and hams as well as your quads. You're doing none of that.

Thats something I definitely need to work on, I usually dont take a side on camera angle but its very obvious from it.

And even if it doesn't, getting your deadlift to 180-200 will still help a lot.

I hope to hit 200 in the next 6 months, already hit 170kg a few weeks ago and still progressing every session on ICF 5x5 with it, currently on 150kg. Deadlift is the only lift I am happy with, squat and bench are terrible.

take the focus off the knees for a sec, watch the line of travel of the bar in the second video, the side on view. from the moment the squat begins the bar is travelling diagonally forward. it needs to travel vertically as much as possible.

This also absolutely needs to be addressed

kevpants

You're so anterior it's unreal. There is very little control on the way down because, as the posters above said, your glutes and hams aren't doing anything. You're lowering and raising the weight completely through the use of your quads. Your back angle is really impressively upright, your abs are obviously really strong, but this is another symptom of your issues. Your anterior muscles are doing the work of your posterior and whenever you ask a muscle group to take over from the one that should be doing the work you'll get pain presenting at some point in the knee, hip or back. If you cold get your glutes firing and acting as the brakes on the way down into the squat it would go a long way to helping.

I'd say it's the eccentric portion of the lift that's doing the damage, get some posterior based control there and you'll see a big difference.

fungie

kevpants wrote: »

You're so anterior it's unreal. There is very little control on the way down because, as the posters above said, your glutes and hams aren't doing anything. You're lowering and raising the weight completely through the use of your quads. Your back angle is really impressively upright, your abs are obviously really strong, but this is another symptom of your issues. Your anterior muscles are doing the work of your posterior and whenever you ask a muscle group to take over from the one that should be doing the work you'll get pain presenting at some point in the knee, hip or back. If you cold get your glutes firing and acting as the brakes on the way down into the squat it would go a long way to helping.

I'd say it's the eccentric portion of the lift that's doing the damage, get some posterior based control there and you'll see a big difference.

Thanks for the input, plenty to work on. I use to lean forward alot when squatting and worked on staying upright, hopefully I can be as successful with loading glutes and quads on way down.

harvester of sorrow

kevpants wrote: »

You're so anterior it's unreal. There is very little control on the way down because, as the posters above said, your glutes and hams aren't doing anything. You're lowering and raising the weight completely through the use of your quads. Your back angle is really impressively upright, your abs are obviously really strong, but this is another symptom of your issues. Your anterior muscles are doing the work of your posterior and whenever you ask a muscle group to take over from the one that should be doing the work you'll get pain presenting at some point in the knee, hip or back. If you cold get your glutes firing and acting as the brakes on the way down into the squat it would go a long way to helping.

I'd say it's the eccentric portion of the lift that's doing the damage, get some posterior based control there and you'll see a big difference.

What's the best way to achieve this?

fungie

harvester of sorrow wrote: »

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What's the best way to achieve this?

wouldn't mind to know this, perhaps some mental cues some of you use.

fungie

I tried to sit back today. My knees still travel a good bit forward, would this be considered acceptable knee travel?

Hanley

Rock solid. Only way to change the knee travel there is to either take your stance wider, or lean forward more with your torso. Neither's really desirable.

kevpants

harvester of sorrow wrote: »

[/B]

What's the best way to achieve this?

If you push your knees out on the way down it should help you feel your glutes working considering they are one of the main muscles involved in that action.

They almost act as brakes on the way down, slowing you slightly but giving control. What this then does is help build tension which, once you've drilled it for a while, should give you more pop out of the bottom.

Dropping into a squat without that tension means you either need to bounce out of the bottom or you have to generate power from pretty much nothing which is really difficult.

As an example of this, if you've ever tried a "dead bench" which is a bench press just from the bottom up, the bar sits on the safeties at chest height, you'll notice it's much harder than a full ROM bench. That might seem counter intuitive but that stored up energy on the eccentric portion is an important part of the lift.