Page 58 - Muscle & Fitness (December 2019)

T R A I N T R N I A I N G M Y T H S

TAKE

A KNEE

Yes, your knees

can bend
over your toes

during squats.

Here’s why.

f you’ve ever had a barbell
on your back, then we’re
sure that someone—be it a
doctor, trainer, or fellow
I gym bro—has told you that
your knees shouldn’t pass
your toes when you squat.
This is a lie. Not only is
keeping your knees behind
your toes biomechanically
impossible, but it’s healthier
to let them track over. We’ll
get into that in a minute, but WHAT
how did this myth start? GIVES?
Not only is
THE ORIGIN keeping your knees
behind your toes
The roots of this fallacy can
biomechanically
be traced back to a study
impossible, but it’s
conducted by Duke University
healthier to let
in 1978. The study concluded
them track
that keeping the shin vertical over.
during a squat (knees behind
the toes) led to less shearing
force on the knee. While this
is technically true, increased
force alone is not a marker for
pain. Adequate stress, after all,
is what causes muscle growth
and improved cardiovascular athletes tracking their knees
endurance. Add in the fact over their toes is nothing new.
that the action of flexing your Tom Platz used to perform sis-
knees over your toes isn’t sy squats (in which you hinge his toes as he launches himself
comfortable if not practiced at the knees to place your 40-plus inches into the air.
regularly, and you have the weight onto your quad mus- As for what the science says,
ingredients for a fitness myth cles) frequently, and power- a 2013 analysis in the journal
that has stood the test of time. lifter Jordan Shallow, D.C., says Sports Medicine found that
breaking at the knees during loaded deep squats, which
WHY IT’S FALSE squats is ideal (more on that on force the knees over the toes,
Anecdotally, evidence of this page 90). Or queue up a video did not put passive tissues at E D G A R A RT I G A
myth being just that, a myth, is of LeBron James dunking and risk while squatting compared

abundant. Bodybuilders and you’ll see his knees bend over with half- and quarter-squats.

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