Squat hurts your knee? Is it your fault or the squat?

Squat hurts your knees? Is it your fault or the squat?

　　Squat is one of the most important movements in muscle strength training. No matter which variation is used (front squat, neck squat, box squat, etc.), squats are often the soul figures in the training schedule. This is because squat movements are one of the few human body's natural movement patterns that can cover large muscle groups, multiple joints, core breathing, three joints of the lower limbs and the strength of the spine

　　More importantly, because the body system is covered, it has the potential to improve for more than ten years, and the potential to drive other movements to become stronger together, which is very suitable for lifelong training. However, squats can almost be regarded as one of the most controversial movements. Many people have some doubts about the safety of squats, and it is very common to have lifelong training. However, squats can be regarded as one of the most controversial movements. Many people have some doubts about the safety of squats, and they are very A common question is that squats hurt the knee.

　　In a squat with a lower thigh than the horizontal line, the knee joint will be flexed significantly, far exceeding most movements in daily life. This knee bending is considered dangerous to the knee joint. Some medical people even advocate that squats will endanger the ligaments or cartilage in the joints. Generally, daily life should be avoided as much as possible. Carrying hundreds of kilograms (or even hundreds of kilograms) to train squats is even more dangerous to the point.

　　In the end, how should we view this?

　In fact, if you have coaching guidance, correct squats will not pose a danger to the knee, and may be the best movement to protect and strengthen the knee joint

"If a squat hurts the knee, it is not the fault of the squat, but yours."

Let's look at this from the perspective of cartilage and ligaments.

　　Many athletes with knee ligaments injured have heard doctors or physical therapists say that knee ligaments injury is related to insufficient thigh muscle strength. In other words, the stronger the muscle groups around the knee joint, the more they can protect the knee joint. However, almost the same group of medical personnel are strictly opposing squats, believing that the squat that can strengthen the strength of the leg muscles itself will hurt the knee. Never squat. The reason for this contradiction is that these people are likely to lack the squat technique, or even lack the minimum level of personal experience.

　　The human thigh femur and tibia are cruciate ligaments Connection. In daily life or exercise, if the angle between the femur and tibia is unbalanced, the cruciate ligament will be pulled improperly. From the up and down stairs in daily life to the violent impact on the sports field, it may produce force that endangers the knee joint

　　However, the cruciate ligament is not so isolated. On the thigh, there are quadriceps in front and hind legs. These two very strong forces are actually the iron guards who are able to protect the knee joint when the posture is imbalanced or external forces are coming. When the quadriceps and hind legs are strong, the cruciate ligament in the knee joint is as safe as sitting in a bulletproof car.

　　Many people know this concept, which is not surprising. Many people use it in the gym. People who sit and kick or lie on their legs and hook their legs think they are strengthening their knees. However, if we go a little deeper, I will find that things are not that simple. It is not that strengthening these two groups of muscle groups can protect the knees. The reason why the knees are protected is that when the front and back muscle groups of the thighs are used at the same time, they will protect the knees." Exercise the front and back muscles of the knees, and then hope that they can cooperate perfectly during exercise, just like letting the army and the air force perform their own training, and then hope to cooperate closely during combat.

　The key is that we must summon the front and back muscles of the thighs at the same time, so that they can practice working together together. How to do it? The answer is "you must" when squats. Push the hips back. Only by pushing the hips back can you try to exert force in the same movement as much as possible. Moreover, this posture allows the knee joint to bend to the bottom. Because the front and back sides of the thighs are both used together, the cruciate ligament is very safe. We can boldly say that skilled athletes, in the process of carrying two or three hundred kilograms of squats, are much safer than the process of standing up from the toilet with an unbalanced posture.

Some people will say, what about cartilage? The pressure is so heavy on the body. Will the cartilage not be crushed?

This problem requires a little patience to understand. I try to explain briefly. First of all, the so-called heavy is relative and gradual. Every strong person who can squat with a large weight , all of them are slowly trained from light weight. Perhaps some people start higher than ordinary people, but if they want to develop their potential, they still have to go through slow and safe long-term training. It is because they are wrong in challenging people with heavy weight injuries at the beginning, not the fault of squats.

In addition, many people don’t know that human cartilage lacks its own blood supply (so cartilage injury is not easy to recover from injury), and they must rely on the oxygen and nutrients of joint fluid to nourish them in a diffusion way. The way to promote diffusion is to move joints, so in order to avoid cartilage injury, it may actually be the reason why cartilage degenerates faster.

　　So, unless cartilage is damaged so that it cannot do any movement, use gentleness within the painless range The gradual mode allows the cartilage to slowly adapt to the gradually increasing weight, which is an effective way to make the cartilage strong.

The problem that currently causes headaches for professionals is that there are many squat information of different qualities on the Internet, and good information and bad information are mixed together. There are many websites that can see online coaches with good figures doing wrong squat movements that make the scalp numb, and the back is full of sexual marketing behaviors. This makes many people who want to start learning muscle strength training in a low-cost way make the first step. After practicing for a period of time, not only are they invalid but also injured. In the end, they can only draw conclusions that squats are harmful.

Professional technology requires professional coaches, and I hope we can continue to solve problems and make continuous progress.