SLS-PE2 Cossack squats, I need a little bit of advice for knee pain.

Short story:

 

- I've developped a pain on the inside of the right knee doing cossack squats.

- At first I thought it was because of being overly ambitious with the iM (twisting squats) progress.

- But since focusing on keeping the foot pointed forward, I realized that some imbalance and some ankle/hip issue is creating strain on the knee.

 

Do you have suggestions to address and correct it?

 

 

 

The long one:

 

I've been doing cossack squats for 5 cycles; my limiting factor is the iM twisting squats that I was unable to do at first; I had to do it with butt elevated (6 inches), and still do, but from a lower (2 inches) position.

 

Progress was going well on the iM, albeit quite slowly; at some point I lowered the assistance too fast and quickly developed a slight but nagging pain on the inside of my right knee; the pain disappeared quickly once I increased the assistance back up a bit.

At that time, I was doing 5x20 reps of SLS-PE2 for a few cycles as I misread the instructions.

 

Then I watched Kit Laughlin's video on the cossack squat, and decided to "improve" on the F1 course video by keeping my foot pointing forward; that was two cycles ago. My right knee started to hurt again, and I thought that it was the iM, so I took a week of the iM, and went back at it with increased assistance.

 

In fact, lowering on my left leg in the cossack squats has improved tremendously, I can lower butt to the floor (or nearly), with great mobility in the hip and ankle, pushing the knee to the outside, lowering my trunk at many angles to stretch different parts...

This is not the case on the right; lowering has not improved (and may have worsened a bit); I can go very low, but when doing so, my right knee is pulled inside (and I think that is what hurts it) and the arch of my foot compensates a lot.

 

The knee pain faded, but did not disappear completely...

What actually happened is that I also developed some pain (similar to muscle strain or the beginning of tendinitis - maybe a 3 or 4 on a scale of 10) somewhere between the hip and the groin... Nothing really sharp, but nagging, and bothersome during the day

 

I also realized that my right ankle is severely lacking mobility as compared to the left - the right Achilles is also shorter than the right, and the right calf tighter, and also stronger.

I trace the Achilles/calf differences to my left Achilles rupture in 2009.

 

It seems that this SLS-PE2 and >iM are revealing a heck of an imbalance problem between my legs and I am wondering where to start to address that.

It is likely that the right Achilles tendinopathy that I is proving resilient and hard to get rid of is part of the problem - either cause, or consequence, or both in some sort of feedback loop.

 

Both my legs are the same length.

I've never had any knee problems (this may be my only joints that have never created trouble)

I think there is something else at either or both ends (Ankle - Hip - maybe pelvis) that are putting undue strain on the knee.

 

My legs are stronger than the rest of my body - always have been.

I am not naturally flexible, but I always bit the bullet and made the effort to acquire and maintain above average flexibility in my lower body.

Recently, I've been stretching pike and straddle, piriformis No4, lunge hip flexors, soleus and gastrocnemius.

I've also build an incline platform on which I stand for 30 min a day to help balancing the left and right Achilles differences (this is a similar platform than that I used to stand on for Achilles rehab 4 years ago)

 

 

Does someone have advice on what to do, not do, look for that could be helpful?

Can't really say anything about helping the knee pain itself, but will recommend a few things that helped me get lower in cossacks.

 

Page 11 - 17 of this document shows 2 really nice mobilisations for the hips.

http://www.endurancewod.com/_library/MobilityWOD%20-%20PSE%20Chapter.pdf

 

For your arch collapsing I'd recommend Kit Laughlin's Foot series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvAto6yIGLY

 

And finally, more Kit Laughlin - a great ankle stretch

http://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/174-super%E2%80%93duper-ankle%E2%80%93soleus-stretch-routine-essential-for-the-squat/

I had/have knee pain in the back of my right knee since May. This has gotten alot better with time and rest and mobility work. I hade an Mri in June and it turned out that my miniskus was a little bit screwed up. BUT I´m 50 years old so this is a part of getting old in my case. Thats just my knee story.

Can you post a video?

A couple of questions:

Can you sit on your heels?

If you put your foot on a chair, can you move the knee forward of the toes without the heel lifting?

Can you pull your knee towards the chest so the thigh touches the ribs?

If you can do this it is not a mobility problem. It is either a strength or motor control problem.

With squatting the femur and tibia should be in line. When this happens there is no excessive torsion forces through the knee. This usually means for the Cossack squat the foot will turn out.

Short answer: go back and watch the F1 SLS PE2 demo video included in the course again and try your best to copy the form Exactly (Coach has already stated that it's fine, preferable even, to keep the heel of the squatting leg on the floor).

