How to Keep Your Knees Out on Squats
Feb 11th, 2008 by Mehdi Tags: Squat, Weight Lifting
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Reader Matt asked:
I have a problem with keeping my knees from buckling in as I move to higher weights in my Back Squats. I know that I am weak on the lateral aspect of my legs and that I need to concentrate on abduction movements to help strengthen that area.
Which muscles do I want to target besides my vastus lateralis and gluteus medius to keep my knees straight while doing squats? What exercises would you recommend to strengthen these muscles?
Reader Craig reported the same problem in StrongLifts.com Forum. He wrote: “I’m worried about my knees, they wobble sometimes when I’m pushing up”. Check Craig’s knees in the video below.
Why You Must Keep Your Knees Out. It’s easier to break parallel when your knees are out: your stomach doesn’t get in the way of your legs. Knees out also means more strength and less chance of injury.
- More Strength. Your quads do all the work when you Squat with your knees in. Knees out involves your adductors & makes squeezing your glutes easier. More muscles used is more strength.
- Knee Safety. Your feet must be inline with your thighs. Knees out is more strength, thus toes out. Squatting with knees in & toes out puts uneven compressive forces on your knees.
Why Your Knees Buckle In. Knees buckling in on Squats means your have weak adductors. Strengthening your abductors won’t solve the problem.
Same reader Matt replied:
Are you sure its weak adductors? I was taught that adductors pull your legs in towards the midline and abductors pull away from the midline of your body.
Being in the exercise science field myself and talking to other professionals on this matter, we believe that the problem is weak abductors or lack flexibility in my adductors.
Getup. Do body-weight Squats while pushing your knees out. Feel how your adductors extend on the way down & shorten on the way up. Now Squat with your knees in. Your adductors can’t work, your quads do everything.
Matt is right on the adductor/abductor function. Hip flexibility is important, work on that too using the Squat stretch. But if your knees buckle in on Squats, you have weak adductors. Not weak abductors.
How to Keep Your Knees Out. Don’t lose your time strengthening your adductors with special exercises. Squats will fix the problem.
- Push Your Knees Out. Actively push your knees to the side on each rep you Squat. Focus, tighten all muscles & exaggerate pushing your knees out. Your adductors will get stronger.
- Lower The Weight. Easier to learn technique with light weights. Lower the weight. Relearn how to Squat. Increase the weight each workout.
- Use a Resistance Band. Do body-weight Squats with a mini Flex Band double wrapped right below your knees. The resistance band will force you to push your knees out. 3 sets of 10 as warmup/on recovery days.
Resistance bands works well if you lack muscle control / focus to push your knees out while Squatting. If you don’t have that problem, actively push your knees out every time you Squat. Your knees will stop buckling in.
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I know Rippetoe mentions that knees buckling in points to weak adductors in Starting Strength, but I’ve asked a few other coaches, and none of them agree. Looking at the biomechanics, I would have to disagree too, but hey what do I know?
1 thing I’ve found that really helped me is split squats/lunges done with proper form as an assistance exercise. It’s easier to focus on aligning 1 leg rather than both legs, and the balancing really helps strengthen those stabilizers. Also, “gripping” the floor with your feet and just mentally shoving those knees out/spreading the floor on the way up helps too.
tssss…. This is a private video. If you have been sent this video, please make sure you accept the sender’s friend request.
It seems like there’s a lot of confusion on Mehdi’s statement about adductors vs. abductors.
If I understand this correctly, the knees buckle not because the abductors are weak and can’t pull the knees out to the side, but because the adductors are weak and can’t assist to lift the weight and so the knees narrow to compensate for these weak adductors by allowing the quads to do more work.
In other words, it isn’t an issue of having the strength to pull your knees in (adductors) or out (abductors) but it’s a matter of your knees coming in so that your quads can further compensate for your adductors not being able to lift the weight?
The video on your web page for this subject is no longer available either….any other videos that display the problem…?
@Wazzup/Michael
Fixed the video, thanks for your feedback.
@Galapogos
Tell those who disagree to start pushing their knees out so they can see it for themselves if it works. Lunges/split squats: knees will still buckle in with weak adductors. So you still have to push them out, better to keep things simple & squat.
