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Quote from: LanceSTS on July 26, 2010, 06:59:35 am

The danger I was talking about is from athletes trying to wait too long to put the feet down, reaching out further than they are capable, and landing on "locked" knees.  There are many cases of this and Ive seen several at combines myself during broad jump tests.

     The reason your squat hurts your knees is because your using so much forward knee travel.  In a properly performed, below paralell squat, the glutes feel like they almost completely take over until about midway up.  You are essentially performing a hip thrust up to that point if you think about it.  Your squatting technique wont permit you to drop the hips low enough below your kneecaps to experience this. When you go lower it requires even more forward knee travel, hence your increased pain.  Ive already tried to explain to you that this "pretty" squat you have in your head that a 4 foot 5  Chinese olympic lifter wearing weightlifting shoes performs is not going to be the optimal squatting position for taller, longer limbed guys like us.  Long legs, short torso, you are going to have to create some forward lean to squat correctly. Its really that simple, long torso/short legs- can stay very upright, short torso/long legs- need some forward lean.  Neither is better and neither is worse.  Whats bad is when a long leg/short torso lifter like you tries to emulate a perfectly upright torso position, causing crazy forward knee travel, or a long torso/short leg lifter tries to lean forward too much causing too much low back activity.  Their torso is a longer lever than ours, they have to keep it upright. 

Good post.