About 8 months ago, I brought my stance in on squats and started sitting “down” more than “down and back”. Over the next 5-6 months, one of my knees started give me some pain but I ignored it and tried to focus more on mobility and recovery(though I probably didnt do enough still). About a month ago, I stopped squatting due to so much pain and swelling right under my knee that even picking up my 6 month old son was a problem.
I took time off squatting and focused on recovering. Between the rest, medication, and stretching, the swelling and pain pretty much went away. Yesterday was my first day back squatting. I first attempted to squat like I have been doing with a shoulder width stance but even 135lbs gave me discomfort. I decided to take my stance out (past shoulder width, sitting back more) and I got up 365lbx5 with no pain whatsoever.
So here is my question. How can narrow stance powerlifters and olympic athletes squat for so many years without their knees giving out? Im just 23 years old and barely 405lb squat max and already had issues. Does it differ with each person? Was it a mobility issues? Thoughts would be appreciated.
It must differ person to person. Sumo pull deadlifts and wide stance low bar squats were killing my knees. I’ve since thrown out sumo pulls and switched to a high bar squat and my knees feel 100% better. My max suffered some (the squat lost about 100lbs from 640 to 540) but surprisingly, my deadlift exploded with the high bar. Do what works for you and causes you the least problems. Also, fish oil, a good diet and some type of joint supplement could be useful; as well as knee sleeves. I’m the same age as you actually, so we have a long time to squat left, gotta take care of ourselves
[quote]BigDawg6593 wrote:
It must differ person to person. Sumo pull deadlifts and wide stance low bar squats were killing my knees. I’ve since thrown out sumo pulls and switched to a high bar squat and my knees feel 100% better. My max suffered some (the squat lost about 100lbs from 640 to 540) but surprisingly, my deadlift exploded with the high bar. Do what works for you and causes you the least problems. Also, fish oil, a good diet and some type of joint supplement could be useful; as well as knee sleeves. I’m the same age as you actually, so we have a long time to squat left, gotta take care of ourselves[/quote]
I bought a pair of sleeves about a month ago and they do seem to help. Do you wears yours every lower body session? Every time you squat?
Knee sleeves along with a good warm up routine will extend your squatting career. Ice after each leg session cannot hurt either.
That being said, after 20 years of squatting, I think I have to finally tap out of the rack…just too much pain. Squat machines, smith machine squats and leg pressing seems to treat my knees, hips and back much better.
If I were you I would just keep squatting wide. I started squatting shoulder width high bar because of my posterior hip capsule and shoulders.
But if one does go narrower high bar with more knee travel this what I’ve found to be essential (your mileage may vary):
*ankle mobility, it’s absolute must if you don’t wanna tear up your knees or back when narrow stance high bar squatting
*hip flexor stretching, my favorite is a sort of a dynamic couch stretch
*keep doing all the mob work you did with low bar but it’s not quite as important although it’s still pretty important (hamstrings, hips, piriformis, etc)
*stretching out your quads, a lot of the hip flexor stuff will help with that but I’d throw in something a little more specific for stretching them out
*I forget the name of the muscle, but get that teardrop looking part of the quad on the inside leg beefed up. My preference for this is just about any knee dominant ‘unilateralish’ work like lunges, bulgarian split squats, and step ups.
*thoracic mobility, it takes more for high bar than low bar. Not sure if it would affect the knees though
Most of those will help with any low back issues experienced while high bar squatting too.
For any specific questions about what to do to fix specific issues my first resource I’d look into is mobility wod with k starr. After that, I’d look into stretches and mobility for Oly lifters, especially for the lower body.
[quote]BigDawg6593 wrote:
It must differ person to person. Sumo pull deadlifts and wide stance low bar squats were killing my knees. I’ve since thrown out sumo pulls and switched to a high bar squat and my knees feel 100% better. My max suffered some (the squat lost about 100lbs from 640 to 540) but surprisingly, my deadlift exploded with the high bar. Do what works for you and causes you the least problems. Also, fish oil, a good diet and some type of joint supplement could be useful; as well as knee sleeves. I’m the same age as you actually, so we have a long time to squat left, gotta take care of ourselves[/quote]
I’m with BigDawg on this. Wide stance and sitting back in the squat destroys my knees. I’m nowhere near as strong as he is but I found that I didn’t lose any weight at all on my squat and that’s how I compete now too. I suppose the key is to do what works for you and keeps you pain free. For me that’s high bar and narrower stance but it sounds that you’re better off with a wide stance and sitting back more.
Thanks guys. I just need to continue to make sure I prioritize mobility, stretching, and foam rolling work. Who knows, maybe Ill eventually get back to a more narrow stance setup. For now, Ill continue what works.
[quote]farmerson12 wrote:
Thanks guys. I just need to continue to make sure I prioritize mobility, stretching, and foam rolling work. Who knows, maybe Ill eventually get back to a more narrow stance setup. For now, Ill continue what works.[/quote]
Why do you want to be able to do the narrower stance setup?
