4 ms·

So, about 10 years ago, I'd seen a few articles on the prevalence of the "squat-down-to-your-feet" stance in Asia, and the ease with which this stance could be

by gojomo 7y ago

So, about 10 years ago, I'd seen a few articles on the prevalence of the "squat-down-to-your-feet" stance in Asia, and the ease with which this stance could be reached by those who'd been doing it their whole lives, and its benefits as a low-energy sitting-position where chairs are unavailable & the ground is unappealing. But, I could get nowhere close without extreme ankle-knee-hip tightness & then, if I pushed, pain. I thought, well, maybe I can gradually get that range-of-motion back for my adult body, with occasional tries/stretching. After a few weeks of trying squats for a couple minutes most days, I was playing a typical game of basketball with friends, and landing from an unremarkable jump for a rebound, when my knee ACL snapped. Quite possibly a coincidence! But even now, long after the recovery from ACL-replacement surgery, I can't muster any interest in trying those particular exercises again. And I wonder if ACL injury rates vary based on people/cultures where this stance is prevalent. (I could believe that actually achieving such squats involves longer ACLs, which might in the end be either positive or negative for sports-related ACL tears.)

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
I think you may be overthinking it - basketball is to blame for your ACL misfortune. I can't find any details regarding the 3rd world squat, but here's an article on ACL force during a regular squat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11528346 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11528346 My wife doesn't have an ACL in one of her knees, and has no difficulty with any of those motions. The ACL is there to stop when something goes funky (sudden sheer forces), not when it's running through it's usual range of motion. This article says that the forces on ACL are greatest when you're just starting the squat movement, not at the end of the range of motion: https://squatuniversity.com/2016/01/22/debunking-squat-myths-are-deep-squats-bad-for-the-knees/ https://squatuniversity.com/2016/01/22/debunking-squat-myths...
- gojomo 7y ago
  I suspect there are some differences between the exercise deep-squat, and the sit-squat where, at the end, you're essentially sitting on your heels, with little-to-no ongoing exertion. Obviously, a basketball action was the key and triggering event. But I'd been playing similar basketball on similar concrete courts for 25 year before the injury, and plenty since. My games aren't that intense. Yet that's the most serious injury I've had. (Others were milder ankle & foot injuries.)
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    Sounds like you just had bad luck, I can't imagine your own body-weight affecting the ACL in any sort of negative fashion. This article rates a full 140 degree unweighted squat - much like you were doing, at 66N, which is 1/5th of just walking, and in the < 2% range of maximum ACL strain. https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2012.3768 https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2012.3768
  - clairity 7y ago
    it's still probably due to basketball, where ACL tears are one of the most common injuries (after ankle sprains of course). many tendon and ligaments can't easily repair themselves (and where they can, it's slow), so the tears accumulate over time. the ACL is absolutely crucial (ha!) to stabilizing the knee (especially front-back motion on the horizontal plane) and keeping it from falling apart (hyperextending along the tibiofemoral axis). (took a dissection class in grad school, where we cut an ACL to see how it affects motion and stability.)
dpark 7y ago
Unlikely that ACL tightness is relevant. Most people aren’t limited by knee mobility in squatting, but by hip and ankle mobility. For those few limited by knee mobility, I would imagine it’s generally the quadriceps limiting range of motion, as opposed to the ligaments of the knee.
- gojomo 7y ago
  I'm average BMI, raised with western desks & toilets. I've got no problems getting the thighs parallel to the ground, for a typical exercise-squat. But getting the rear any lower than the knees forces my heels off the ground, via ankle resistance (& pain-against-forcing). That puts me on my toes/forefoot/balls-of-foot. I can get quite low that way, but without heels-on-ground and butt-on-calves, the stance is effortful, and thus can't be held for long. Earnest attempts to force heels-to-ground face resistance from ankle & knee/quadriceps-just-over-knee (but not hips), such that if heels do reach ground, ankle & knee can't flexion enough to keep my center-of-gravity forward, forcing a fall backwards.
  - dpark 7y ago
    Sure. Your currently lack the mobility to get that low. Lots of people do. The recommended cure is unsurprisingly to spend more time in a deep squat. You can either work on simply getting as deep as you can or go deeper holding something for support (so you don’t fall over backwards), but the end goal would be to deep squat without support. My mobility isn’t nearly as good as it should be and I can’t deep squat well either. I can get deeper with weight on my back because it helps to counter the tendency to fall backwards, plus it provides additional force to encourage the connective tissue to stretch. I should probably spend time working on squat mobility, but it’s frankly just not that high on my list of priorities right now.
