A Girlfriend's Guide To Powerlifting

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