Knee Pain After Squats and How to Avoid Them
#1. Warm-up!
Make sure that you warm up before doing squats.
That sounds like a no-brainer but you would be surprised how many people just walk in the gym and start a squat or deadlift workout without any warm-up.
Do any physical activity that warms up your body, five minutes of elliptical, treadmill, walking outside, or running.
#2. Bodyweight squats
Before you do any barbell squats, do some free-standing squats without the bar, some exercisers call them bodyweight squats or air squats.
It is always a good idea to dynamically warm up in the activity you are about to perform.
I have found that a good stretch to do is to squat down, below parallel, meaning that your hip line is slightly below your knee and put your hands together and elbows on your knees and push your knees outward.
Some people call this a Prying squat, if you know why, let me know, but one day I will get around to find out, it is not too critical at this moment what the name is, but you will benefit greatly from stretching your body in this prying squat position.
Sit in this type of stretch position for a few seconds.
I believe that this is one of the effective stretches to avoid knee pain after squats.
How do I know?
I was terrified of ever doing even one squat because I have a torn medial meniscus in my left knee.
So the fear of knee pain after squats was and still is very real.
You can just do your best to warm up properly and then squat with good form.
#3. Set Up for the Squat
Set the bar on a power rack.
You need a power rack.
So either you will use one at your gym or you are going to buy one for home.
No matter what, for safety reasons, you must use a power rack to hold the barbell and weights.
This is no time to be frugal.
Make sure that you have the safety bars set on the power rack, so in case you cannot hold the weight, you can lower the weight onto the safety bars without risking injury to yourself which would be a much bigger problem than having knee pain after squats.
Start with the weight of an Olympic-sized barbell only.
Repeat, begin your squat workout routine with the weight of the bar alone with no weights.
This is part of your warm-up.
Warm-up with 45lbs and then you can start to add weight till you get to your working set that you will do 3 sets of 5 repetitions of squats.
Whatever your working set is, choose a weight that you can handle comfortably.
Set the bar height below your shoulders.
Grip the bar about shoulder width.
Keep your thumb above the bar, this way the weight will be more centered and carried by your body and less of the weight will be supported by your hands and wrists.
You want to keep the barbell and weight as low down on your shoulders as possible.
This is called low back squats.
You should feel like the barbell is resting a bit above your shoulder blades.
Duck under the bar and set it right on your lower shoulders.
When the bar feels secure, stand up, lift the weight and walk back from the uprights which held the bar one step.
You do not have to walk back three steps, instead, save your strength for squatting and not walking around with a big weight on your back.
Walk back one step.
#4. Feet position
Position your feet correctly to avoid knee pain after squats.
Point your toes out about 1 to 2 o’clock for the right foot and between 10 and 11 am for the left foot.
Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart.
This position is critical because it allows you to squat more easily below parallel which puts less stress on the knees than doing a partial squat.
When you do partial squats, you are placing the most stress on your knees because you are not using the muscles of your posterior chain (yea, your tuchas, and hips) to lift the weight.
Rather you are just using your knees, so if you do have knee pain after doing partial squats, do not be surprised.
The benefit of doing a full squat is that most of the weight is being absorbed by your strongest muscles, your glutes, your hips, your hamstrings, not just your quadriceps and your knees.
In order to get down to the full squat position, you have to keep your feet at the right width and your toes pointed out as well.
#5. Head down
Keep your head down, do not look up at the ceiling.
Imagine holding a tennis ball under your chin.
That is about where your chin should be.
Keep your gaze on the floor somewhere in front of you.
No, you do not have to look at yourself in the mirror while you are squatting.
Your head will probably be too high in that position which puts unnecessary stress on your spine.
#6. Weight on shoulders
Stand with the barbell resting on your lower shoulders (not your neck!).
Your thumb is above the bar so you can feel one with the weight.
The idea of squats is to progressively load weight onto your body which is going to make you stronger, everywhere, in every way.
This is why we do not want to be holding the weight with our hands, just on top of our shoulders.
You are looking at a point on the ground in front of you with your chin down a bit.
Your feet are shoulder-width apart and pointing about 30 degrees outward, 1 – 2 o’clock on the right and 10 – 11 am for the left.
#7. Squat in a straight line
Now imagine yourself as if you are in a very narrow groove.
Meaning that there is no space in front of you and no space behind you.
As if you are sandwiched between a wall in front of you and a wall behind you.
So when you lower down, you will be lowering straight down and when you come up you will be coming straight up.
