Holistic Corrective Exercise For Fitness Professionals

I hear it all the time…

“I can’t do lunges because they hurt my knees”

But, think of so many movements we do outside of ‘the gym‘ like walking up and down stairs, getting in and out of our car, bending down to pick up a set of keys off the floor, running–well–you get the picture.

What do these movements have to do with lunges and knee pain?

Everything!

These movements and many others we do all the time are performed in a single-leg dominant environment and a necessary part of our everyday lives…

…think about if you had to squat down in a traditional squat position EVERY time you bent down.

You’d have a pretty tough time getting in and out of your car, kneeling down and walking stairs.

And, you’d have to forget playing most sports, right?

Therefore, avoiding these movements rarely fixes a problem such as knee pain.

The truth is that lunging and squatting are NOT bad for your knees as their reputation suggests.

What’s ‘bad‘ is lacking the conditioning to perform lunges and squats safely and effectively so they don’t injure your knees.

Eliminating chronic knee pain and knee injuries requires an ability to perform every day functional movements efficiently.

This is best achieved through training. But, it takes more than just doing “functional” exercises on a balance pad or stability ball.

In most cases, knee pain from lunges doesn’t happen because someone has “weak knees”, “bum knees”, “arthritis” and it’s not because of “old-age” either.

The REAL reason lunges (and squats) often cause knee pain is due to muscular imbalances related to the quadriceps and hip flexors.

But, aren’t we supposed to feel the quads during leg exercises?

Well, it’s a little more complex than an either-or answer can provide…Allow me to explain a bit more about what I mean.

I’ve discovered that most people are what I call ‘quad-dominant’ meaning that they have developed most of their lower extremity strength in the quadriceps.

Now, these individuals often also have tight or dominant hip flexors as well.

And, this quad-dominance creates an imbalance of the lower extremities during functional movements like squatting and lunging because exclusively using the quadriceps results in a ‘forward’ pulling at the hip.

Now, you can’t actually see it happening but what you’ll notice when you watch someone do a squat or lunge is their hips and knees will move a bit forward.

And, if you ask them where they feel it 9 times out of 10 they’ll say in the quadriceps.

This quad-dominance and forward motion shifts the center of gravity and INCREASES stress to the knees.

This is the #1 reason why lunges and squats cause problems to the knees, hips, ankles and lower back too. But, it’s easy to fix once you’ve performed a proper lower body exercise assessment and identified the weak links.

Speaking of identifying weak links in the lower extremities, I was recently a featured presenter for Muscle Imbalances Revealed where I and 6 other presenters shared our best training tips and secrets for overcoming injuries to the lower body.

It’s packed full of ‘how-to‘ info on everything you need to know to correct the muscle imbalances that are responsible for most injuries to the knees and lower body.

However, if you’re looking for an effective exercise and conditioning solution you can use right away to overcome knee pain fast then you may want to check out The Knee Injury Solution by Rick Kaselj.

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