Getting Knee Pain When You Squat?

Knee pain from squatting should be considered the same way as back pain from deadlifting. It isn’t normal and is likely a sign of poor form, often exacerbated by loads you are not ready to lift. These things are most common at the top end of our lifting ability. Think about it, do you really want poor form when you are lifting as much as you possibly can? Or does that sound like something that is likely to result in injury and enforced time off/rehab.

Some in the fitness industry refer to this kind of lifting as ego lifting. You are letting your ego get in the way of good judgement in order to hit a new PB, at the expense of good form, and therefore risking injury.

As poor form in a deadlift is often manifested by allowing the lower spine to flex during the lift, poor form in a squat is often shown by a knee valgus during the lift. Knee valgus, more commonly known as knee cave, is when the knees come in during the squat, usually on the way back up from the bottom position.

So what should you do if you notice a knee valgus during your squat? There is a few things that can cause a valgus, here are the main ones:

-Poor foot stability, so the arch of your foot drops during the squat

-Poor strength of the muscles on the side of your hips

-Insufficient ankle mobility

So obviously in order to fix the issue you need to identify the cause. I posted a video on some simple self assessment on my YouTube channel: Click here to watch

Once you have identified the issue you can work on corrective exercises to fix the issue, fix your squat and prevent injury.

Go light and do it right. Prevent injury and prolong your lifting career.

-Derry

Brighton based specialist musculoskeletal physiotherapist and online fitness coach