Knees forward

[am356]

Dear Rippetoe,

Thanks a lot for your reply to my previous thread it has helped my squat become a lot sturdier.

I have another question regarding my knees in the squat.

Basically I can sit quite far back in the squat with my knees not travelling infront my toes at all and my balance appears to be fine (I recall you mentioning something along the lines of: if the shins are too vertical balance will be off). Also, as far as I can tell, my knees don't travel forward at the bottom of the squat with this position.

I've changed to pushing the knees forward at the same time my hips break for various reasons: so to make absolutely sure there's no forward knee travel and because you also stated that the knees for most people move slightly 'infront' of the toes when squatting.

So basically my question is, if I have no forward knee travel with the first way of squatting should I use that or the second type? Or am I thinking too much? Or are there other factors I need to consider when deciding?


P.S. Just thought I'd add my thanks for the program, I've made the best gains I've ever had. Drinking a gallon of milk everyday and bringing my completely novice squat from 60kg's to over 130kg's in under a month.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I can't see from here. Post a video.

[SkinnyWimp]

Hi, my name is SkinnyWimp, and I was a vertical-shins squatter. Vertical shins kept my knees solidly in place throughout the movement as well. However, I had to lean over more to keep the barbell over midfoot, because the knees-back position also put my hips further back.

My back became the limiting factor for my squat.

I tried widening my stance to compensate (brings the hips a bit more forward) but then I couldn't get to the correct depth because my adductors (groin muscles) were stretched out earlier in the squat.

I realized that my weight was forward on my foot, rather than being on the heels. My brain equated leaning forward with putting weight on the balls of my foot (probably also from years of activity where weight is put there on purpose -- running, cycling).

I focused on putting the weight on my heels and putting knees forward at the start of the movement, and leaning back while in that position. It took about a month of practicing and watching videos of my workouts before I could do this consistently with weight on my back.

So now, I'm approaching the weight that I was squatting with the vertical-shins position. My squat feels much stronger than before, and it feels like I have much more linear progression in me than before.

That's my story. Thanks for listening.