Hi everyone,
Assuming your bottom position is correct, what would be the cause for someone’s knees to shoot back out of the bottom of the squat, and how would you correct it?
I think there could be a number of causes, and just the description alone is not enough to form any conclusion. As a genera answer, have you ever tried regularly doing 3-0-3 tempo squats? As much as people complain about them, they really are the best way to really hammer home the proper bar path and movement, as it’s very hard to do any egregious form errors when moving that slow.
My advice is based on my experience with the pelvis collapsing (out of the hole). Keep it in this context please.
IMO too much is made of what happens with the knees during the squat, even if they are an easy indicator of poor form.
Instead of fixing what the knees do, I needed to stop allowing the hip/ femur angle to collapse out of the hole due to a faulty concept of “hip drive” and “tightness”. Once the hips collapse (the back angle becoming further closed), the only way to salvage the squat and bar path is to shoot the hips back, thereby pulling the knees back as well (good morning squat.)
The correction to make is to force the muscles (quads, gastrocs, glutes, hams, abs, obliques, spinal erectors etc.) to control the pelvis (back angle). Don’t let the pelvis (and/or belly) smash into the legs in order to find tightness.
Understand, that a little collapse in hip angle is very likely under a heavy load, but try not exaggerate it.
I would agree with PWard that 3-0-3s are good for finding faults in squat form. However, pin squats worked better for me in this case since I would be forced to perfect my drive out of the hole using weight that would challenge my ability to maintain control over the pelvis on the way up.
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This makes sense - thanks! I knew the knees going back were not a cause, but an effect of something else breaking down. Back angle collapsing seems like the most likely scenario. I haven’t filmed the last few workouts so I need to record some video and see what’s going on.
Make sure hips aren’t shooting back out of the bottom. They also may be rising before the bar causing the bar to go forward thus forcing your knees back to maintain balance. Hips up and bar up at the same time with your weight over mid-foot.
Thanks everyone! Pin squats this morning taught me a lesson - my first assumption about bottom position being correct was false. I was getting too far onto my toes at the bottom so I had to go backwards to stay in balance. When I tried that with the pin squats it didn’t work, so I focused on keeping the weight mid foot and knees were much more stable.
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