Daily Maestroism

DM #33

Saturday, June 25th, 2016

DM #33: Might be opening a can of worms with this one, but let's do it!
Before I got myself edumacated, I used to think that squatting below parallel was bad for you, and that under NO circumstances should your knees come forward past your toes. EVER! Glad I jumped off that crazy train ?

When it comes to full depth squatting (with proper form – get those heels down!), your knees MUST move forward to help counterbalance your weight. Otherwise you will fall over! I'm sure you've seen it in clinic where patients are told to not let their knees come forward at all while squatting. They try, get to about 45 degrees, then fall backwards. Duh! You've got them trying to squat with a deadlift pattern ?

As I've posted before, the joint that moves first is the joint that is maximally loaded. Lead with your knees to squat and heck yeah they're gonna hurt! Lead with dat booty and now we're in business.
Now, if you're squatting to just below parallel then your knees generally don't need to be traveling past your toes. But look at some of those Olympic lifters in those ass-to-grass positions and you'll see a different story. Specific anthropometrics swill determine this.
The big take home is to stop obsessing over whether or not your patient's knees are coming forward, and start observing which joint is moving first with that squat pattern.

Let's see what the crowd has to say about this one! ?

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