My right knee hurts at random times throughout weeks where I didn’t have a squat specific workout. Never hurts while squatting, and I do full squats. Meh.
About to head to the gym , man I miss squats even though they have brought so much pain.
I need a substitute for squat and deadlift in my 5x5 stronglifts program. Any ideas?
[quote]vali wrote:
Hey guys, I’m Will, I’ve been training seriously (Stronglifts 5x5) for four months now, after kind of dicking around with isolation exercises, BB splits etc before.
I’m about 195 lbs, 6 foot and could probably stand to lose a little body fat.
Anyway, I’ve been experiencing some knee pain in squats once I try to push them over 225 lbs. It seems like my knees are tracking correctly (keeping them out), but I have noticed I tend to lean forward quite a lot. Keep in mind these are low bar, powerlifting type squats. Would this lead to knee pain? Any advice on how to keep from leaning forward so much?[/quote]
Was having knee pain too and it boiled down to improper glute activation. Cressy, Robertson, Boyle and others have said so repeatedly and now I believe them: Knee pain is the number one symptom of (usually) a hip issue. Brett Contreras has a bunch of great stuff you should try. I messed around forever trying to fix the squat form and always had some form of either knee or later lower back pain. Went to a really good trainer who pointed my glute issue out and made me do glute activation work plus single-leg stuff that made my ass burn (really good stuff I’ll continue to do, btw) to force my stabilizers to work. Went back to squats last month and poundages are respectable (restarted at bodyweight just to be nice to me) and no pain at all. Feels rock solid too. Simply awesome!
Your leaning forward could be due to this, since forward lean = try to shift the load to the quads. It could also be a core weakness issue: pitching forward is again the body trying to keep the load off the posterior chain, especially if you are going so low your back starts rounding.
YMMV…
– jj