Olympic Style ATG Squats and Knee Popping

[iamnotarobotter]

Hi Mark, I know you are more a fan of the low bar squat but I wanted to get your perspective since you seem like a smart guy.

Greetings All,

I am not primarily a weightlifter but (try) to squat like one because of the carry over into other sports.

I currently am experiencing some knee popping when I sit down and then bend/straighten my knees. Straightening my knee to around 90 degrees, my knee pops. The pop almost feels like it is on the outside of the knee near the outer quad (vastus lateralus). No pain but I fear cartilage damage.

I went to the doctor and he said he suspects cartilage wear and tear from the squatting. He states that after awhile the popping could potentially turn to bone on bone action. This was after a physical exam. I know another possibility is crepitus but when we talked it sounds like once there is pain, there is no going back. Outside of stem cell therapy, once you mess up your cartilage, you are screwed.
I think that recently increased the height of my adipower shoes from the .75 inch heel to around 1.5 inches may have contributed. I have an ankle injury from BJJ which won't allow me to get the dorsiflexion I need to squat low or do any of the Olympic lifts. I have had ankle surgery and went to two different ankle surgeons and some sports medicine/physical therapy doctors to no avail. This is the reasoning behind increasing the heel. Without this heel lift, I feel like it would be impossible for me to squat ATG.

Lots of Chinese weightlifters also increase the heel height. My squat feels very solid with the increased heel. Here is a picture of the bottom position of my squat (shirtless to check for neutral spine): 135 lbs Oly Style ATG Squat (Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet)
I have tried opening up my hips more and utilizing less dorsiflexion to take pressure off my knees but then I get butt wink. I am not a big fan of the herniated disk or SI joint issues that come with butt wink. I know that butt wink is kind of a controversial issue but I definitely think it causes lower back issues.

The doctor doesn't really help because they say "stop squatting".

Any one else experience any issues like this? Does anyone have similar experiences? I also think I have long femurs if that helps. I want to try to get this sorted out before increasing the poundage so that I don't wear out cartilage.

tl;dr Long femur lifter hurt ankle. Needs to increase oly shoe height to squat ATG or butt wink. Hurts his back if doesn't increase oly show height because of uneven amount of dorsiflexion/butt wink. Knee is now popping and don't want to risk cartilage damage. Knee pops when sitting down and doing "unweighted" leg extension once hitting 90 degrees. Doctor says wearing of cartilage. Any other advice?
EDIT This knee popping happens after I finish squatting, not during.

The original thread can be seen here: https://www.reddit.com/r/weightlifti..._knee_popping/

Mark, do you have any perspective on this? I utilize the high bar Olympic style squat because the straight more vertical back position replicates the position you are in when shooting for takedowns in wrestling.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This post ignores about 10 years worth of work we've done on this topic. Here:

http://startingstrength.com/resource...ost-forum.html

Newbie suggestion to other Newbies

[Will Morris]

Holy Christ! There is such a smattering of pseudomedical jargon, needless over analysis, and a heavy dose of broscience, all thrown into a soup of fear avoidant behaviors.

To answer one of your many questions: no, no one has ever had an issue like this. Nobody in the history of training has had their knees pop. Certainly no one with long femurs and a previous ankle injury. In order to keep your knees from popping and from getting bone on bone action, you are just going to have to go to an 8 inch stilleto heel on your shoes. The increased height and functional stability training you get from it will be of critical importance to maintaining the health if the cartilage that doesn't exist where you are feeling the symptoms. Also, to make the squat more functional and replicate a wrestling shoot, you should look at having someone beat the ever loving shit out of you when you squat. It is known as specificity of training, and no amount of strength will take its place.

Good call on the shirtless picture. In order to properly gauge back angle / spinal alignment in patients and trainees alike, I make them all strip down. Naked is the way to go when you train, because you need to make absolutely sure that you hit the optimum joint angles to optimize the exercise. But, then again, you can't wear some bad ass TapOut shorts if you are naked. Also, for MMA, you need to make sure you wear a SnapBack with the price tag still on it. The increased extracranial pressure and limited field of view will narrow your focus on the enemy / barbell in front of you.

