Squat Talk: Hips and Knees

In my last article on squatting, Squat Talk: Foot Position and Ankle Range of Motion, I briefly brought up hip and knee strategies during squat performance. The strategy used varies from person to person based on comfort, how you learned how to squat, and anatomy (e.g. lever arms, how your hips are positioned, etc.). A narrow stance squat will require a more knee-dominant strategy and a wider stance squat will require a more hip-dominant strategy. 

First let’s talk about some considerations when using a knee-dominant strategy. Your feet will be closer together (narrow stance), the knees will track further over the feet, and quads can carry more of the load when compared to a wider stance. This strategy is seen in Olympic weight lifting, because it puts lifter in a better position to get under the bar (aka “the catch”) and finish the lift. Try that with a wider stance. It’s damn near impossible. It is easier to get your ass to the ground with a narrow stance and knee-dominant strategy if your ankle dorsiflexion range of motion is there. 

One important consideration, however, is the amount of force going through your knee. I think about this like a bow string. As you pull it back, the amount of force gets greater and greater. This is a lot like when your knee tracks over your foot. Then as the weights get heavier and your quads pull harder, they compress the patella into the femoral grove, in which it sits (Figure 1). This is, in my opinion, a primary difference between a wider stance squat, with a more hip dominant strategy, and a narrower stance squat, with a relatively greater knee dominant strategy. A narrower stance will put more stress on the knee joint compared to a wider stance. 

 

Figure 1: As the knee tracks over the foot and the distance between the knee and ankle gets greater during the squat, the compressive force into the joint will increase.

With the wider stance squat, your feet are positioned further apart. The knees will track over the feet slightly, but not a lot, and more of the load will be carried in the posterior chain (aka your glutes and hamstrings). This stance is seen more in powerlifting, when the competitors are trying to shorten the range of motion and get a larger base while lifting maximal loads. With this variation of squatting, getting to depth is the main concern. “Getting to depth” refers to when the crease of the hip breaks the plane of the top of the patella.

But what should your hips and knees actually be doing?

The knees should being tracking over the feet. The amount will vary depending on how you squat, but there will be some forward translation of the knee during any squat. Some things you don’t want to see are a collapse of the knee coming inward/medially, or the knee tracking excessively over the feet (Figure 2). A cue that I find helpful is to think or say “knees out” during the motion to keep from letting them collapse in. When giving this cue you are trying to get the person, or yourself, to recruit the hip external rotators and abductors to prevent the knee from collapsing in. Be kind to your MCL’s, ACL’s, and menisci and keep your knees from caving in. To keep the knees from tracking too far forward, you need to learn how to sit your butt back and use your hips/glutes to squat. 

Figure 2: The knees should stay over the feet, not track excessively forward, and not collapse inward. Collapsing inward will put excessive force on the medial/inside of the knee. Excessive forward tracking of the knee will cause high compressive forces on the joint and will cause the heel to want to lift off.

The hips should be moving down and back, not straight down (Figure 3). Doing this will place more of the load on your glutes and hamstrings. More muscle used = more weight lifted. This is sometimes difficult to teach or to get comfortable doing. One method I’ve found helpful in teaching this skill is to place a box or chair behind yourself and sit back to it. That way, if you are afraid of falling back you can plop down in the chair. 

Figure 3: The hips move down and back during the squat.

These are some more things to take into consideration when squatting. If your knees consistently cave in, I have found strengthening the hip external rotators to be helpful, as well as verbal cues during the movement as reminders. To learn how to move the hips down and back, like I mentioned earlier, practicing squatting back to a box or chair to get comfortable with the motion is helpful. This will also help with the translation of the knee moving forward if this is a problem area.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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