Do not despair! There are other ways. What you should do: There are plenty of other options to replace the good ole-fashioned back squat. Some of these alternatives may actually benefit you more than banging your head against the wall trying to perfect the squat. The Bulgarian split squat is a great replacement for several reasons. It takes pressure off of the lower back, works each leg unilaterally for better strength balance, and it allows you to make less weight feel heavier, de-loading your spine and enabling a more upright position.
Other alternative moves include reverse lunges, front squats, goblet squats, trap bar deadlifts, and pistol squats just to name a few. I could fill pages with reasons to squat, but there will always be a few who stand their ground to abstain from practicing.
What you should do: Be honest with yourself about your desire to make the effort to learn to squat correctly. You may need to start all over again, and perform a series of sets each day with just your body weight. Developing this pathway or groove will help map out the exercise, so it will one day become second nature. Failing that, take another look at the variations above. Not everyone is built perfectly to back squat. You may need outside help, or it may be better for your unique physiology to simply find an alternative to adopt.
Scrutinize your form and technique, shore up your weak links, and dig deep to uncover the right path to progression. Check out these simple workouts and fun exercises that can be done at-home with makeshift or no equipment at all. Topic: Fitness. A knee injury is one of the biggest disadvantages of squats.
How people injure their knees when squatting: Knee injuries occur during a squat when you either:. How to prevent knee injuries when squatting: To avoid knee injuries you need to: a.
Rotate your knees external rotate out slightly so that they are not caving in. You can do this by pointing your toes out, stretching and strengthing your hips and peroneus muscles which is all highlighted for you in this video below:. Strengthen your hips most notably: the Gluteus Medius [ 2 ] because this can cause the femur to track incorrectly.
You can strengthen your hips by following this exercise here:. A lot of trainers will recommend that you avoid moving your knees past the line of the toes on the way down. While this makes sense from a perspective that the knee would receive too much force if it tracked past the toes, here is the dilemma:.
Your knees should go over the line of the toes when squatting because this is a natural way for the kinetic chain to work properly [ 4 ]. This way the force from your legs can transmit through the kneecap and then down through the other side of the tibia and back up again meaning the force can travel up and down — preventing your joints from taking the strain.
We even move our knees past the line of the toes when walking up and down the stairs. Why is it that so many people are unable to move their knees past the line of their toes?
Two reasons:. Summary: Knee injuries occur when people either squat with excessive internal rotation, rush the exercise, and have a poor foundation of hip strength and ankle mobility, or all of the above.
Although the hips are powered by one of the biggest muscle groups in the body the glutes you will find many problems with hip restrictions when you have either:. How hip injuries occur in squats: Hip injuries do not occur from squatting alone.
These are: 1. Tight hip: If you have tight hip flexors, you can test how tight you are using this Thomas test here [ 6 ]. You can test this by lifting your knee up higher than you hip and holding it there for fifteen seconds as demonstrated here.
Note: The above issues could also be due to a muscular strain, so it would be best to consult with a professional physio therapist. Hip impingement: A hip impingement is felt when you are at the bottom of a squat. This is because the femur runs into the front side of the hip socket which happens in deep hip flexion. Summary: Hip restrictions are very commonly felt when squatting and are caused either by tight hips, weak hips, muscle strains, or hip impingement. You can also injure your hips when squatting which Healthline have highlighted here.
This is exactly why developing good flexibility and mobility is of prime importance [ 7 ]. A good warm-up consists of mins of light cardio, along with dynamic stretching to activate the muscle fibres and prepare them for work. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.
Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Feeling a twinge of knee pain while working out can be alarming. Many people are so afraid of injuring their knees while doing squats that they avoid them completely. The good news: this avoidance may not be necessary. Ahead, fitness experts help us settle the debate. Targeting your quadriceps, calves, hamstrings, adductors, glutes , and hip flexors, squats are an amazing way to strengthen your lower body.
In terms of athletic performance, squatting can make you stronger in activities like biking and running. If you're looking to improve your speed and strength, Selena Samuela , a Peloton Tread instructor, suggests adding an explosive element like a jump squat to the mix.
Not only can squatting add power and stability to boost your athletic performance, but you'll notice the difference in your everyday life, too. Simple, routine tasks like getting out of bed, picking up a heavy bag of groceries, and walking up a steep set of stairs may not seem very challenging, but they might all be made easier and safer by regularly doing squats.
Autumn Calabrese , a BeachBody trainer and certified personal trainer, explains this benefit further. But that's not all. Squats are also helpful for burning fat, strengthening your knee, hip, and ankle joints, and boosting your core strength , which can help ease lower back pain and make twisting and bending easier.
Our other experts agree that squats are perfectly safe to add into your workouts , especially when you focus on keeping your spine neutral and executing the move from your hips. The trouble comes in when you have issues with hip or ankle mobility, or if the movement comes more from your spine rather than from your hips. Calabrese shared these tips to help you squat like a pro:.
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