For the sleeves, i don’t use them everytime, mostly because I’ll have my oly shoes on a laced up and i’m too lazy to take them off. I use them if my knees ache or I’ll even throw a set of old knee wraps on wrapped loosely for a little tighter support but no where near a normal wrap. Think they are 36in wraps or there about and i think i get 4 wraps going really lose. For me, heat seems to be the most important, so sweat pants helped some, sleeves wraps anything to keep the heat in
double post, but just saw fletch’s reply and i have to echo him. Why do you want to bring your stance in? I believe its worthwhile to train both ways and when i get ready to peak for a comp, i’ll probably switch back to low bar for the added weight (depending on federation and judging standards, haha). But for normal squat work, it just go to be too much on my shoulders and knees. For reference what I’m refering to a wide stance is my feet against the edge in a normal rack and my high bar stance is shoulder width with my feet rotated outward about 45*, my high bar is a strange beast but it works for me
[quote]BigDawg6593 wrote:
double post, but just saw fletch’s reply and i have to echo him. Why do you want to bring your stance in? I believe its worthwhile to train both ways and when i get ready to peak for a comp, i’ll probably switch back to low bar for the added weight (depending on federation and judging standards, haha). But for normal squat work, it just go to be too much on my shoulders and knees. For reference what I’m refering to a wide stance is my feet against the edge in a normal rack and my high bar stance is shoulder width with my feet rotated outward about 45*, my high bar is a strange beast but it works for me[/quote]
With your high bar stance with your feet pointed out so much it seems like you’d have to push your knees really far out and open up your groin big and have excellent external rotation in your hips so your knees don’t valgus. I’m curious, is this how you do it?
Fletch, I really have no idea what valgus even is, wikipedia failed me lol. I do spread my knees opening my groin up though. My hips were a point of problem but my last round of low bar I worked a ton on hip mobility because I was a disaster trying to make depth. I’ll try and video my high bar next time i squat and put it up, its just how I’ve worked and found my squat feels good. Not the most technical sound but i figure if it feels good, nothing hurts and I can get stronger i’ll roll with it, the depth is alot better this way then with low bar. My basic set up is to get my upper back as tight as i can, arch myself, big air, step back, set down with my knees thrown out. I really feel it in my ass at the bottom.
[quote]BigDawg6593 wrote:
Fletch, I really have no idea what valgus even is, wikipedia failed me lol. I do spread my knees opening my groin up though. My hips were a point of problem but my last round of low bar I worked a ton on hip mobility because I was a disaster trying to make depth. I’ll try and video my high bar next time i squat and put it up, its just how I’ve worked and found my squat feels good. Not the most technical sound but i figure if it feels good, nothing hurts and I can get stronger i’ll roll with it, the depth is alot better this way then with low bar. My basic set up is to get my upper back as tight as i can, arch myself, big air, step back, set down with my knees thrown out. I really feel it in my ass at the bottom.[/quote]
You’re squatting much bigger weights than me so I was just picking your brain a little. Knee valgus is just knees caving in.
Haha, ok, I sorta figured that’s what it was; don’t mind me, I’m just an oilfield man that likes to lift alittle. Yea, knees out is engrained in my mind from low bar, just carried over to high bar. No problem with picking my brain man, you can shoot away.
[quote]farmerson12 wrote:
Thanks guys. I just need to continue to make sure I prioritize mobility, stretching, and foam rolling work. Who knows, maybe Ill eventually get back to a more narrow stance setup. For now, Ill continue what works.[/quote]
Why do you want to be able to do the narrower stance setup?[/quote]
Mainly bc Id hate to say I cant do narrow stance squats. At this current time, I rep of 135 with a close stance/high bar setup is painful. Grant it, my knee is still healing but Id like to have narrow stance in my arsenal of bc of its benefits.
I think in three years of lifting there has been only one day I ever felt any kind of knee pain. And that was more like, “oh I feel something here” rather than I want to cut off my legs type of pain. I squat high bar and usually go fairly low on anything less than 90%. I have no idea why my knees never complain.
Conversely I can’t do dips. I don’t know if I I’m doing something wrong, but no matter what I try and change up it always just fucking hurts. The one day I thought to myself to try static holds and use slow motions to slightly increase ROM I ended up with a strain or minor tear in one of my pecs that took a few weeks to go away. Now I just kind of say fuck it and look towards other movements I can do and that give me results.
I echo what sutebun says and do what works. Also, I completely understand wanting to keep the high bar squats in your tool box. Question, what kind of shoes do you use when squating high bar?
[quote]BigDawg6593 wrote:
I echo what sutebun says and do what works. Also, I completely understand wanting to keep the high bar squats in your tool box. Question, what kind of shoes do you use when squating high bar?[/quote]
I currently use Adidas Olympic shoes. This previous Squat session, I trained barefoot thinking the raised heel maybe causing me to put more pressure forward and onto my knees. Not sure if I really saw much difference. I have some flat sole shoes so Ill just have to experiment between the two but I dont think my issue lies with my shoes. At least not yet.
There is no way i could squat high bar barefoot. One thing that might be helpful is when i squat high bar, i try and get deep, trying to stop at parallel feels very unnatural in this setup. I use a pair of the Rogue Do Wins for what its worth. Any shoe should work great