Training the squat through a knee injury

Strength training is an important hobby for many of us. And for some, it is not even a hobby – if you compete, for example, then it is far more than just a hobby! For these reasons, some of us have a very difficult time knowing when to stop training. As we all hopefully know by now, more training is not always better. In many, many cases, less is actually more. After all, the time during which you actually get stronger is after training, when your muscles recover. If you train, say, every day, then your muscles will never get this opportunity, and you will never improve.

Now, if a trainee gets injured, then the points above still apply, but they are suddenly even more important. The reason for this is that, while the muscles and tendons are in a weakened state, it is far more likely to get hurt. This is why training while injured is an incredibly dumb idea. However, for many of us, as has been mentioned, training is something important. It is more than a mere hobby; maybe it is the break during our busy day that keeps up going. Therefore, quitting training altogether just because of an injury might not be possible at all. So, what is the trainee to do?

Luckily, there are many different exercises which allow you to train around your injury. This means that you can still go to the gym and get stronger, even though you somehow managed to get injured. Another great thing about the whole situation is that you will be forced to do movements and exercises that you would not traditionally have done; therefore, the chances that you will be hitting some weak spot more in this period is quite big. Chances are, when you come back out of your injury, you will be in a far better position to make gains than ever before.

The squat can be trained effectively even though the trainee has an injury. To do this, use chains as part of the weight. The chains are smart because they have their full weight at the top of the lift, but as the trainee gets lower and lower, more weight is transferred to the floor by the chains. This means that, by adding chains and taking off part of the weight, the trainee can work through knee pain, and let the knee recover even though he might have an injury.

Another option is to simply not go below parallel on the squat. The problem for quite a few people, especially older guys, is that after lots of squatting, the knees are no longer doing as well as they were. Going below parallel means a bigger range of motion, and this is always good – but if going there means pain, then it is a bad idea. It can suck, but a very real option to reduce the pain might have to be going less deep on the squat.