I was training a client who was getting knee pain when she squatted.
I wanted to share with you what I did to eliminate her knee pain when she squatted.
I know it will help you and your clients.
The Squat is essential, but it can sometimes bring on knee pain. If you get knee pain when you squat, look at your core strength.
This is not the only thing to look at, but one of the things to look at.
Let me explain what I mean.
When we are standing, we don’t use much of our core. When our trunk or upper body starts to move forward, we need our core to support and stabilize our spine.
The trunk moves forward when we do a squat.
If our trunk moves more than 45 degrees forward, the extra weight of our bodies moves over the balls of our feet and leads to greater activation and stress on the knees by pressing the knee cap (patella) and the knee joint together.
This weight shift is a compensation pattern for a weak core.
If you move your upper body, so your trunk is less than 45 degrees, you stress your core more significantly. The deep and superficial muscles of the core have to work harder to keep you in the position, but this also shifts your weight, so it is over the middle of your feet and heels. This shift in the weight on your feet will decrease the stress on the knee.
Now let’s go through some exercises you can do to improve your core when squatting.
How to Strengthen Your Core For Less Knee Pain
Standing to ¼ Squat
You can begin by moving from standing into the squat position with the trunk less than 45 degrees forward.
I teach this with one hand on the stomach and one on the lower back. I get my clients to activate the core and move from standing to squatting.
I will get them to hold the squat position for 10 seconds and then move back into standing for ten repetitions.
We are working on the core’s activation, endurance, strength, and good motor patterns for the Squat.
¼ Squat Exercises Exercises
After they have mastered the “standing to 1/4 Squat” exercise, I will get them to hold a 1/4 squat position and perform various activities. They activate their core and keep the quarter squat position during the complete set of the movement. It can be narrow grip rows or pec fly exercises.
I hope this gives you some more ideas on what to do if you or your client has knee pain when squatting.
Before I go, here are some kind words that I just received.
Kind words about Knee Injury solutions
Rick’s Knee Injury Solution program is without a doubt a huge asset to anyone! I was excited to find out that many of the exercises are easily incorporated into a regular training routine without even noticing. Many of the things we already do, such as planks, but Rick lays out how to put them together in proper progressions to gain success! What is also great, is that you don’t need to have background knowledge to understand the program. More and more people are complaining about knee, hip and foot pain, why not address these issues now? Anyone can do the Knee Injury Solution program with Rick’s simple, progressive explanations of not only how to perform each exercise, but how to perform the exercises correctly (or correct for instabilities).
Knee Injury Solution is a tool I needed to get my clients permanent results. Thank you Rick for your insight!
Stacey Prejza
Kind Feedback about Muscle Imbalances Revealed:
That is it.
Thanks for reading, and we will talk to you soon.
Rick Kaselj, MS
