How well do your knees move?

Take the Single Leg Squat Test to find out…

How to perform

1. Stand in front of a mirror, or a camera, or with a friend watching you.
2. Start with feet together
3. Bend one knee to lift the foot a few inches from the floor
4. Squat down about halfway (45-60 degrees)
5. Pause for moment in the bottom position before straightening back up to the starting position
6. Repeat 3-5 times

Scoring

Pass – You could squat without your standing knee collapsing or twisting inwards

Fail – Your standing knee collapsed or twisted inwardly.

What it means

Failing this test indicates that you have difficulty maintaining good alignment of the knee with movement. This will mean your knee is put under more strain with day-to-day activities like walking, running or climbing stairs and will predispose to ligament damage (such as ACL/ MCL strains), patella (knee cap) pain, or overtime, arthritis.

But don’t worry! This is readily fixable for most people.

Take a look at the supported reach exercise which addresses two common causes of this faulty knee pattern.

 

 

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‘How well do your knees move?’ was written by Steffen Toates. Steffen is a chiropractor at Dynamic Health Chiropractic in Jersey, Channel Islands. For more information about Steffen click here.

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