Squats Don't Hurt Your Knees, The Way You Squat Does 31/84

I see it all the time, I'm sitting down with a new member and they tell me that they have knee problems. This inevitably leads to them telling me that they can't do squats because of this fact. Although I don't automatically disagree with them, the first question I ask if if they can stand up from the chair they're sitting in. 95% of the time they do it just fine, they may not stand up with perfect squat form, but they do it and it doesn't hurt. Once I make them aware of this, they are much more open to listening to what I have to say about it. There are other times that, once we go to the workout floor, I ask them to squat and it is just atrocious. I watch them do one and I'm like "No wonder that hurts!" I give them a few basic ques and the pain seem to disappear.

No, not everyone can do a perfect body weight squat without assistance, but just about everyone can do a squat of some sort. This could be one of many different variations but I can almost guarantee that one of them will feel just fine. The basic, perfect, air squat should be a goal for anyone, but how do you get there? Let's talk quick about a few different variations that I work on people with.

Outside of a rare judgment call, I make every person show me how to squat on to a box before we ever try to do one without. This goes back to my original point that just about anyone can stand up from a chair. The first variation of a box squat is exactly that; you sit down, let your weight go onto the box with a slight rock back, then move your weight back forward and stand back up. Simple. This is a variation that pretty much every person can do. The only thing you need to mess with is the height on the box. If someone has knee pain, start the box super high then lower it as little as possible. Once you get to the point of pain, go slightly higher and do reps there. Stick here until these reps get pretty easy then try to lower the box over time. You'll be surprised how knee pain starts to go away once leg strength is increased. You also need to make sure basic squat technique is maintained. I don't need to go into super detail in this post but the basics are to keep your chest up, whole foot on the ground, and knees tracking over the toes through the movement, going as low as you can while maintaining a neutral spine.

The other adjustment you can make to this squat is to widen the feet out into a sumo stance. This decreases the total amount of flexion that the knee actually goes through. Less flexion in the joint usually means less pain. It's another option you can use to build up strength while you try to increase range of motion. As you progress, try to start bringing the feet slightly closer until your at the basic shoulder-width stance, or whatever is most comfortable with you.

Once you have that down, we remove the "rocking back" portion and maintain tension on the legs the whole time. Now, you sit back, tap the box with your butt, then stand back up. Do this at a height that you can maintain pain free and try to lower the box height over time. Once you can do this onto a box that lets you squat to parallel, you can being working without the box. At this point, training with squat without the box (most of the time), is going to be the best thing to try and increase whole body strength.

In tomorrows post, I'll go into more detail on the progression of exercises I take once squatting without a box has been achieved. Finally, My Free Fat Loss and Free Muscle Gaining Tips are done! And I have to say that they're looking pretty awesome and I'll be emailing the to all of my subscribers soon. Those will be free to anyone who subscribes here. Right now you'll also get a free copy of the Nutrition Template that I use for myself and my clients. Subscribing will also let you join the private Facebook group that I just opened (I fixed the link). This group will allow for much more engagement with each other than my Facebook page so I can make sure you guys are getting all of the info you need.

See you tomorrow!

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