exercise modification question

[calligrafiti]

Hello all. I'm new here, but rydra_wong suggested this would be a good place to ask about modification to an exercise I'm trying to do. There aren't any weights involved other than my own body, I'm afraid. However, it is a heavy thing.

I've recently started the LifeHacker exercise challenge (although I question the use of the term "normal" in their subhead, "exercise for normal people"), and I'm having some trouble with the squats section of the program. I'm quite fat, and doing more than one or two squats makes my knees hurt a lot. While they show modifications for most of the exercises, they don't show any mods for squats other than using a chair or pole for stability. I'm using a chair. My knees hurt while I'm squatting in a very stable manner.

If anyone here has suggestions for modifications to the standard squat exercise, or alternate exercises that work the same muscle groups, I'd love to hear about them, please.

Comments

[weirdquark]

I don't actually know how well this would work as a modification, but what about step-ups using a fairly high step? If you use a step that's high enough to get your thigh to be parallel with the floor, doing a step-up is sort of like doing a partial one-legged squat, except you don't support your full weight when you're at parallel because your other foot is on the floor. The rest of the motion seems like it would be similar to what you'd do raising and lowering yourself to a parallel squat. (And if using a step that high also hurts your knees, you could use a slightly lower step and work your way up to something higher.)

[calligrafiti]

Thank you!

[abyssinia]

Squats can be great for improving the strength of the muscles that stabilize your knees, but they can also hurt your knees. One of the biggest things my PT emphasized during one of my knee injury recoveries is to never let your knees go past a vertical line up from your toes.

Things to try:

1) Don't squat as far. Focus on proper form and only go down a little bit and slowly work yourself up to deeper squats. Even lowering your butt a few inches is using those muscles.

2) Wall sit. Stand with your back to a wall, heels against the baseboard. Take a step forward with both feet, keeping your feet shoulder width apart, and keep leaning against the wall. Keeping your back (pelvis to shoulders) pressed against the wall, slide down. You can make this easier or harder depending on how far you step and how far down you go, but I never let my knees get beyond 90 degrees, and rarely even get that bent. Hold this bent position for some amount of time (once I get myself conditioned to several minutes, I find that it helps to use my hands to gently pound on the top of my quads - I know, it's weird), stand up slowly, and repeat if you want.

3) I had one PT have me take one of those really big inflatable exercise balls, put it between my back and a wall, and slowly squat down (again, no knees beyond toes), essentially rolling myself and ball up and down the wall. It puts some of the force from your weight into the ball/wall so you aren't squatting your entire body, and helps you resist leaning over and losing form.

4) As a variant of the wall squat, you can try squatting freely and holding it. Again, don't go very far down and watch you form, and just try to hold the position for a while. It hurts in different ways, but the less movement means less wear and tear.

5) I don't know where you live or what your mobility situation is, but the "simple" act of going up stairs works a lot of the same muscles. Again, slow and careful and try to focus on using your butt muscles to push off each step, but just taking the stairs whenever you have a chance, or walking up hills if you live in a place with hills, can start making a difference.

(and, seriously, there's TONS of great strength-building exercises that don't use any weight beyond your body, no matter what size your body is - totally nothing to apologize for. I have a pretty comprehensive routine that uses my body, an elastic resistance band, an ankle weight, and a sledgehammer and a lot of my exercises don't use any of those items)

Good luck! I hope whatever exercise routine you find works for you treats you well!

[calligrafiti]

What a great list of ideas--thanks!

[lys]

When I was doing PT for my knee this summer, they had me doing squats as described above in #'s 1 and 3. When I first started out, they wanted me to hold on to something counter-height to make sure I didn't go down too far. I found that awkward, but I have a treadmill at home, and when the base is folded up, the arms were at the perfect position to grab. And since it would wobble a little, it kept me from attempting to do anything drastic. :->

[calligrafiti]

That sounds like a good idea. I've been using the back of a low chair as a support. It also doubles as a preliminary push-up base (I'm having to work my way down to proper horizontal push-ups).

[rydra_wong]

I have intermittently dodgy knees, and for me, the key thing is watching that my knees track in exactly the same direction as my toes and don't wobble inwards during squats. That's required a fair amount of stretching and yoga to open up my hips and inner thighs so my knees don't get pulled in.

If you want a general lower-body exercise to replace bodyweight squats, you could try lunges -- I've found that sometimes my knees seem less likely to skew out of line with a one-sided or asymmetrical exercise.

[chaostheory635]

This. Check your form, make damn sure your knees don't cave, and do mobility work like your life depends on it.

[calligrafiti]

Caving knees? I'll look that up and then try to guard against it. Thanks!

[calligrafiti]

Thanks for the suggestions. Yoga certainly couldn't hurt (except literally). I'm doing backwards lunges as another exercise in the program, and they definitely go better than squats.

[buddleia]

I am also pretty fat and have had knee pain in the past. I luckily have no trouble with squats and in fact haven't had any knee pain since I started doing regular back and goblet squats. Goblet squats were my 'in' to squatting because the counterweight made it easy to get down low and push my knees outward, which I think helps a lot. I would echo what has been said already about making sure your knees track over your feet.

Not very helpful but good luck and I hope you post about how you get on!

[calligrafiti]

Goblet squats? OK, thanks! I'll check that out and see if I can incorporate it.

[calligrafiti]

This turned out to be tremendously helpful. I looked up goblet squats and tried them on my Friday round of exercises. I was able to do 30 of them with minimal knee pain. The time before I had barely managed 10 "regular" squats, and they hurt like hell. So this was a considerable improvement! (I also keep hearing them as "goblin squats" in my head, which makes me unreasonably happy.)

So thank you!

[buddleia]

*beams* Bet you're feeling your quads today! And, yes "goblin squats" is pretty happy-making.

[coffeetime]

This made me laugh because my knees also hurt from squatting. I've been focusing on Romanian deadlifts for two months because of the pain, but I also do one-legged bench bridges, one-legged Romanian deadlifts (this is really, really hard for me) and I do clamshells with a resistance band to strengthen my hips. My knees have hurt too much since early August for me to do any step-ups onto a bench...even going up stairs was pretty excruciating. Recently I started eating 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric every night (doctor's advice) and that has helped a lot with the inflammation.

Thanks for posting this, because I'm reading everyone's solutions with great interest.

[calligrafiti]

I hadn't heard about tumeric as an anti-inflammatory. Nifty! Anyway, the one that's worked the best for me so far is the advice to try goblet squats. But your knees may vary. Good luck with the workouts!

Belated comment is belated

[rydra_wong]

Turmeric is an excellent anti-inflammatory; you can buy it in capsules if you don't like cooking with it or swallowing it by the teaspoonful. No side-effects at all (the only thing you have to watch is if you're taking it with any meds that have a blood-thinning effect, as it can increase that).

I'd definitely rec it to anyone who has cranky joints.