michaelcampbell 7y ago
As a 50-something 'within the accepted BMI range' adult, I can't help but wonder if your ACL issue and the inability to squat are both symptoms of some common issue, rather than one causing the other. I don't squat, but I just tried it and although it feels weird from never having really done it, it was quite simple. I'll probably start doing it daily. > nowhere close without extreme ankle-knee-hip tightness & then, if I pushed, pain. Isn't even in my reality. To the point I almost don't believe you. But, people are different, so there's that.
- gojomo 7y ago
  Were you able to keep your bare feet & heels flat on the ground, while your rear descends to below your knees – deeper than a typical exercise squat? Ultimately, sitting atop your feet in a position that can be held for, say, 15 minutes or more (because there's little strain or effort holding it)? That's the 'asian squat' that a lot of us can't do.
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    I'm not the parent, but I can almost do the Asian squat. If I have shoes with a heal, or I'm on a slight downward slope, it's not much of a problem. I can get way past horizontal and hold it for quite a long time (very useful when gardening). I can tell you that there should be no stress in your knees at all. The feet should be pointing about 30 degrees outside of center and your knees should be pointing in the exact same direction. Your ACL doesn't get involved at all, and if it does, either your knees are going outside of the plane from where your legs are pointing, or you are having problems with balance, or you have some other structural problem in your legs. Now, there are a couple of key points. I am Caucasian and grew up in Canada, but have lived in Japan for more than 10 years. I can sit in seiza (formal kneeling position) for something like an hour. This means that I can kneel down, extend my feet (so that the tops are flat on the floor) and sit back so that I'm sitting on my own heels. This requires very good flexibility in the quadriceps. To do the "asian squat", you need to be able to do that, otherwise you won't be able to bring your bum down to your heels. Because you are heavy, if your quads are not loose, you can stress the insertion points around the knee. It is possible that when you were practicing, you were getting discomfort there, which caused you to move your knees out of the correct plane. It took me years to work up to where sitting seiza is a comfortable and normal position for me (and oddly, I'm happier in seiza than I am cross legged). We don't have chairs in my house, and I eat all my meals in seiza :-) Another thing is that unless you have insane ankle flexibility, you have to keep your legs apart (again facing out to the sides about 30 degrees) and lower your torso between your legs. That's because there is a fairly large moment due to much of your mass being around your chest and shoulders. You have to bring that forward of your centre of gravity, but if you keep your legs together and your feet pointing forward, then the only way to do it is to lower your knees towards your feet. If you've got great ankle flexibility it can be done, but most people can't do that (even those that can easily do the "asian squat"). Finally, as I've said, you need to have good flexibility in your ankles. For me, that's the limiting factor (broke my ankles a few times playing soccer when I was young). But it's worth working up that flexibility because it will pay off when you are older. It's one of the first thing that stops people being able to walk because they can't handle uneven surfaces due to lack of flexibility. I'm really sorry that you injured your knee. I also think it's unlikely that the training you did for squats was the direct cause. Ligaments don't work that way. If you stretched them funny, you would end up with a dislocated knee, not a torn ACL (talk to literally any woman who trained gymnastics seriously as a child -- virtually every single one of them dislocates their knees at the drop of the hat). It is, however, possible (in my mind, anyway) that you injured your knees in the training and this caused you to overcompensate somewhere and land awkwardly. I think your warning is well taken because it is an extreme position and you should be careful when working up to that kind of thing.
Gatsky 7y ago
The injury rates amongst amateur sports are actually pretty high... pro athletes spend a lot of time training to avoid injury which we don’t necessarily hear about. I’ve seen some of the off-season training programs, and they are highly sophisticated and tailored to assessing and tackling the weaknesses that lead to injury.
- magduf 7y ago
  It sure seems like a lot of people could save a lot of time and trouble if we could easily replace these easily-injured human joints with superior artificial joints.

