Knee Pain From Squats And What To Do About It
Squats have a very mixed reputation when looking at your joints, and your knees in particular. Typically, they use a heavy weight and a big lift because of what it is that youre doing. This can take its toll on your joints in later life, or so some say, do squats cause knee pain?
If squats are hurting your knees, this is the first problem both in the long and short term. They shouldn’t be, and something is wrong. You might well be lifting a weight that is too heavy for you. Worse still, it might be your technique. Either way, you have a serious problem.
Omnigel: An Effective Topical Knee Pain Relief Remedy
In addition to specific remedies for the underlying causes of your knee pain, you can also use a fast-acting topical pain relief remedy to reduce knee pain quickly. A good pain relief cream will help not just with the pain but also ease inflammation, swelling, and stiffness so that you are able to regain mobility to do things like squatting, more comfortably. Omnigel is a diclofenac gel thats meant for problems just like this. Whatever the cause of your knee pain, whether it is arthritis or a sports injury, youll find that this remedy alleviates the pain so you can get back to doing the things you love.
Omnigel is priced competitively and offers an easy-to-use, value for money pain relief remedy for knee pain. Order it from a pharmacy near you or get it home-delivered from an online pharmacist.
Reasons Why Your Knee Hurt While Deadlifting
IMPORTANT: Were discussing reasons people get knee pain while deadlifting. One thing I didnt cover was if you already have an undiagnosed knee injury you should consult a medical provider before attempting to deadlift. The last thing youd want to do is make things worse than they are.
We briefly listed the reasons why your knee hurts while deadlifting earlier, however, lets break it down by each phase of the deadlift
There are three phases to the deadlift: the starting phase, the pull phase, and the descent phase. By understanding each of the movements, youll be in a better position to spot areas of improvement to avoid knee pain.
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Causes Of Knee Pain When Climbing Stairs
Knee pain can be debilitating and is often seen when climbing or descending stairs. There is no reason why knee pain should interfere with your daily activities. Climbing stairs can be stressful or even painful, however, going down puts more pressure on the knees.
Knee Osteoarthritis; Over time, the cartilage supporting your knee may break or shrink, causing the bones to move abnormally. Osteoarthritis affects more than 32.5 million people in the United States alone, with knee disease accounting in more than 80% of cases. Symptoms of arthrosis include grinding or pressing the knee when moving, swelling, pain, and stiffness after sitting or lying down.
Patellofemoral pain syndrome; It is more commonly known as a knee or runner and refers to pain in the front knee. The most common cause of knee pain, this disease occurs when abnormal movements take place on your patella , causing damage to the soft tissues around your knee. Patellofemoral pain may indicate a condition called chondromalacia patella. This occurs when the articular barley below the knee becomes weaker, causing inflammation and pain.
IT Band Disease; This injury is often caused by knee replacement activities such as running, cycling or climbing. Iliotibial, or IT, a band is a tendon that extends from the pelvis to the top of the shin and above the knee. Because of its connection to the knee, if your IT band is on fire, you may experience severe knee pain while climbing stairs.
For When It Is The Back Leg Knee

I get surprised a lot by someone saying, ‘yeah I have knee pain during lunging’, and I assume it’s the front leg, but then they say ‘oh no, its the back leg that hurts, when I am down at the bottom’.
What I have found is that we a lot of athletes push too hard with their back leg into the ground during the descent and ascent of the lunge or split squat.
I tell them to imagine a scale underneath their front foot and back foot and see what percentage of their pressure is in each foot.
I tell them to envision they are putting more weight and load into the front leg and lightening up weight on the back scale.
Then we re-evaluate their level of discomfort in the back leg knee with this. More times than not, it substantially reduced.
What is the %age of front to back leg you should try for? Personally, I attempt to drive only out of the front leg, so I’d guess I’m at 80 front / 20 back. I have many athletes tell me that they are pushing primarily from their back leg during the split squat and lunge. No one ever instructed them that it is a front legged exercise.
Sometimes the most simple things are overlooked because complicated seems fancy and we like fancy. Fancy isn’t always better. Sometimes fancy is just fancy for no reason.
Clean up the simple things first before you worry about there being scar tissue in the quad you have to release when the answer is changing how the knee is loaded in this movement.
Thanks for reading and I hope you found this helpful!
-Ryan
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Too Often Can Result In Injury
Another extremely easy way that you can injure yourself from squatting, even if your technique is spot on, is by overdoing it. If your squats are hurting your knees and you’re doing them daily, you’ve probably got your answer. Performing any exercise too much is a bad thing, and these are no different. The more you do it, the more stress you put on your body with less time to heal, and it results in things like tendonitis. Let yourself recover; you should only really be doing them around two times a week maximum.
