The age-old debate - should your knees go over your toes during exercise in the gym? Does it matter as long as you are being consistent and having fun?

Knees Over Toes Are Essential for Deep Squats?

The knees driving over your toes (forward knee translation) during deep squats is essential. Without the knees travelling forward past your toes, you will not hit full depth.

We know from research that hitting this full depth is where we will get the most muscle recruitment and muscle adaptation.

Is Knees Over Toes Dangerous?

It has long been argued in the industry that letting the knees pass the toes during exercises like lunges or back squats is dangerous and bad for our knees. The thinking being that the stress on our knees will lead to injury and wear away at our knees.

This can be true. But it can also be false.

A nice way to understand this is by differentiating between ‘inherently’ and ‘contextually’ bad exercises.

What Are Inherently Bad Exercises?

An inherently bad exercise would be one that is bad no matter the context. One that we cannot adapt to that will always result in negative outcomes. A good example of this would be picking a fight with a lion instead of your normal boxing sparring partner.

Luckily, there isn’t any substantial evidence that any normal exercises in the gym are inherently dangerous, whether that be a Barbell deadlift, Jefferson curl or a knees over toes lunge or deep barbell back squat.

What Are Contextually Bad Exercises?

A contextually bad exercise would be one that inherently is beneficial for a healthy individual that has the capacity to train them, but that may not be good for everyone.

If your body has not got the load tolerance to deal with knees over toes actions with or without heavy weights, then yes, it can be dangerous and lead to worsening symptoms and injury.

However, if your body is prepared for the load put upon the knees in your knees over toes exercise, then it would not be dangerous, but quite the opposite.

An example of this might be the use of a deep, knees over toes back squat for an Olympic Lifter at 2-3 times their bodyweight. For this athlete, this exercise is safe and will make their knees and surrounding musculature stronger and more resilient. However, if you gave the same exercise and load prescription to a gym newbie, it may be dangerous.

So no, your knees going over your toes is not dangerous, and we recommend it during lots of heavy compound exercises, like barbell back squats, to allow you to hit greater depths and better train the legs. However, you may want to slowly build up to heavy deep squats to make sure you have the strength to do so without injury.

Tips for Safe Squat Progression

Take Your Time

Consistency is key. Focus on consistently squatting over a long period and your mobility and strength will improve better than on/off training with huge spikes in intensity.

Auto-regulate

Look to auto-regulate your training so that you account for day-to-day fluctuations in strength levels so that you don’t try to train too hard on a day where life factors have meant that you have less energy. A good way to do this is by using RPE.

Train at High and Low Depths

While building your strength and confidence, you may train at shallower depths with high weights, with less knee over toe translation, while also working at deeper ranges of motion with less load and more knee over toe translation; they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

We hope this was helpful and has given you the confidence to train with your knees over your toes, whether that be in squats in a Squat Rack, lunges or any other exercise. Remember, if you don’t feel strong or confident doing so, take it at your own pace and be consistent and you will be confident with your knees over toes in no time!

Written by guest author Ewan Hammond.

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Tags: Equipment > Squat Racks ; Exercise Type > Strength