In the last article, we talked about the squatting motion and how some of the deficits that we note in this motion could add to weakness and some of the pathological movements we see that put our athletes at risk for injury.
This despite the fact that these movement patterns may have existed for years and been reinforced as a part of their strength training program does not mean that it cannot be corrected or not a problem.
Some authors will tell you to stop the athlete from doing squats until this motion can be corrected. Frankly, I feel this is the worst thing you can do. One reason is that athletes and coaches who feel squats are a fundamental part of their training are much less likely to do or be compliant with your recommendations if you start out with this.
Secondly, you don’t need to do that to correct it. If you recall from the previous blog, I mentioned that these motions that we see in non-weighted conditions tend to get worse in weighted conditions. That said, you can reduce the weight that the athlete does and get to a point where they can perform the squat without the abnormal movement. This will be at a much lighter weight than they are used to using but, this is creating a foundation from which they will build on.
What we see is that athletes who correct this motion will increase their weight and many times PR above their previous PR. This makes sense because now that they are actively engaging the opposite side to the same degree and you are able to progress further than previous.
Believe it or not, there is a big controversy on whether or not fatigue increases your risk of ACL injury. Personally, I think we just have not figured out yet to accurately assess this in the research. There are studies that show that an increase in fatigue does add to an increase in frontal plane motion at the knee (Brazen et al Clic J Sport Med 2010) and that an increase in fatigue results in an increase in dynamic valgus at the knee and an increase in ground reaction forces at the knee (Nessler et al Cur Rev Musculoskelet Med 2017). We also know that fatigue leads to a decrease in maximal volitional contraction of the gluteus medius which leads to an increase in frontal plane motion (Weist et al Am J Sport Med 2004).
These are all things that lead to an increased risk of injury. However, you don’t need to be a scientist or researcher to know this. As a coach, we see all the time. When our athlete’s get tired on the field their movement becomes less efficient and performance faulters. When a wrestler gets tired and they go to shoot in, this is less explosive and we see more dynamic valgus on their plant leg. I firmly believe, we have not figured out how to assess fatigue accurately in the research.
