Are split squats bad for your knees? I thought if you don't squat below parallel...

Are split squats bad for your knees? I thought if you don't squat below parallel, it puts more strain on your knees yet I hardly ever see anyone split squat below parallel because it's practically impossible to.

Be highly sceptical whenever anybody says this or that is bad for your knees.

Training is good for your knees.

When we train, we put stress on our joints. This is a good thing. It's what we want and what we're trying to do. It's what makes the joints adapt and grow stronger.
However, we have a limited capacity to adapt. Too much stress too soon will make you hurt rather than grow stronger.
That's what we follow sensible programs with a reasonable rate of progression, a reasonable frequency and volume and a reasonable amount of variation.

If you can do an exercise for months and feel absolutely fine, guess what? It's fine. If shit starts hurting, something probably has to change. Doesn't mean you're fucked for life, just that you should change something.

1. Go from deficit.
2. Lean forward.

Wowie! You're below parallel!

>split squad

called a lunge...

that looks extremely awkward, unsafe and impractical tho

As the pic implies I'm referring to the rear foot elelvated/bulgarian variety.

> It's what makes the joints adapt and grow stronger
Joints don't adapt or grow stronger. The muscles, tendons and ligaments do. They say to squat below parallel because it's this position that puts the least strain on the knee. That would seemingly make split squats a really bad exercise.

>Joints don't adapt or grow stronger. The muscles, tendons and ligaments do.
That was implied. Just tried to keep it simple.

Also you seem to have missed my whole point. We WANT to put strain (stress) on every structure when we train. But it's about finding a balance of not too much and not too little.
If you take a very knee intensive exercise like a sissy squat, or heck even a heavy front squat, it's a great choice for developing the muscles around the knee (quads) and even the ligaments too. But it's also the kind of exercise that's very likely to give you knee pain if you go from doing nothing to doing 10 sets of sissy squats 4 times a week all of a sudden. It's that simple really.

Same thing with e.g. skullcrushers and your elbows. Amazing for triceps, but don't overdo it.

As for the whole "you must squat below parallel thing" I'm not so sure about that. Does that mean I can't walk a flight of stairs without blowing up now? Like I said, be sceptical.

The whole 'squatting high kills your knees' thing is kind of overrated. Can it be rougher than squatting below parallel? Yes. Is it a recipe for injury? Not more so than board pressing or pulling off blocks.

There's also a very major difference in the weight involved. You aren't doing split squats or step ups with 400 on your back.

> Does that mean I can't walk a flight of stairs without blowing up now?
Walking up a flight of stairs is quite a different motion tho. There's a more horizontal force vector at work as you're not walking straight up but up and forward so that would change the forces on the knee. In fact anything like walking, jogging, running is a different plane of motion. I get what you're saying about applying force to a structure tho it's just these things are very specific and shouldn't be generalized.
Seems like this would be more of a step up rather than squat so more of a hamstrings exercise. Also depending on anthropometry it still may not allow below parallel .

Board pressing/pulling off blocks all have the weight come to a dead stop, thus taking the load off your joints. Pin squats would be similar. Above parallel pin squats are not hard on your knees at all. Unfortunately none of this helps me any.

>it's just these things are very specific and shouldn't be generalized.
Exactly my point, buddy. That's why we can't just say this or that is bad for you. It depends on so many goddamn things. And in the end it's probably even highly individual.

Board presses do not work that way. The weight is not off your joints.

Also plenty of people touch-and-go their reps off blocks/with frame pulls/etc. Doesn't seem to cause any issues.

No it's a simple question of whether or not split squats are bad for your knees because your knees absorb more of the load when you don't squat below parallel. I think it's a bad exercise for this reason.
Eh in any case you're not straining any joints at an odd angle like squats so it was an apples to oranges comparison to begin with.

>because your knees absorb more of the load
What do you even mean when you say this? Didn't we just agree that "the knees" are really the muscles and ligaments that we actually want to strengthen?

No I'm referring to the sensitive bits that do not get strengthened by squatting improperly.

So what are you talking about specifically? The bones? Meniscus? All these things become stronger from appropriately dosed strength training (and yeah, like I said, if you choose an exercise that's hard on the joint, that dose will be lower).

Besides, there's a whole other component to this discussion that most people are completely unaware of. That is the fact pain is a biopsychosocial phenomenon, and it's very possible to have pain with little tissue damage and no pain with large amounts of tissue damage. This is partly because of the fact that with a sensible progression (graded exposure) you can teach the nervous system to tolerate a lot of things just fine. The opposite is true as well of course. Too rapid progression can lead to pain even if there's next to nothing wrong on a structural level.

Define 'sensitive bits'.

Because if you're talking about the actual bone structures, they do get strengthened by half-squatting (as well as full squatting - load bearing is the important part there, which leads to oddities like strongmen and equipped lifters having greater bone density than raw guys). Likewise with the tendons and ligaments. Handling heavy partials, deadstop and otherwise, is an old method of increasing their strength.

>All these things become stronger from appropriately dosed strength training
The cartilage and meniscus become smaller and thereby weaker. This is not a positive adaptation it's the destruction of these sensitive bits.
>That is the fact pain is a biopsychosocial phenomenon, and it's very possible to have pain with little tissue damage and no pain with large amounts of tissue damage
In my experience in lifting there's only pain that comes from muscles being properly worked. Everything else is working toward injury.

>The cartilage and meniscus become smaller and thereby weaker.
The opposite has been observed as well. And this is the case for all kind of lifting. Your cartilage doesn't discriminate between exercises.

Regarding pain, my point was that if you take an x-ray or MRI of a person who's been lifting for a while, you're going to find all kinds of damage. That doesn't mean this person is in pain or ever will be.

They're prolly worse for you knees than normal squats since you'll be somewhat unstable while lifting.

They are one of the best exercises for sprinters/sports requiring sprints

I've done them and one of my knees is bad, can't even do more than 20 squats and get a knee pain above the rotula. Have to rest that knee and the pain goes.

But one problem is that I can't keep the knee bent for longer periods of time, like when I'm driving or sitting in a chair!

Dunno what is the problem.

> The opposite has been observed as well
No, it hasn't. It has been clinically demonstrated that below parallel squats are easier on the knee ligaments but theorized to be harder on the articular cartilage and meniscus. Mensicus injuries are common in weightlifters and powerlifters. Squats above parallel have been demonstrated to be harder on the ligaments and are therefor worse for your knees. The only question is how much this applies to bulgarian split squat as these studies were done on back squats.

Yeah actually try that with the weights you would use in a normal BSS and tell me how that works out for you you fucking monkey

In my experience the way you set it up counts a lot.
I snapped my knee with 80kg squats, took a long break not doing any legs and now I'm doing BSS with 27kg each hand for sets of five.
You have to find a comfortable spot for your foot at the correct height. I think the leg curl machine pads would work for that.
Then as in your picture you need to have a pillow in the bottom. Touching the pillow at the bottom will make it a dead stop (ofcourse you don't need to rest, just like in the bench press you don't have to always pause at your chest). I have 0 knee problems right now, even though I'm pushing hard every workout. Very tiresome but worth it.

I would not want to use my knee to absorb the load of a split squat, not even with a pillow underneath it. That's retarded.