Long Answer: You are making the mistake of not following the exercise videos as examples of what perfect form should look like. Instead you've gone out searching for other "opinions/experts" to show you how it "should" be performed and substituted that other expert's exercise form for the one that Coach Sommer provided in the course.

In other words, while I love Kit's material and think he is a very knowledgeable coach in his own right (probably of of the best if not THE best in regards to flexibility and also very good in regards to strength training material), the form that he is demonstrating in his video on Cossack squats (found on youtube) while perhaps good is not the same as that demonstrated by the athlete in the F1 course.

The athlete in the F1 course very clearly turns the squatting leg/foot outwards where as Kit is saying to keep the squatting leg/foot pointing straight ahead. Both exercise forms are "correct", but if you are following F1, you should be following the exercise forms found in F1. For whatever reason you have decided that Kit's Cossack form is "more correct" than Coach Sommer's and instead of simply copying the exercise demo found in F1 you have substituted form from another source.

Don't do that.

I can do both cossack and twisting squats for reps with good ROM. I did them exclusively and a lot this spring after mastering the deck squats, and gradually got pain in the thighs and around the knees to the point of not being able to walk without severe pain. It lasted well after I stopped doing the exercises. What helped was more focus on stretching and flexibility, and above all foam rolling. My pain was from what you explain way worse than yours and very simple measures was what helped. I don't know what it is but cossack squats are really intense. I did what I saw them doing in Kit's video and started holding on to something during the reps, helps a lot and feels much better, it's easy to let go after a while too. I don't know if this is any help to you but that's my experience of SLS PE2 pain.

Also, a question mark arose for me after attending the London seminar: Coach mentioned that during training his athletes do one set of the leg mobilities such as twisting and inside squats and move on. That treating them as strength work will result in injury. But as we know mastering them requires more than that.

 

If you read this Coach, I'd be glad if you could explain this since I either misheard or am misunderstanding something.

What I have found is that knee issues come from not knowing how to use your hip structure. I'm going to explain what most people do, what you need to do, and then a few cues for action.

 

1) What people usually do: 

 

Most people treat cossack squats, or lateral squats as most refer to them outside of the GST world, as a deep knee bend while moving to the side. A squat, whether lateral OR conventional, is a HIP DOMINANT movement. When the knees are where your concentration is, you are usually not using your hip musculature to stabilize the femur, which means that the knee is not stable either.

 

If you don't feel the side of your glutes working during cossack squats, that's an issue, because you will be allowing the knee to buckle in slightly. We call that valgus stress, and it will cause stretching of the medial collateral ligament when performed repeatedly. You're putting much more stress on this ligament during this than you are with inside squats, because nearly all of your weight is on it instead of half your weight, and that can cause pain because you're basically creating "tendinopathy" in the ligament.

 

When your weight shifts to the ball of the foot, you put a lot of extra stress on the patellar tendon. The larger you are, the more likely this is to cause pain, especially because Cossack squats involve most of your bodyweight being supported by one leg. This also typically causes the femur to translate posteriorly on the tibia, because the hamstrings are typically not being activated properly in this position either.

 

2) What you need to do:

 

You basically need to do the same thing that you do when you squat: use your hip musculature to abduct and somewhat externally rotate the femur. This is what should happen during a squat when you spread the knees as you descend, and this is also what you need to do in the Cossack squat. You will only be doing this on the leg you squat on, and it will feel like a much more integrated movement when you perform them this way. Your knees will feel fine, and you will feel your hips working, and you'l have more mobility because your body will be able to recognize that it is in a more stable position, which will permit greater range motion. 

 

3) Cues and learning suggestions:

 

You should also put your weight in the "center of the foot" instead of the ball of the foot. The way I tend to teach this is to start off by moving your weight to the ball of the foot, then back to the heel, and look for the half-way point. Do that a few times until you know where it is. Now move the weight from the inside of the foot to the outside of the foot, and back, and find THAT center. Now you know where your foot's 'true center' is. 

 

 

 

As for the hips, it may help to learn with a regular squat first, because it may be a little easier to do that way at first. You want to think of spreading the knees apart while spreading the floor and perhaps pretending to rotate the heels towards each other (exertingg some force but not actually moving the feet) at the same time. I find it is best to start with the feet, then add the knees, and finally add the foot action.

 

The best cue that I have heard is what Elliot Hulse tends to use : Show your crotch.

 

I've used spread the floor, spread the knees, "rotate" the feet, blah blah, but "show your crotch" makes it all happen at once. Just because it works for me doesn't mean it will work for you, so do whatever you feel works the best...

 

Whatever cues you use, make sure you stay centered on the foot and open the hip up, because that is how you will get a better range of motion and avoid knee problems.