by gojomo 7y ago

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago

I think you may be overthinking it - basketball is to blame for your ACL misfortune. I can't find any details regarding the 3rd world squat, but here's an article on ACL force during a regular squat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11528346 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11528346 My wife doesn't have an ACL in one of her knees, and has no difficulty with any of those motions. The ACL is there to stop when something goes funky (sudden sheer forces), not when it's running through it's usual range of motion. This article says that the forces on ACL are greatest when you're just starting the squat movement, not at the end of the range of motion: https://squatuniversity.com/2016/01/22/debunking-squat-myths-are-deep-squats-bad-for-the-knees/ https://squatuniversity.com/2016/01/22/debunking-squat-myths...

gojomo 7y ago
I suspect there are some differences between the exercise deep-squat, and the sit-squat where, at the end, you're essentially sitting on your heels, with little-to-no ongoing exertion. Obviously, a basketball action was the key and triggering event. But I'd been playing similar basketball on similar concrete courts for 25 year before the injury, and plenty since. My games aren't that intense. Yet that's the most serious injury I've had. (Others were milder ankle & foot injuries.)
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  Sounds like you just had bad luck, I can't imagine your own body-weight affecting the ACL in any sort of negative fashion. This article rates a full 140 degree unweighted squat - much like you were doing, at 66N, which is 1/5th of just walking, and in the < 2% range of maximum ACL strain. https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2012.3768 https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2012.3768
- clairity 7y ago
  it's still probably due to basketball, where ACL tears are one of the most common injuries (after ankle sprains of course). many tendon and ligaments can't easily repair themselves (and where they can, it's slow), so the tears accumulate over time. the ACL is absolutely crucial (ha!) to stabilizing the knee (especially front-back motion on the horizontal plane) and keeping it from falling apart (hyperextending along the tibiofemoral axis). (took a dissection class in grad school, where we cut an ACL to see how it affects motion and stability.)

dpark 7y ago

Unlikely that ACL tightness is relevant. Most people aren’t limited by knee mobility in squatting, but by hip and ankle mobility. For those few limited by knee mobility, I would imagine it’s generally the quadriceps limiting range of motion, as opposed to the ligaments of the knee.

gojomo 7y ago
I'm average BMI, raised with western desks & toilets. I've got no problems getting the thighs parallel to the ground, for a typical exercise-squat. But getting the rear any lower than the knees forces my heels off the ground, via ankle resistance (& pain-against-forcing). That puts me on my toes/forefoot/balls-of-foot. I can get quite low that way, but without heels-on-ground and butt-on-calves, the stance is effortful, and thus can't be held for long. Earnest attempts to force heels-to-ground face resistance from ankle & knee/quadriceps-just-over-knee (but not hips), such that if heels do reach ground, ankle & knee can't flexion enough to keep my center-of-gravity forward, forcing a fall backwards.
- dpark 7y ago
  Sure. Your currently lack the mobility to get that low. Lots of people do. The recommended cure is unsurprisingly to spend more time in a deep squat. You can either work on simply getting as deep as you can or go deeper holding something for support (so you don’t fall over backwards), but the end goal would be to deep squat without support. My mobility isn’t nearly as good as it should be and I can’t deep squat well either. I can get deeper with weight on my back because it helps to counter the tendency to fall backwards, plus it provides additional force to encourage the connective tissue to stretch. I should probably spend time working on squat mobility, but it’s frankly just not that high on my list of priorities right now.

