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How to Squat with Patellar Tendonitis (NO MORE PAIN)

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Rating: 4.0; Vote: 1

Doing squats with patellar tendonitis can be downright brutal. In this video, I show you how to squat with a chronic or acute case of patellar tendonitis that is giving you stabbing, sharp pain in your knees every time you bend them to perform another rep. The issue that is going on here is that your tendons in your knees are reluctant to allow the muscles in the legs (mostly the glutes, hamstrings and then the quads) from handling the load of the squat. Most often this is due to a lack of confidence in the strength of these muscles to handle the load that you have on the bar (particularly in the bottom half of the squat. This can also be aggravated even more by a chronic reliance on the tendons to support the weight rather than letting the muscles lift the weight. This is particularly true when you tend to squat by bending the knees first rather than hinging at the hips. You teach your body faulty biomechanics that cause the knees to become too reliant on their tendons to handle the weights. The first step in breaking this cycle is to relearn the squat from the ground up, and as seen here, perform a variation of the squat that allows you to achieve better form with minimal effort. Enter the box squat. The key difference between the box squat and the regular squat (regardless of whether it is a high bar or low bar squat we are talking about) is that the box provides a safety net for your legs which allows you to delegate the load from the tendons to the muscles that should be handling this in the first place. The other benefit of the box is that it provides you with a bottom point for determining parallel without having to guess on each and every rep. Most of the time, those that squat without a box or bench are going to cut short the depth with each subsequent rep (especially as fatigue sets in. Not on the box squat. Here you have the tactile cue of the bench to ensure that you are getting low enough to establish a brief contact of your butt to the bench. The depth you are looking for is one that allows your butt to reach fully parallel. While there is some disagreement as to where this position is. The easiest way to think about it is when the crease in your upper thigh and hip is on the same level as your kneecap. When this happens, you have squatted to parallel and do not need to go any further to see gains. Training hard is required if you want to see muscle gains in your legs or anywhere else for that matter. That said, if you are trying to do this while combatting the pain that is present in your knees, hips, and other joints it is going to be that much more difficult to load up the bar. If you are looking for a program that puts the science back in strength and helps you to build muscle without compromising the joints in your body and your overall joint health, then head to and get your ATHLEAN-X Training System
Date: 2022-04-22

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Comments and reviews: 10

Steven
This is exactly how we ruin young & old EVEN MORE! Just carefulyl read the title. What if it said: -How to run with a broken leg-, wouldn't your first thought be -You shouldn't even run with a broken leg, you should first fix it! -.
Playing & lifting through the pain of my jumper's knee, with minimum and hurried efforts at rehabilitation, At 26 years old, I have now had it for 10 freaking years! Only now I've got the knowledge and patience to fix it. I wish someone had guided me and helped me overcome injury and return stronger, faster, HEALTHIER before even reaching adulthood.
This video demonstrates ALL the mistakes I've made: continuing to lift and adjusting technique to try and take load of the tendons. The key to rehabilitation of this (and any other injury, and returning stronger:
1. Taking 1, 2, 5 or 10 steps back - whatever is necessary. It will take months - accept it;
2. Studying WHY you are injured: your body (tendons) is TOO WEAK;
3. Studying HOW to rehabilitate: VERY gradual increase of tension on the patellar tendons (by increasing range, load and speed);
4. Studying how to RESTRUCTURE your body to avoid re-injury.
Jumper's knee is associated with weak VMO muscles (which keep our tendons safely aligned with our legs) which are trained MOST in the bottom and top 15% of a FULL squat. Therefore BY DEFINITION training the KNEES OVER THE TOES decreases likelihood of ever getting jumper's knees. Training the bottom of the squat (full knee flexion) also STRENGTHENS the patellar tendons meaning AGAIN decreased likelihood of getting jumper's knees. We people like to label movements as -bad for us- while in reality -we are just too bad for that movement-.
One day I will teach young athletes and non-athletes that PAIN CAN BE FIXED. Remind me to return to these comments once I have fixed my jumper's knee. I am 100% determined.
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Andrew
For anyone who has a go at not squating properly, Compared to doing it safe either doesn-t have a real life job or is competing.
You-d think the competer-s would understand, But ego takes over I guess.
My knees are actually F$&ked from working a manual labour job for 15years. If anyone wants to try my life style and continue muscle building, I-d say try it.
Easy to laugh until you actually experience the pain and not be able to do what you love doing.
Just understand you are not going to last when you get older and realise.
Awesome video I believe this does help. I use this technique and my leg press Machine. I-m trying hack squat but need to work out the pain side.
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Ryan
Jeff: you're amazing! I got on crutches and started not taking stairs because my knees hurt so bad. I made a doc appt, convinced of serious cartiledge damage due to lots of running back in my younger life, turns out I just have femoral tendonopath. I'm going to use some intuitition and say it's basically the same thing. There's so much info on the internet nowadays but your -short and sweet- video might just be the best thing to get me back to where I need to be. But going to take 2-3 weeks of no gym just to make sure I get good rest. Thanks for doing what you do. You rock.
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Nick
Hi Jeff! I'm 25 years old and recently been diagnosed with patellofemoral syndrome, and was told by my physiotherapist that I should never run, squat, jump, or do stairs ever again. I've been an athlete as long as I can remember, and have been training in the gym for about 10 years now. What can i do to keep my legs strong and healthy with this issue? My doctor suggested swimming, but I just want to squat -
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Lori
I hired a new PT today. He directed me to do very low box squats with my osteoarthritic knee! He had me execute the movement on a level surface then suggested I use a wedge to stand on; and to my surprise didn't feel any weirdness at all. I naturally assumed that low box squats was a sure fired way to wreck you knees. So I came home and checked out what Jeffmeister's feedback was on that and hey! .
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Professor
my gym doesn't have a squat rack, so i had this idea to use the incline bench machine to squat, naturally, i dip down to the corner of the back and the seat, which makes my thigh just about parallel to the ground depth. i immediately fell in love with this kinda squat, because my jumpers knee don't feel pain at all!
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Vitorruy1
This video literally changed my life. I've been squatting for 1 year with pain in my knees, I've had to stop squatting due to tendonitis twice. Everyone on the internet just kept talking about going parallel but no one talked about the beginning part of the movement so I just went straight down by bending my knees.
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Courtney
I feel like this video was made for me! When I first started powerlifting my knee pain was so bad but the more I built my quads and hamstrings the better it's gotten and its almost completely gone. I get flare ups every once in a while but I'm not in pain every day anymore which is seriously amazing.
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Raymond
Hi Jeff, great video as usual! I just want to ask, what if my pain is more significant just above my knee cap where the quad tendon area is when i am coming up from a squat? How can i fix it? It has reached a point where i can't even squat with my own body weight without feeling the pain. Cheers!
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Ngai
You should not be SQUATTING you need to rehab the knees. That takes the load of the knees but it Doesn-t heal it. Start by doing body weights squats slow and control focusing tension on the quads until you stop feeling pain in your knees then do it for one more month
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