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Re: [danger] Knee Injuries - prevention :
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aerili
Mar 6, 2011, 9:10 PM
Views: 3609
Registered: Jan 13, 2006
Posts: 1166
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Okay, I realize that when I wrote my first two sentences, you took them to be real questions, but actually, they were rhetorical.
danger wrote: If you never did squats before it may help your knees, but i've done them for years so it doesn't make a difference either way. Not true. Btw, I should let you know that biomechanics is my specialty. I am not an expert, but I have a lot more knowledge than the average person out there. Also, I've been a trainer for many years, so I very familiar with almost all weight room exercises. I do know and have performed one legged squats. I do not believe they force your knee to stabilize harder against sideways forces. I would say they force your ANKLE and HIP to stabilize a bit harder, but not your knee. You are incorrect that regular squatting does not place any lateral (side to side forces) on the knee. Many people have inside and outside movement of their knees while squatting. (This should not happen, but it can.) To be accurate, this is actually not really knee motion occurring anyway, but rather the whole upper leg moving from the HIP. To follow up on that point, knees do not move in 360 degrees (per your comment). They are a hinge joint, regardless of whether you are double-leg squatting or single leg squatting. As I stated, inside and outside motion occurs for the femur at the hip. The knee is the end of the femur. Everyone's knee will have a slight degree of play from side to side, but it is very minimal....thus, the "hinge" joint classification. Your pistol squats are NOT a plyometric exercise, either, just fyi. I would also say that heavy double-leg squatting is more likely to build stability in the knee than single leg squatting because you can use more quad and less glute under higher loads. As oahm said, there is no way to directly strengthen the MCL (that I know of, and if he doesn't know either, it's a pretty good bet). Your knee is not like your shoulder for a few reasons: 1) your shoulder is a ball and socket joint. Your knee is a hinge joint. This means: a) your knee lacks a "cuff" of small stabilizing muscles which are surrounded by larger muscles that do "bigger" movements for the joint. b) The knee's main stabilizers are the same large muscles that do the "big" motions for it. Hinge joints do not require the same kind of stabilization that ball and socket joints do (like shoulder and hip). Hence why even double leg squatting can and DOES stabilize the knee. My recommendation would be to do BOTH double leg and single leg squats and avoid doing a lot of drop-knees where extreme forces are put on that MCL.
(This post was edited by aerili on Mar 6, 2011, 9:12 PM)
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Post edited by aerili
() on Mar 6, 2011, 9:12 PM
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