This is part of the wonders of gravity, everything falls down vertically.
You want the bar to move in a straight line down and a straight line up.
Think of the bar never moving horizontally, only vertically.
#8. Engage your core
Before you begin to squat, engage your core and take a deep breath.
You want to fill up your body with air and create intra-abdominal pressure, which will make your body more stable and secure.
This technique of bracing your core will help you both avoid lower back strain from squats, deadlifts, as well as knee pain when squatting.
I have already had the experience of breathing out at the bottom of the squat and suffering the consequences of a lower back strain.
Learn from my mistakes!
Make sure that you learn How To Engage Your Core Properly While Lifting Weights.
#9. Lower in a vertical line
Lower the weight vertically, in a straight line within this imaginary groove.
When you feel that you have lowered your hips beneath your knees, now is the time to use all the muscles of your posterior chain to power the barbell straight up.
This should feel a bit like a rubber band because in reality, you are stretching your hamstrings at the bottom of the squat and now you just want to power your vertical ascent using those muscles.
Think of using those muscles.
Do not think of using your knees, some of the weakest muscles that there are, or your feet or quadriceps.
You need to use the power of your posterior (yes, your tuchas!) to lift yourself from the bottom of the squat to standing.
This posterior chain engagement is going to help you avoid knee pain after squats because you are not using your knees!
#10. 3×5 Workout
For Your Working Set, Do 3 sets of 5 Repetitions also known as 3×5 workout plan, the brainchild of strength training Coach Mark Rippetoe.
In order to get stronger, you are going to have to add weight.
But do not be a show-off and add 20 pounds to your last lift.
Build your strength gradually and there will be less room for injury.
The reason that I call this blog strength training for your mind and body as opposed to strength exercises for mind and body or weight training is that I am not interested in only doing exercise.
My interest and I am assuming yours as well is to get stronger.
Training means to get stronger, we want to train our muscles to handle more stress, more load.
The only way to do this is to add weight.
But add weight rationally, so my suggestion is to add 2.5lb fractional plates to each side, a total of 5lbs for each squat workout till you get to a point where you cannot add more.
In the meantime, you will be getting stronger every week, both mentally and physically.
Knee Pain After Squats – Wrapping up
In summary, the above Top Ten checklist will help you to avoid knee pain after squats.
How do I know?
As I mentioned above, I have my own knee issues.
There was a period of six months when I could not even walk, my knee pain was so bad.
And no, I was not squatting.
I never even dreamed of doing squats.
Why would you think that a man who is 55 years old, near 275lbs, and could not even see his feet beyond his belly would ever think of doing squats, especially when he never did one in his life, specifically barbell squats?
Barbell squats were the last thing in my mind that could help me to reduce my knee pain which was substantial from my torn meniscus.
Originally, I began to think about weightlifting to help depression.
Yea, that is right, fat and depressed, a double whammy, not fun.
I read that squats and deadlifts are among the best compound exercises that a man can do to raise testosterone.
At that time, back in 2012, I had already lost about fifty pounds by eating clean aka just eat real food.
But when I read that squats could cause such a boost in testosterone which could help me fight depression, I wanted to try it out.
Being slim but miserable was not acceptable to me.
I knew that I needed more than to be on a diet.
I wanted to be stronger in mind and body.
So I started to do squats and I can tell you that the first week, I could not walk, and that was just from doing squats with the barbell alone.
I had read that squatting below parallel would not hurt my knees and in fact, could even make them stronger.
That I could not believe but I can tell you that has been my experience so far.
Not only have I not had knee pain after squats, but I feel that my knees have even gotten stronger.
Everything has become stronger because of squats.
If you are physically capable of doing squats, you should be grateful for your body, for having the tools to do one of the most powerful strength training moves on the planet, if not the best strength training exercise there is.
But of course, if you are going to have knee pain after squats or any other injury, you will miss all of the benefits of squats.
So far, the above top ten checklist has helped me avoid knee pain after squats and I hope that it will be helpful to you as well.
What’s Next
When you want to change your body from fat to fit, it’s not how much weight that you lift, but rather how good is your form.
Good technique will always be more consequential than beating your personal record one rep max.
Body transformation boils down to great nutrition, strength training, and cardio.
For the strength training component, you need to learn how to use the best form possible.
The following articles will help you understand the most important form tips for the big compound lifts, the main lifts of powerlifting, and they are:
Rich is a NASM-CPT (Certified Personal Trainer), an