Common GYM Mistakes: Varus vs Valgus

Do you think you can squat correctly? When you do your squat how do your knees move? When ever look at a client squat technique the first body part I always look at is there knees, as the knees can tell you a lot about a person when they are squatting. I.e. do they have a weak gluten medious, have they go a lake of joint mobility in there hips or ankle and so on.

Most importantly though when ever I see someone squat I always check to see if they have a valgus or Varus pattern at the knee. For a large proportion of the population, people will have one of these with the valgus pattern presenting it's self more often then Varus. Most of the time the valgus pattern occurs because of a weak or underactivating gluten medious. 

The common issue I find though is that when people realise that they have this issue when they squat they try and correct for it, but the correction that they choice is incorrect and Instead of fixing the issue it make the issue worse. The most common fixes I see is people use is:

- With a valgus pattern to place a placing a ball or simular object between their knees to hold their knees apart 

- For a valgus pattern its to place a band around there knees to pull there knees together. 

While both these techniques will help correct the issue in the short term, in the long term it's going to make the issue even greater. As you will be strengthening the muscles even more that caused the issue in the first place, and not strengthening the ones that need the work. Instead what you should do is the opposite, thus if your knees natural bow in (valgus) then you should place a very light band around your knees and consciously push against it the entire way through the squat. If your knees bow out then place something between your knees like a sports ball and then do your squat while trying to not drop the ball.  

By doing it this way you will be working the muscles throughout the entire movement that are weak, which will assist in correcting the incorrect technique.