Image credit: robbymacklem & Ironmind.

A lot of people — including doctors — will tell you Squats are bad for your knees. Instead of boring you with orthopedic reasons why deep Squats are better for your knees than parallel Squats, I have some practical evidence for you.

The following post was submitted by reader Michael Healy (mjh in the forum). It’s a great example of how some of the worst knee conditions can be improved using Squats. Read mjh’s article, I’ll add my views at the bottom.

Squats, My Knees & Me. I ran into a pole on the school tennis courts at age 11. My left knee fractured into 3 pieces. The fall that followed dislocated the patella fragments and damaged the knee ligaments & tendons.

I underwent surgery and was left with a wire holding my knee together. I spent 10 days in hospital, 8 weeks in a leg cast. When they removed the cast, I had reduced knee mobility, thigh atrophy and a lot of pain.

Physiotherapy was boring, inefficient & painful. Not playing sports depressed me. I soon stopped the home exercises & therapy. Sedentary life style began, with the exception of walking or cycling for transport.

My knee healed well enough to walk. I could run, but before long I’d be in pain. After basketball games, I had discomfort, aches or pains. I favored my right knee to “protect” my left knee, which I thought of as weak & fragile.

Fast Forward to Age 21. After a drunken night game of bull-rush, I woke up with pain & swelling. X-rays and ultra-sounds revealed nothing. My specialist diagnosed arthritis. He prescribed a leg brace & walking stick until it settled.

While pogoing at Punkfest 2001, I suffered subluxation of my right knee. This happened to my left knee months later. These injuries led to a diagnosis of trochlear dysplasia. My uncle said I’ve inherited the infamous Healy knees.

So there I was at age 22. Arthritis, unstable kneecaps, constant aches & pains. I sometimes joked about being in a mobility scooter sooner rather than later, but I wasn’t really joking.

Squats. The desire to get stronger led me to Stronglifts 5×5. I was concerned about hurting my knees on Squats, but I had read articles on why deep Squats are better than partial Squats or machines.

I learned to Front Squat using knee support and light weights. One day I forgot my knee support. I could barely tell the difference. My knee felt stronger and I could see a new muscularity working as I moved.

This improvement encouraged me. But my right thigh was stronger and 8cm bigger than my left thigh. My right thigh was bearing more of the load in the Squat, which I knew would only make the problem worse.

Singe Leg Work. After researching unilateral leg exercises and a thread in the Forum, I added to my routine:

• Split Squats
• Reverse Lunges
• Bulgarian Squats

I alternate one of these each workout. 3 sets of 10 reps for hypertrophy. I use a barbell with the clean grip for several reasons:

• I don’t have access to a Squat Rack, and so can’t easily get a barbell on and off my back.
• It encourages me to keep my torso erect. Elbows up and in, chest out. I tend to slouch my shoulders and round my back with dumbbells.
• It’s harder to balance. This works my core more and forces me to make each rep slow and steady.

I focus on using both legs when I Front Squat. I also do glute activation, hip mobility exercises and soft tissue work with a tennis ball. My goal is to correct years of bad posture and muscle imbalances.

Mjh’s legs. Left: Feb 14th 2008. Right: May 23rd, 2008.

Before & After. All these efforts are showing results. Compare the left photo from 14 February 2008 with the right one from 23 May 2008. My injured left knee is on the right in the photos.

• My left knee muscles are bigger & stronger. This reduced mobility of my patella. I can no longer move it around in its socket.
• Size difference between left & right leg has reduced from 8 to 4cm.
• Knee pain has reduced. Aching only comes after vigorous exercise or as post workout soreness.
• Part of the improvement was psychological. My left knee no longer feels weak, and I don’t protect it from daily loading or balancing anymore.

More Examples. I’m not the only one to improve my knees with Squats. Forum member esmitty wrote about his wife in early May:

She also has “bad knees”. They pop and grind when she squats. Our chiropractor took some x-rays on her knees and said that much of her cartilage is worn. “She has the knees of a 50 year old” he said. (She’s 33). She’s concerned about stressing her knees out.

She couldn’t finish 5 sets of 5 squats, and was sore after trying. 2 weeks later, esmitty posted:

My wife did her first 5×5 set of unassisted body weight squats. She is so excited to make that milestone, she had tears in her eyes… Less than 3 weeks ago she couldn’t do 1 set of 5, now exactly 7 workouts into the routine, she can do all 5×5 and will start with 5lb on Wednesday!

Squats, done correctly, are good for your knees. You might find that Squatting is exactly what they need.

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How to Get Rid of Your Knee Pain. I wrote about knee pain before. Bottom line: improve ankle/hip mobility using dynamic stretches and strengthen your legs — especially your posterior chain.

I don’t like mjh doing Front Squats only. Weak posterior chain is a big cause of knee pain. I’d recommend adding Pull-throughs, Glute-Ham Raises, 1 Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts, etc as he doesn’t have access to a Squat Rack.

This one was posted by forum member Jstahly.

I had minor surgery on my left knee a little over 2 years ago to fix some cartilage and a grind down a bone spur. This knee is the one I hurt in high school during wrestling practice and has the tender patella tendon. I use to wear a very tight knee wrap when I did my squats because the tendon above the knee would ache badly if I didn’t and this knee would randomly ache throughout the week.

Since I have started doing full squats instead of partials my knee(s) has gotten much better. I no longer wear a knee wrap, even on the heavier lifts and the tendon pain is almost all gone. The tendon is less sensitive to touch as well and almost never aches now. I have had this problem since 1973 when I originally injured it.

All in all even with my 52 year old body complaining (loudly at times) about what I’m putting it through the aches and pains are lessening. I feel better today than I did 10 years ago, my health, weight and mental attitude have improved a lot. I would do this all over again if I had too, the rewards have been to great to give up on and I know there are still more and bigger benefits yet to be received. It’s just hard to remember that sometimes when your in the hole of a heavy squat.

Start light, focus on correct technique and add weight progressively. Add single leg work, always pushing your knees out. Get Bullet Proof Knees for a definite resource on eliminating knee pain.