Matthew-boes-snc
Appt : (919) 863-6845
Make an Online Appointment
  • shoulder-arthrocscopy
  • rotar-cuff-tear
  • knee-arthroscopy
  • Acl-reconstruction
  • trusted-sports

How A Correct Squat Can Help You Prevent Injuries

artificial-turf-matthew-boesMany athletes constantly suffer from injuries. While sometimes these injuries are caused by sports accidents involving heavy impacts, often they are related to improper body movements during exercise, which put excessive strain on the body. Not only does incorrect movement during exercise hurt your body, but incorrect movement during any type of activity you engage in throughout your day can be harmful as well. Maintaining a healthy diet, getting ample sleep and regularly exercising are all important to stay in good shape, but these are not enough to become your best, fittest and healthiest self. Knowing how to correctly move your body is crucial to prevent injuries and live a pain-free life. Especially if you often engage in very intense exercise, it is important to learn how to use your body in the correct way and to minimize the strain put on your joints, muscles and tendons. But even if you aren’t into sports, any movements that you perform during the day, for example while sitting at your desk at work can leave your body in a very bad state if you aren’t moving correctly.

Pain Affects Your Overall Quality of Life

If you regularly engage in exercise that leaves you with a constant lower back pain or come home from work with a sore neck every day, this will affect your overall quality of life. You won’t be able to sleep properly, you might be in a bad mood if the pain doesn’t go away and might not be able to play sports as you once did. All of this will wreak havoc on your physical and mental health. Eventually, small discomforts can turn into serious injuries that might require surgery or become chronic conditions. If you are constantly hurting, you need to take action. Just as you stop eating candy or start better brushing your teeth when you are having oral health problems, a badly functioning body also needs to be treated. The earlier you take action, the easier it will be to repair your body and have it function at 100 percent again. Let’s look at a key body movement that most humans perform daily, which can leave the body impaired if consistently performed incorrectly.

Get Your Squat Right

A squat isn’t just an exercise that is performed by gym-goers, it is actually a basic human movement that each of us performs, in a way, many times each and every day. Every time you sit down and stand up from your sofa, desk chair or toilet, you are performing a type of squat. If you carry out this movement incorrectly, your body will warn you about this through a pain signal. It might take a lot of incorrect squatting movements for you to become aware of the pain, but eventually the pain will become more intense, especially if you often carry out bad form squat movements during high intensity exercise.

If you can’t perform a proper squat, this indicates that you either don’t know how to do a squat correctly, or that you just lack the range of motion in certain parts of your body to perform a good squat.

Learning how to squat correctly is important for many movements you perform during everyday life, as well as for just about any type of sport. Anytime you perform a squat movement, whether it be at the gym or when picking up your bowling ball, you need to execute the squat movement using correct form in order not to excessively strain your body.

To squat correctly, you need to make sure you start off in the right position, with a neutral spine and your feet more or less straight, positioned just outside your shoulders. Keep your body weight centered over the middle of your feet. You use your feet to create stability by sort of screwing them into the ground, pushing them outward, your left foot to the left and your right one to the right, while keeping them in their straight position. Squeeze your glutes and tighten your abs. Keep your ears over your shoulders and look forward. Lift your arms up to about chest level and make sure your shoulders are pulled back. Slightly rotate your hands externally. Now you start lowering yourself, keeping your arms in front of you and your back flat, driving your knees sideways. Try to keep your shins vertical and don’t overextend your lumbar spine. Once you go further down into your squat, you’ll start to become aware of any issues with range of motion you might have. Keep going down pushing your knees outward while holding your abs tight, back flat and shins vertical. You want to drop your hip below your knee, but if this is not possible without compromising your form, you shouldn’t try to force it. It is better to perform a higher squat correctly than to sink lower down with bad form. Come out of the squat the same way you sank down into it, keeping proper form.

Regularly performing a squat will help you determine whether your body is in good shape or if you need to work on your mobility. Anyone should be able to perform a basic squat for at least ten minutes without compromising form. If you can’t perform a correct squat, you’ll have to work on the parts of your body that are lacking range of motion. Determining what these are can be quite difficult and you might want to consult with a physical therapist about this. Daily stretching and mobilization exercises can help you improve your body’s range of motion and consequently enhance your performance and prevent injuries.

What If Your Pain Doesn’t Go Away?

If you are suffering from severe pain in your feet, ankles, shoulders, elbows or knees that isn’t being resolved by moving correctly and performing the right mobilization and stretching exercises, you may need to see an orthopedic surgeon for a thorough diagnosis of your injury.
Matthew Boes, M.D. has years of experience treating sports related injuries. He loves playing sports himself and knows the feeling of not being able to properly play the sport you are passionate about due to injury. Contact Dr. Matthew Boes today for more advice on injury prevention or to schedule an appointment to diagnose your injury.

1,980 comments on “How A Correct Squat Can Help You Prevent Injuries

  1. Excellent post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed! Very helpful information specially the last part 🙂 I care for such information much. I was looking for this certain information for a long time. Thank you and good luck.

  2. Tuyet Egger says:

    You’ve got observed very intriguing points ! ps decent internet website .

  3. Virgil Mosby says:

    Its amazing as your other weblog posts : D, thanks for posting .

  4. witryna www says:

    Your home is valueble for me fpfjnbs. Thanks!…

  5. site web says:

    Hi there great website! Does running a blog similar to this require a lot of work? I have absolutely no understanding of coding but I had been hoping to start my own blog in the near future. Anyways, if you have any suggestions or techniques for new blog owners please share. I know this is off subject but I just needed to ask. Appreciate it!|

  6. prev says:

    Hello there, I found your website by way of Google whilst searching for a comparable matter, your website came up, it seems good. I’ve bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.

  7. Wow, this post is good, my younger sister is analyzing these kinds of things, thus I am going to tell her.|

  8. As a Newbie, I am continuously searching online for articles that can be of assistance to me. Thank you

  9. Great ¡V I should certainly pronounce, impressed with your site. I had no trouble navigating through all tabs and related information ended up being truly easy to do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it at all. Quite unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or anything, web site theme . a tones way for your client to communicate. Excellent task..

  10. Excellent weblog here! Also your web site loads up fast! What host are you the use of? Can I get your affiliate link in your host? I desire my website loaded up as fast as yours lol

  11. Kieth Lueck says:

    If your friend does not answer, you can leave a video message. You are able to Pay Per Click or the Pay Per Impression.

  12. Denyse Horst says:

    Wow post thanks! We think your articles are wonderful and want far more soon. We adore anything to do with word games/word play.

  13. Wow! Thank you! I continuously needed to write on my blog something like that. Can I include a part of your post to my website?

  14. Good day llofksis! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be ok. I’m definitely enjoying your blog and look forward to new updates.

  15. Thank you for sharing superb informations. Your web-site is quite cool. I’m impressed by the details which you have on this weblog. It reveals how nicely you perceive this subject. Bookmarked this web page, will come back for extra articles. You, my friend, ROCK! I found just the info I already searched all more than the spot and just could not come across. What a great web website.

  16. Hey, are you having issues together with your hosting? I needed to refresh the page about million times to get the page to load. Just saying

X

Tell a Friend

captcha