Knee pain while Squatting Think it's form.. Squat Check Anyone?

[Tom Campitelli]

Tom, I didn't see any problem with his stance. How are you determining that? Rip says that even feet a little outside shoulder width is okay for some people.

I've included a side by side comparison of crzipilot's son's, Justin Lascek's, and A.C. from 70sbig.com's squat stances:



These all look roughly similar, although I admit that it's difficult to tell much from videos taken at various distances and angles.

-S.

It's primarily a judgement call and I am certainly not infallible here. Based on the video, it looked like he was a couple inches wider than shoulder width, but I could be wrong. Justin has mentioned on occasion that his stance tends to drift wider than Rip likes to see and AC was training for a powerlifting meet where a slightly wider stance can be advantageous. They are both upsettingly strong, but that's an aside. There's nothing wrong with a wide stance, to be sure, but if we are going for Rip-approved model squats a wider than shoulder with stance is potentially a deviation from that. Once again, it was an impression based upon an oblique angle from a video.

Since crzipilot's son was carrying the bar up kinda high, a wide stance is less desirable. If you do high bar squats, you want to get as low as possible since full ROM on high bar is not limited by the hamstrings. To get to the bottom of a high bar squat your hamstrings touch your calves and you want a more upright torso. A wider stance makes this difficult and puts additional rotational stress on the knee when going below parallel. In most cases, a wide stance with a high bar position will get you the worst of both worlds: inclined torso with longer lever arm for additional low back strain and less than full ROM. Check out Greg Everett here demonstrating high bar squats:

http://cathletics.com/exercises/videos/backSquat.mov

His stance is just at shoulder width, or even a touch narrower. There is no bounce from the hamstrings, but a bounce does occur at the bottom due to the collision of the back of the thigh with the calves.

[Tom Campitelli]

Rip just weighed in on this very topic.

http://www.startingstrength.com/reso...ad.php?t=13667

[jeremyfirth]

The one thing I noticed, and it's the same problem I had for a long time, was that not only do the knees come forward at the bottom, they come in just a little bit. Especially the left knee. When my squats started getting heavy, I started doing the same thing on the way back up. My left knee would come in (more than your son's) and I started really getting knee pain. I focused on pulling my knees out as I came up, and my knee pain magically went away.

[nisora33]

In most cases, a wide stance with a high bar position will get you the worst of both worlds: inclined torso with longer lever arm for additional low back strain and less than full ROM.

Agreed, this is my understanding as well.

However, slightly wider than shoulder width is optimal for some people, and I have not had the luxury of coaching this young man firsthand and, therefore, cannot make determinations about this based on experience or history. Seems like the least of our squatters problems here. Ultimately, a process of trial and error is necessary to determine optimal stance width, and this will be something that is entirely up to the squatter and his dad. As long as it is within reasonable limits, stance width should be left alone, IMO.

-s.

[crzipilot]

Great information guys. I'm out of town, but this weekend I'll work on it with him and get some more videos posted up, if we get any corrections.

Thanks

[crzipilot]

Ok guys, got back in town. Was able to sit with my son today and discuss what was pointed out on here, and a few other things. Anyways, I think we got his depth issue solved. His knees. The Bar, and a little on his head / what he was looking at. I've got 4 clips this time, two from the side, two from rear quater. first set is at 225 or so, last three are at 260 I believe. Hopefully some improvement from previous video.

Thanks


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bszFx3NS3Ms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYwTlThFQnY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P6MRdVvJHw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG3TBw8phks

[nisora33]

Depth is much better. On his heavier sets, he still needs to work on getting the knees forward to where they need to be sooner. And after seeing a couple more vids, I would now err on the side of saying that his stance is indeed too wide. Narrowing it a smidge will help with the knees-out.

All in all, a vast improvement, though.

Oh, and get that boy out of those squishy shoes. Squatting is hard enough already without having to balance on big pillows.

Good job and happy training.

-Stacey

[crzipilot]

Thanks for the reviewing of the videos. I'll bring his stance in a little more, and see what we can do with the knees. We put up a couple of 4x4's during his warm up to show him where to go forward to.

The shoes, I know, he didn't have anything else. He has a pair of nike frees he usually squats in, but they were at school. Looking at getting him a pair of shoes for xmass though.

Thanks again...

[nisora33]

Crzipilot,

Glad we could help. Noticed that Rip gave your son's videos a pretty decent thumbs-up. Keep up the good work.

-S.