Daily Mobility Exercises by Dr. Kelly Starrett Forums General Using the elbows to lever out knees during 10 minute squat test Re: Using the elbows to lever out knees during 10 minute squat test

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AvatarJames Bacon
Participant

While it’s not bad, because the more time you are there the better, two things are worth a mention…  First, all of Kelly’s conversations revolve around getting organized first, so levering the knees at the bottom is a bit late.  Second, we want to strengthen the muscles that get, and keep the knees out.

That said, elbows are helpful to use for relaxing onto, in order to maintain the knee position but kind of sacrifices vertical erectness.

The light went on for me when one day when I was wearing a pair of old sweatpants and doing overhead squats.  With my hands otherwise occupied, I really needed to get organized while standing at the top and descend in order (hips first, knees out) otherwise my sweatpants would bind at key points when I was approaching the bottom.  That was when I totally realized the same goes for organizing my chains internally.