Yesterday, I watched a personal trainer approach a gym member and caution him about letting his knees travel in front of his toes while doing squats. Being a polite Canadian, Mr. Squat acknowledged the trainer’s concern and thanked him for the advice. After the trainer split, I caught Mr. Squat’s eye and we exchanged a knowing roll of the eyes.
Another young trainer spreading half-truths he learned during his weekend personal training certification.
Fast forward to this morning – I get an alert about some new research published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research entitled - Effect of Squat Depth and Barbell Load on Relative Muscular Effort in Squatting …. which got me thinking about Mr. Squat & The Trainer and inspired me to look for research investigating squatting and joint angles and torques – Here’s what I found:
What did the research say?
It said that when you restrict the travel of your knees so that they do not travel past your toes, you end up with:
Which results in:
Conversely, the unrestricted (toes in front of knees) squat resulted in:
And what did the researchers conclude from their research?
Conclusion
When it comes to knee position while squatting, our young PT was wrong to declare unrestricted squats universally wrong.
Right or wrong is subjective and depends on a few different factors:
None of which Mr. Personal Trainer considered before spreading his Fitness Myth
Boreas
May 16, 2014 at 3:42 am
No it is not busted whole article is worthless… Becouse if you open your legs enough and widen your foot andle outwards your knees wont pass your toes what ever montriosity you are… and this squat form you demonstrated is a very bad form you will probably injure your crossligaments becouse of excessive weight use becouse of lack of deep squats. You will squat more that your cross ligaments can handle this way
db2ite
July 20, 2012 at 12:14 am
What an article! Very well explained with scientific evidence. Poor me, I have L5 herniated disc and bowed legs so will keep the above things in mind before doing squats. I think free squats without additional weight would be the best bet for me.