@Earl
You totally understood what this is about: quads will try to compensate the weak adductors by coming in.
I am experiencing my right knee buckling in during squats. This makes it feel like all the weight shifts to my left leg.
I’ve found out that I have serious deficiency in my right abductor’s mobility and flexibility. Meaning I can’t sit Indian style comfortably. Doing this stretch (even just in two days!) has improved my ability to keep my right knee over my toes.
Thought I would share. So I’m stretchin my glutes. Check the Flexibility forum over on the Performance Menu website for more.
What seems to help me is making sure I stand on the outside of my feet. So I almost tilt the inside up. That and standing on my heels. So wiggly toes, especially those big ones. I even put in my insoles to keep my feet from falling inwards.
Still had problems with my squat last week.
A trainer who has long been in the weightlifting buisiness helped me and said put your heels on these weights.
So my heels are in a higher position.
Man that helped so much, my form is much better now, back much more straighter
I’m not arguing that shoving the feet out or doing squats with mini bands don’t help, but I don’t believe the problem to be with the adductors. Here’s a passage from Eric Cressey’s article “You don’t know squat”
“Exessive Adduction and Inward Rotation of the Femur(Inward Buckling of Knees) - This is a very common problem with several potential causative factors. First, from the scenario above, we can see that a tight TFL and IT band inhibit the gluteus maximus from preventing inward rotation of the femur. Also, tight adductors and the resulting inhibited abductors (especially gluteus medius and minimus, as the TFL is rarely weak) can cause “knock-knees”
The gluteus maximus is involved in external rotation, and the gluteus medius/minimus are hip abductors. When these muscles are weak/inhibited, as they often are, you get the knees buckling in syndrome. Lunges and split squats train these to work in order to stabilize the knee in front, and the carryover to a regular barbell squat is tremendous from my own experience. Also, when you squat in a mini-band and you’re pushing your knees against the band, you are working your external rotations/abductors. This motion is similar to the side lying glute med activation aka the clamshell, which obviously activates the glute med, which is an abductor, not an adductor.
@Galapogos
Tight hip muscles will cause many problems, including knees buckling in. You should always work on hip flexibility, squat stretch is a good start, but some need much more work. Same with glute activation: will also solve many problems. Note that pushing the knees out activates your glutes better.
Mehdi, yes, I completely agree with your latest comment. However muscles usually work in force couples, a tight/overactive agonist will usually indicate an inhibited/weak antagonist. Hence, tight/overactive adductors usually indicate inhibited/weak antagonists(the glutes), which was the point I was trying to make. The “squat stretch” that you speak of actually stretches the adductors. This point should be obvious as you try it out. What happens when you stretch a muscle? You actually lengthen it, causing it to be more inhibited, and therefore “weaker”. So you’re actually weakening a muscle that you said should be strengthened. However, inhibiting the adductors is exactly the effect that we need in order to balance out the inhibited antagonist(the glutes), which should then be activated to achieve balance. Once we have achieved this balance, the knees can track more correctly.
@Galapogos
Ok, now I understand what you were aiming at. Yes I agree on the reciprocal inhibition. I should have add a 4th point in the bottom how to, re-emphasing the glute activation.
Here’s another interesting take on the topic by Bill Hartman - http://billhartman.net/blog/2006/11/24/squat-diagnosis
@Galapogos
Thanks for the link. I’ve got Hartman’s inside/out book+dvd, missed that post completely. Interesting theory weak hams. I’d still adress the problem through squatting with knees out & glute activation.
Okay, I have a question…but first I will give you the details of what happened. I hurt my groin on the inside of my left thigh. I did this while doing w/n/c on the leg press machine in my local gym. My form went all to hell and I noticed but tried to finish my set. I just recently started to do leg excercises and didn’t really grasp the severity. I continued my work out shortly after the initial pain and performed some squats with a 25lb plate after the leg press. This happened Monday. The pain ranges in severity depending on the range of motion. Most of the time the sharp shooting intense pain happens when I move from a sitting to standing position. What should I do? Is this typical soreness? Do I have an awful hernia? Did I pull something? Help Help Help. Thanks.
Nick