Lastly, I wouldn't train at heavy resistances. That type of training had no carryover to martial arts or wrestling. You'd be better suited doing submaximal reps for 3 minutes at a time to replicate being in a fight. Perhaps you could superset your pseudo-ATG squats with high cable pulley beatdowns for three minutes at a time, and do this for 3-3-5 rounds, depending on if you are training for a championship bout versus an undercard match. When doing this though, you have to make sure your wallet chain doesn't catch the cable handle or else you may end up with some type of shoulder pathology.

Best of luck bro.

[Scaldrew]

Yeah, too much to reply to here. But the answers are out there and put much more succinctly and eloquently than I could do here and now.

Don't just look up the symptoms you seem to display either. Look up why you do what you do and have your ideas challenged by other viewpoints. We squat low bar for a reason and it's not just "to lift more weight end of". Find out why we do what we do and why you should, too. Brotip: training specificity; be on the lookout for those discussions.

[iamnotarobotter]

Mark,

Still reading but haven't seem much info on high bar squatting. Am I looking at the info in the wrong way?

Will Morris,

I definitely am afraid of destroying my knees. When you mention needless over-analysis, what do you mean? If that is the case, how would you remedy this situation? Just push through and wait to see if there is pain? That seems like a bad plan because once your knees are shot, there is no going back. The purpose if me asking other people is to see what they did to fix the situation.

Regarding the shirtless picture, I don't have many shirts that fit me properly. Not a fashion guy. I guarantee if I posted a form video with a shirt, people would say they couldn't really tell due to the bagginess of the shirt. Multiple people have mentioned that my shirts don't fit me properly. Yes, I know I should fix this issue.

I agree that heavy resistance shouldn't be the primary emphasis for a grappler or mixed martial artist. It is useful for being the heaviest in your weight class though.

Scaldrew,

I have read and understand why the Starting Strength crew prefers the low bar squat. Hear are some reasons: more posterior change involvement, more weight moved = more muscles used, easier for new trainees in terms of flexibility (bad shoulders/long arms seem to contradict this a bit), and many other reasons. I think I have seen Rip say that he wants Oly lifters to squat low bar because doing they high bar back squat is very similar to the front squat and because of this, it makes more sense for Oly lifters to squat low bar so that they have easier time pulling from the floor.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Still reading but haven't seem much info on high bar squatting. Am I looking at the info in the wrong way?

If you think there is a legitimate reason to do "high-bar" squats, you haven't looked at the info at all.

[dpinsen]

If you think there is a legitimate reason to do "high-bar" squats, you haven't looked at the info at all.

A legitimate reason is if you don't have the shoulder flexibility to do low bar. You've granted high bar absolution for that before.

[Scaldrew]

If you think there is a legitimate reason to do "high-bar" squats, you haven't looked at the info at all.

Yeah, it really isn't as simple as "more muscles used in the low bar squat"... wait, I've already said that, haven't I? OP, there's dozens of great arguments for low bar squatting, each of with holds up to scrutiny by even the most ruthless of critics: the use of the bar in the movement vs the lack of active back use in the high bar variation, the difference in moment arms between the two, hip drive vs bouncing the knees off the calves, proper depth vs the ATG hype, and the practical uses of low bar squatting for the general population and masters lifters that high bar cannot supplement just to name a few major ones. Many of these arguments are in Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, so check that out.

The more you argue the case for the low bar squat, the more people run out of responses and continue to move the goal posts. In no particular order, they'll cling to sports specificity (which has been debunked as bunk elsewhere, too), fashionable trends in "being fit and athletic" (i.e. I squat high bar because oly lifters do it and I look up to that style of lifting), and finally they'll link stupid wikipedia articles like "narcissism of small differences" in an attempt to smear you and say you're just a pathetic loser who doesn't understand the contemporary craze for relativism in that "it's just a few inches lower on the back, bro", "it's not a big deal, bro". Well, bro, enjoy the myriad of knee and back problems that "olympic squats" leave you with. Now hold my protein shake as I smash this hip drive and make the ladies on the ab machine swoon with my plate rattle.

I'm not saying you're that guy, OP. I'm saying these arguments are all you have and they're bad. If you're an anatomically normal functioning human bean with no current injuries, you have no reason to be squatting high bar. If your form sucks, it is your duty to resolve that problem. Das it, mang.

[Mark Rippetoe]

A legitimate reason is if you don't have the shoulder flexibility to do low bar. You've granted high bar absolution for that before.

Which he would know if he'd read any of this board, or anything else we've ever done.