I spend approximately 99.5% of my day hugging puppies yelling:
KNEES OUT!
This Should NEVER happen:
But does all the time.
It’s really bad…
For Comparison:
This is really good.
So what’s going on in the first photo?
Short Answer:
Your Ass is broke…..as in, it’s not working..
Long(er) Answer:
Glutes act as an external rotator on the Femur (upper leg bone) and they are not strong enough to:
- Rotate the Femur out.
- Stabilize the hip.
How do we know this?
The knee collapses toward the midline because when it does the glutes stretch at the top of the Femur, when the glutes (or any muscle) stretches it FIRES. When muscles fire, they do their job or attempt to...
Allowing the knee to collapse is one of the adaptations the body makes in an attempt to fire the glutes in an effort to control and stabilize the knee and hip, even though the truth is NO “control” is going on.
This is why out of shape people walk with their toes out…ie. Femur externally rotated. Their body is trying to find ANY WAY it can get tension in the glutes to do some type of stabilization for the hips.
So we have to retrain the body into this “knee out”…which is really knees passed the toes (as per Kelly Starrett) hip torque, position.
Getting the Ass to Fire (externally rotate the Femur) So the Knees get out:
Think about “screwing the heel” into the floor.
Comparison of rotating the foot vs. “screwing the heel out”.
Pay attention to the knee cap of the left leg (right side in the video). Keep in mind my heel is on the floor with pressure on it the entire time.
Yes, it’s subtle…
Notice how the white line in the left picture line up with the middle of the knee cap and shin but the line on the left photo is to the inside of the knee?
That’s because the photo on the right is with the “heel screwed out”, that’s the type of rotation we’re looking for.
This is does NOT mean rotating the foot.
Comparison of rotating the foot vs. “screwing the heel out”.
When you do “screw the heel out” you should feel the glutes fire just by screwing the heel into the ground and rotating the femur.
Once we have that down we have to do exercises to specifically strengthen the glutes in external rotation and reprogram the brain to “push” the knees out.
Knee out Bridge:
A word on bridging: Bridging is about the glutes NOT the low back. That means the top of your bridge should look like this:
Ribs “tacked” to the core, nice straight line “shoulders through ankles”
Not this:
See how the ribs “pop up” and there’s a big arch?…That’s wrong….
Think “ribs down” and use the glutes…squeeze hard, yes this should be uncomfortable.
If it’s not, you’re either super strong and have Buns of Steel or you’re doing it wrong and “Hanging off the Lower Back”.
Sitting Knee outs:
Squats with a Band Under the Knees:
Squat Sit Iso:
Most important part or the equation: PRACTICE!
If this has happened for a long time it will continue, even if you become VERY strong in external rotation, when you do squats and lunges because this is what it has been trained to do.
Because of this you MUST PRACTICE creating “hip torque” and maintaining the knee out position to reprogram your motor control at the level of the nervous system.
You can’t just do these exercises and expect the body to start doing things differently after you taught it a default/ compensation pattern for years.
The difference is, with your newly found glute activation and strength, you should easily be able to get and keep the KNEES OUT with a little practice.
Really good video about this concept in action:
If and when you become really good at getting the knees out over or past the toes and getting good hip torque you should be able to squat at least to parallel and most likely deeper.
If you’re still high (above 90 at the Femur) you probably have tight ankles….actually, you probably have tight ankles regardless and you should work on restoring mobility there also.
*Some photo creds go out to Stevie D from www.rightsidepolitics.com
About Roy:
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