michaelcampbell 7y ago

As a 50-something 'within the accepted BMI range' adult, I can't help but wonder if your ACL issue and the inability to squat are both symptoms of some common issue, rather than one causing the other. I don't squat, but I just tried it and although it feels weird from never having really done it, it was quite simple. I'll probably start doing it daily. > nowhere close without extreme ankle-knee-hip tightness & then, if I pushed, pain. Isn't even in my reality. To the point I almost don't believe you. But, people are different, so there's that.

gojomo 7y ago
Were you able to keep your bare feet & heels flat on the ground, while your rear descends to below your knees – deeper than a typical exercise squat? Ultimately, sitting atop your feet in a position that can be held for, say, 15 minutes or more (because there's little strain or effort holding it)? That's the 'asian squat' that a lot of us can't do.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  I'm not the parent, but I can almost do the Asian squat. If I have shoes with a heal, or I'm on a slight downward slope, it's not much of a problem. I can get way past horizontal and hold it for quite a long time (very useful when gardening). I can tell you that there should be no stress in your knees at all. The feet should be pointing about 30 degrees outside of center and your knees should be pointing in the exact same direction. Your ACL doesn't get involved at all, and if it does, either your knees are going outside of the plane from where your legs are pointing, or you are having problems with balance, or you have some other structural problem in your legs. Now, there are a couple of key points. I am Caucasian and grew up in Canada, but have lived in Japan for more than 10 years. I can sit in seiza (formal kneeling position) for something like an hour. This means that I can kneel down, extend my feet (so that the tops are flat on the floor) and sit back so that I'm sitting on my own heels. This requires very good flexibility in the quadriceps. To do the "asian squat", you need to be able to do that, otherwise you won't be able to bring your bum down to your heels. Because you are heavy, if your quads are not loose, you can stress the insertion points around the knee. It is possible that when you were practicing, you were getting discomfort there, which caused you to move your knees out of the correct plane. It took me years to work up to where sitting seiza is a comfortable and normal position for me (and oddly, I'm happier in seiza than I am cross legged). We don't have chairs in my house, and I eat all my meals in seiza :-) Another thing is that unless you have insane ankle flexibility, you have to keep your legs apart (again facing out to the sides about 30 degrees) and lower your torso between your legs. That's because there is a fairly large moment due to much of your mass being around your chest and shoulders. You have to bring that forward of your centre of gravity, but if you keep your legs together and your feet pointing forward, then the only way to do it is to lower your knees towards your feet. If you've got great ankle flexibility it can be done, but most people can't do that (even those that can easily do the "asian squat"). Finally, as I've said, you need to have good flexibility in your ankles. For me, that's the limiting factor (broke my ankles a few times playing soccer when I was young). But it's worth working up that flexibility because it will pay off when you are older. It's one of the first thing that stops people being able to walk because they can't handle uneven surfaces due to lack of flexibility. I'm really sorry that you injured your knee. I also think it's unlikely that the training you did for squats was the direct cause. Ligaments don't work that way. If you stretched them funny, you would end up with a dislocated knee, not a torn ACL (talk to literally any woman who trained gymnastics seriously as a child -- virtually every single one of them dislocates their knees at the drop of the hat). It is, however, possible (in my mind, anyway) that you injured your knees in the training and this caused you to overcompensate somewhere and land awkwardly. I think your warning is well taken because it is an extreme position and you should be careful when working up to that kind of thing.

Gatsky 7y ago

The injury rates amongst amateur sports are actually pretty high... pro athletes spend a lot of time training to avoid injury which we don’t necessarily hear about. I’ve seen some of the off-season training programs, and they are highly sophisticated and tailored to assessing and tackling the weaknesses that lead to injury.

magduf 7y ago
It sure seems like a lot of people could save a lot of time and trouble if we could easily replace these easily-injured human joints with superior artificial joints.