A Girlfriend's Guide To Powerlifting
A handy booklet for beginner's in Powerlifting
A handy booklet for beginner's in Powerlifting
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Misconception:<br />
Heavy squats bad for knees?<br />
Deep Squats are Perfectly Safe:<br />
Squats are a big part of powerlifting and there are specific rules that<br />
govern how they must be performed. The lifter “must bend the knees and<br />
lower the body, until the top surface of the legs at the hip-joint is lower<br />
than the top of the knees”, meaning that a competitive powerlifter has<br />
little choice but to train using deep-squats.<br />
It’s a common concern amongst gym-goers that deep-squats are bad for<br />
the knees, with people often suggesting that they place excessive force<br />
through the joint which increases risk of injury and long-term wear and<br />
tear. Whilst it’s true that the knee experiences the highest forces during<br />
the deepest part of the squat, research suggests that as long as they are<br />
performed with care, good-technique and the lifter has no previous<br />
injuries, deep-squats are perfectly fine (Escamilla et al, 1998. Hartmann et<br />
al, 2013).<br />
So, where’s the evidence?<br />
One of the main ways researchers measure the forces going through the<br />
knee is to look at ‘Patellofemoral Compressive Forces’, which is essentially<br />
the force that the knee-cap is pulled into the knee-joint by the muscles<br />
during the squat (Insert Picture). Nisell & Ekholm (1986) calculated these<br />
forces at the knee in a study looking at male powerlifters during several<br />
250kg squats and did observe that forces increase as squats became<br />
deeper, reaching ~6750N in the full-squat compared to ~5000N in the<br />
quarter squat.<br />
But does this not mean deep-squats are bad? Not really…<br />
“not NOT really” REALLY<br />
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