squat form

Hello, Experts. Perhaps you would help me. I can't get my squat form right. Everything seems right except that my knees are several inches forward of my toes at the bottom of the movement. I only go down to thighs horizontal. It feels right but I have read that this form is dangerous to knees. I probably will never squat more than 200 lbs. Is my form ok at this weight?

sounds like you're treating it as a knee movement rather than a hip movement. concentrate on dropping your hips on the way down, pushing them forward on the way up. you might also want to check your stance - a little wider stance may help. practice with less weight until you get it right.

see krista's site for good form tips: http://www.stumptuous.com/badsquat.html

If your knees are in front of your toes, you will have pressure / your weight shifted forward towards your toes. This also indicates the weight is more on your back and not on your legs.

Lean back a bit and push the weight through your heels. It takes some getting used to but when everything looks right, it may feel like you are leaning forward a little bit from your hips, but your feet will be telling you that you're leaning back.

Drop weight to just the bar and start from there to get the form and the feeling. Then add weight until you start to get the urge to fall back into your old habit, and stop at that weight. After you get used to doing it with better form you can continue to move up.

Strict form is the key, especially to this double ACL recon person.

The narrower your stance, the more your knees will shoot out in front of your toes (and they should be tracking over your toes). It's not really an issue, but to cure it, widen your stance and make sure you're keeping your butt back.

One thing you can try for its educational value: With no weight at all, barefoot, just squat down and play with your position - move your feet and legs around as much as necessary - until you find the place where you can go rock bottom comfortably while your knees track your feet and your heels are on the ground. (It's ok if you stick your arms out in front of you for balance.) You may not choose to squat a heavy weight this way but it's good to know. If you can't do this you may have some flexibility issues you want to work on.

I'm not entirely sure this is a problem. You might want to check out this squat analysis: http://www.exrx.net/ExInfo/Squats.html Specifically, the site mentions that 'Contrary to propaganda to the contrary, prominent weight training authorities demonstrate the squat with the knees flexing forward at the same distance as the hips flex backwards. Fredrick Hatfield, Ph.D., the first man to squat over 800 lbs, recommends the knees to extend over the feet with the back more upright for quadriceps development. 'Strength Training for Young Athletes' by Steven J. Fleck, PhD and William J. Kraemer, PhD, illustrate parallel squats with the knees extending beyond the feet (knees moving forward with same magnitude as hip moving backwards).' Is this how you're doing it?

Patrick Falcon

Thanks for all the advice . I will print them out and work on it.