Get it right
To summarise, squats aren’t bad for your knees. Your technique, however, could well be and result in squats causing your knee pain. To protect yourself in the long and the short term, just do what feels right. Don’t try and lift the heaviest weight you can before you’re ready. Practise your technique and let yourself rest between exercises; otherwise, it’s an accident waiting to happen. For more guidance, speak to a medical professional or a PT and let them tell you how to deal with it.
Before beginning any exercise or nutrition program, consult your physician, doctor or other professional. This is especially important for individuals over the age of 35 or persons with pre-existing health problems. Exercise.co.uk assumes no responsibility for personal injury or property damage sustained using our advice.
Squats Bring Serious Benefits
Targeting your quadriceps, calves, hamstrings, adductors, glutes, and hip flexors, squats are an amazing way to strengthen your lower body. In terms of athletic performance, squatting can make you stronger in activities like biking and running. If you’re looking to improve your speed and strength, Selena Samuela, a Peloton Tread;instructor, suggests adding an explosive element like a jump squat to the mix.
Not only can squatting add power and stability to boost your athletic performance, but you’ll notice the difference in your everyday life, too. Simple, routine tasks like getting out of bed, picking up a heavy bag of groceries, and walking up a steep set of stairs may not seem very challenging, but they can all be made easier and safer by regularly doing squats.
Autumn Calabrese, a BeachBody trainer and certified personal trainer, explains this benefit further. “We sit down and stand up constantly, a lot of times we do this with some form of weight in our hands,” Calabrese says.;”Strengthening these muscles makes daily life easier.”;You’ll be less likely to get injured, too.
But that’s not all. Squats are also helpful for burning fat, strengthening your knee, hip, and ankle joints, and boosting your core strength, which can help ease lower back pain and make twisting and bending easier.
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The Takeaway For Knee Pain When Squatting
I hope this was able to help you pinpoint what exactly might be causing your knee pain during squats.
As I always emphasize, its absolutely vital that you pay close attention to how exactly you perform your exercises in order to prevent injuries overtime and to progress faster. I personally could have prevented a lot of injuries and set backs had I applied this when I first started lifting.
And if youre looking for a complete evidence-based program thats fully equipped with in-depth tutorials for each and every movement…
…then click the button below to take the free body type analysis quiz I have up in order to discover what program is best for you:
Do Squats Cause Knee Problems
Squats are beneficial exercises as a total body exercise. For beginners the Ball Squat can help ensure you are using the appropriate form. If you ensure that your knees do not pass your toes while you perform this exercise then with practice, eventually you will be able to stop using the ball.
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If You Want To Learn How To Get Rid Of Knee Pain When Squatting For Good Then You Need To Read This Article
Squats are a complex exercise that allows people to target multiple muscles, primarily the quads and the glutes.
And if you want bigger legs, then your best bet is to do some form of squats in your leg workouts.
However, the squat is also known as one of the most dangerous exercises as many people experience knee pain when squatting or knee pain after squats. The pain can present itself as discomfort around the knee cap:
…or above/below the knee at the tendon attachment points:The thing is though, most people don’t have “bad knees”.
In fact, the pain their knees hurt when squatting due to damage around the knee because of a few common mistakes they make during the squat.
In this post, we will go through exactly what these mistakes are AND how to fix them.
In so doing, future injury can be prevented to allow you to get back into the gym and perform squats without knee pain.
A short note before we begin: as the saying goes, prevention is always better than cure. That’s why I design every BWS program carefully to ensure that it does not cause unnecessary, additional stress to your knees – which can worsen pain. If you’re interested in transforming your physique in the most time-efficient and safe manner:
Knee Pain When Squatting 3 Common Fixes
Knee pain when squatting has many possible causes. Both joint inflexibility and poor muscle stability are usually contributing factors. You dont have to be a yogi, but keeping your joints limber may help move stress away from your knees. Fortunately, it is possible to dramatically improve joint mobility in just one short stretching session. The bad news is that these mobility changes will disappear quickly if not maintained through consistent exercise. Getting into a proper routine is essential. Below are the key areas to focus on and simple exercises to try at home!
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How To Fix Knee Pain
Most people who are experiencing knee pain with squats are doing a movement that incorrectly loads the knees rather than the hips. Thats why we train the squat with a moderate toe out angle, and the knees shoved out to be in line with the toes. Shoving the knees out and sitting the hips back with a more horizontal back angle, loads the big muscles of the hip: the glutes, hip adductors/groin, hamstrings and internal rotators. This balances the forces acting around the knee joint as the movement is performed. A healthy knee moves with the quadriceps, the primary knee extensors, working in line with the hamstrings, groin muscles, and other hip musculature all working together.
The Truth About Squats And Knee Pain

No matter what you’ve heard, full squats aren’t bad for your knees. It’s a resting position for people in Eastern countries, but Westerners typically lack the mobility to comfortably assume the position which is likely partially responsible for the false belief that you can get a knee injury from squats below parallel.
