As the title says, i’m having a problem with my knees tucking in when i squat. I squat with a fairly narrow stance, between a foot and a foot and a half between my feet, and on my second or third sets, when i push out of the bottom of a squat my knees tuck in so far they almost touch. I’m wondering if i maybe have an imbalance in my legs, something like too weak of abductors?
anyone ever have a similiar problem?
my current routine has 2 leg days, so i can put one towards squatting and the other towards balancing out the muscles if necessary.
I never figured out the reason why but I assumed it was a muscle imbalance.
ALthough it allowed me to lift more weight that way I figured it wasn’t good so I just focused on my knees not coming in when the set reached failure, even though I could get more reps the other way.
Im new to training, but i had this problem too with front squats. so all i did was lower the weight for a few weeks, did each rep with perfect form, concentrating on pushing my knees out (the way i do it is i visualize im trying to pull the ground apart with my feet, sort of like when bench pressing you ‘pull the bar apart’). I did this until i got all my reps perfect, slowly worked my way back up to my max squat weight within a few weeks, and fixed the problem.
Firstly, have you tried squatting with a wider stance?
I think Clown Face has a good point. If you want to keep the same stance. just focus on keeping your knees out. When they start to come in just rerack the weight.
Activate and strengthen the glutes. Strengthen your hip abductors with X-band walks or similar and foam roll/stretch the hell out of your adductors (groin/inner thigh)
[quote]Rhino Jockey wrote:
Activate and strengthen the glutes. Strengthen your hip abductors with X-band walks or similar and foam roll/stretch the hell out of your adductors (groin/inner thigh)[/quote]
I also noticed a benefit from doing some wider stance squats to work the inside of my thighs. When you do regular squats pretend like there’s a towel under your feet and try to “spread the floor.” It worked great for me.
[quote]kingbeef323 wrote:
Rhino Jockey wrote:
Activate and strengthen the glutes. Strengthen your hip abductors with X-band walks or similar and foam roll/stretch the hell out of your adductors (groin/inner thigh)
And while you’re at it, foam roll most other muscles in the leg too. No one gets enough myofascial release.
If your knees are buckling in while coming out of the bottom position or right before going into it, then it may likely be a VMO weakness. Things like peterson step-ups, split squats, cyclist squats and sled drags can definitely help with this.
You need to ACTIVELY think about pushing your knees outward throughout the movement of the squat. I know its hard when you have to concentrate on moving the weight, breathing properly, keeping back straight etc… But like all those things the more you do itll eventually become second nature.
I dont think you need to do any of stretches and shit just think about pushing your knee out during the movement.
First of all you cant claim that the glutes need strengthening, it could be a motor patterning issue and not just a strength issue. Generally when the knees tuck though it means glut med is stuggling (as it externally rotates ur hips). You can test this with a rigid band around the knees while squatting like mentioned above…
Activiately contact the glues by pushing your knees against the band in an outwards motion, if your knees still go in then your glutes are weak, if they dont its probably more an issue of an inability to activate them properly more so then them being weak.
In saying all that though… The +1 post is definitely the first go to option for someone having a problem with their knees going in when squatting so work on your external rotators and look in to seeing if ur internal rotators/adductors are tight!
Personally, I simply had to widen my stance a bit, and focus a little on spreading my knees as wide as possible as I sink down into the bottom of each rep. Seems to be working…helped me hit my first 425 squat today anyways.
and look in to seeing if ur internal rotators/adductors are tight!