Knee 'twitch' on front squat - help?

[ultramagnus]

Hi all,

I'm currently front squatting 100kg 5x5, but on the way out of the hole, my knees dip in towards each other slightly before going out again (I'm squatting with toes slightly out, and my knees track over my toes on the way down just fine).

I don't want to go heavier until I solve this problem - does anyone have any tips how to solve this?

[BRC1989]

You could try widening or narrowing your stance, changing the direction your toes are pointing one way or the other, maybe your legs are trying tell you your not using a stance that is best for you, if you had a video of this it could help show exactly whats happening

It could also be that your outer quads are trying to dominate by pulling your knees towards each other and maybe your inner quads need to be strengthened.

[ultramagnus]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I was doing some experimenting with stance width and toe angle tonight, still felt like my knees were wafting all over the place though.

What's a good exercise for strengthening inner quads?

[ConP83]

Isnt it the outer quads that are weak if the knees cave in ?

[BRC1989]

Isnt it the outer quads that are weak if the knees cave in ?

Well I know that the wider the stance you have, the more your inner quads will come into play, so if your knees are trying to go toward each other that makes me believe the outer quads are trying to take over since the narrower your stance, or closer your knees are, the more outer quad muscles are used

[BRC1989]

What's a good exercise for strengthening inner quads?

You could do wide stance leg presses, that way you can focus more on isolating the quad muscles, or wide stance squats too.

[aman88]

Week hip abductors... strengthen that group of muscles.

[CagedInSanity]

One thing that helped me which is from the back squat sticky (paraphrased): pretend like each foot is trying to push the floor it's standing on outwards like you are splitting the floor. It helps me keep my knees on track, hope it helps your knees too!

[ultramagnus]

Thanks all, some great advice here. I'm going to drop the weight right back and train high reps really concentrating on form until I've solved it.

[jcoffman27]

Try wearing wrist straps?

[ultramagnus]

Try wearing wrist straps?

wat

[CagedInSanity]

Try wearing wrist straps?

Why would wrist straps help his knee? If the problem was grip maybe that would make sense...