Squats and Knees

There's always been a few myths out there about squats and lunges and how they affect the knees that I think would be a good idea to go over.

Myth Number 1: Squats and Lunges are bad for the knees

Assuming you have healthy knees (meaning, the doctor hasn't told you not to do squats or lunges), they aren't bad for your knees. In fact, they could actually help build up the bone mineral density of the bone in the knee and surrounding leg bones to make them stronger and thus, decrease your chances of osteoporosis as you age. They’ll also build up the muscle in both your upper and lower legs with the same benefit of building up the strength of the knee joint.

Myth Number 2: In a squat, you shouldn't let your upper leg go below the point of being parallel to the ground.

One word: babies. Meaning, take a look at babies after they start to walk. They stand there, stick an object in their mouth, throw it on the ground, and squat down to pick it up. Look at how they squat. Their butt in that diaper is nearly grazing the ground. They then pick the object up, stick it back in their mouth, throw it back on the ground, squat down again, and the cycle continues for 3-4 hours.

Babies are natural squatters and if squatting below parallel was harmful, we'd have millions of kids growing up in knee braces.



Another point to make on this myth is that if you go below parallel, you're actually going to be recruiting more from your glutes (butt muscles). So if you're hoping to shape that butt, keep doing squats.

Once last thought on this is that studies have shown that there is more force being applied to your knees when your legs are at parallel than at any other position. The amount of force on the knee significantly DECREASES when you go below parallel.

Myth Number 3: You shouldn't let your knees go past the front of your toes while squatting or when doing a lunge.

First, again, go back to the babies. Watch their knees and you'll see that they naturally go forward and past the front of their toes when the squat down.

The biggest problem I see with this myth is that if you are watching where your knees are going, you could be causing bigger problems in other areas: your lower back.

In a squat, your lower back should be in a neutral and flat position. You should keep your eyes looking slightly downward at a 45-degree angle. You don't want your lower back to round. If you're paying attention to your knees, meaning, you're looking down at your knees, your lower back immediately goes into a rounding position. Not good.

In a lunge, you want your upper body to be straight up and down. Don't lean forward. And I'll give you one guess as to what happens when you look down to see where your knees are in comparison to your toes. Yup, the upper body leans forward.

Bottom line, don't worry where your knees are compared to your toes when doing squats and lunges, just keep your eyes looking slightly downward at a 45-degree angle and your back flat on a squat, and upper body straight in a lunge.

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