The concern that causes many health professionals to warn against squatting below parallel is that it potentially increases the risk of knee laxity and puts excessive pressure on the knee. However, according to a June 2014 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, that’s untrue.
“The original thought that deep squatting would physiologically stretch out your knee joint capsule and that the ligaments surrounding your knee would become weak because of this is fundamentally flawed,” Wickham says. As long as you have the mobility and stability in your hips and ankles and know how to perform a squat correctly, Wickham says there’s no risk of knee damage.
In fact, squats can actually help with knee pain in certain circumstances. For example, an October 2019 study published in BioMed Research International found that squats reduced inflammation in the knee and supported its pain-free function for knee osteoarthritis patients.
Tip
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How To Fix Hip Pain When Squatting: Hip Mobility & Release Exercises
In the world of fitness, the squat is king. Its a compound movement that is unparalleled in its ability to develop explosive and powerful lower body strength. However, it is also an exercise that plagues many people with pain and injury, most notably the knees and hips. This is not the fault of the squat itself though. The most common reason for pain when squatting is a lack of mobility and/or improper form, which is oftentimes compounded with using weights that are too heavy.
So, today we want to focus specifically on hip pain when squatting. Our goal is to help you eliminate hip pain during back squats completely, so you can reap the benefits of this incredibly effective exercise. 100% PAIN-FREE.
Hip pinching and anterior hip pain when squatting is one of the most commonly discussed and complained about afflictions in the gym. And to make matters worse, its so often incompetently managed. Some people work through the pain, others attempt ineffective or misdiagnosed remediesand possibly even worse, many people just ditch squats altogether.
If you are experiencing hip pain during squats, the first thing you need to do is get a better understanding of the hips and squat mechanics from the ground up. Then you need to assess the situation to see what exactly is causing your hip pain. And finally, you need to take action, whether that is correcting your form, doing mobility drills, self-myofascial release, or going to the doctor.
Reason #: Valgus Knees During Squats
This next reason your knees could be causing pain when you squat is pretty easy to spot.
Take a look in the mirror as you squat. Are your knees staying more or less pointed straight forward? OR, are they starting to point in towards each other?
If the second situation is the case, valgus knees could be the cause of your pain. This improper positioning can be caused by a variety of issues, including weak gluteus medius muscles and internally rotated hips.
Image by www.childrenshospital.org
Having a knock-kneed form could set you up for something a lot more serious than some pain with squats. Valgus knees can make you more prone to serious issues like ACL or PCL tears .
To address valgus knees, try exercises like those I suggest in this article outlining different exercises to target the gluteus medius. These moves will help wake up those glute muscles that will help fix valgus knees and encourage better balance all along the lower body
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Stretch Before And After Workouts
We all have a fitness routine that we follow. The problem with this is that sometimes we forget to stretch before and after the workout. This can cause many problems such as muscle cramps, muscle soreness or even pain in legs after squats.
Sometimes it feels like youre not doing enough to take care of your body for exercise because you dont want to spend more time on it but if you take a little extra time stretching before and after your workouts, you will notice a difference in how often those muscles are sore or cramped up from overworking them.-What stretches do I need?-How long should I hold each stretch?
Stretching before and after workouts can help reduce the risk of injury. After doing squats, your legs may feel tight or sore. You can stretch them by bending one leg in front of you with the knee at a 90 degree angle and then reaching to grab the toes on that same foot while keeping your back straight. Hold for 10 seconds and then repeat with the other leg for 30 seconds total of stretching time. This helps get rid of pain in Legs After Squats!
What Can I Do To Help My Symptoms
- Manage your load. If youre battling knee pain unfortunately youll need to swallow your pride and incorporate rest days and ensure hill and speed work are kept to a minimum whilst things settle.
- Strength train: research shows exercise of the hip and thigh twice a week resulted in better outcomes than hands on therapy including massage and dry needling. We preach it cause it works get strong to feel better. Strength work can be used in conjunction with taping and other modalities even in the acute stage to help settle symptoms as well as address the underlying cause for your pain.
- Seek to improve hip and knee biomechanics when running. This will normally improve somewhat with strength training and improving strength in the right areas, however some small alterations to running technique through verbal cuing may be required also. We take the approach dont change something thats not broken. There are things that are better bang for buck than altering running technique such as strength training and load management, but if youre a runner and things are not progressing as wed like, small tweaks to your running technique may be necessary.;
- Be careful of rolling your ITB. The ITB is a passive structure and you can roll it until the cows come home, its not going to change length. Focus on your outer quad, hip and glute instead for short term relief.
- Be patient. This is a condition that takes time. Stay the course, put in the work and get back to running pain free.
-
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