Are you frustrated with bad knees? The secret to fixing them does not lie in focusing on the knee itself, but instead as a side effect of improving your overall balance, coordination, and strength. The movement epitome of these factors is the full single-leg squat, but for most pistol squats are going to be way too difficult. And if you have bad knees, like some people do, even a small single-leg squat can be a challenge. So instead today, I'm going to show you three squat alternatives that give you the benefits of single-leg squatting, but with variations that anyone can perform no matter your starting place.



Variations of the single-leg squat

Kickstand Squat

The first way to develop stronger and healthier knees with the single-leg squat is through a kickstand squat. This is an easier version than a pistol squat, but it is still going to allow us to expose and clear up any side-to-side mobility and stability differences.

How to execute it

What you should do is stand upright, take one leg, and kick it back a little bit such as that leg is on your toes. This way you are going to have 90% of your body weight through your front leg. The back leg is only there as a kickstand for balance. Then, start off by performing a small hinge. From right here, you're going to go straight down through your front leg. At the start, you can use a box or bench and sit on it to limit your downward movement. This way you have a predetermined depth to go to. But primarily, you are squatting on one leg. However, eventually, as you get better with this, you can take that box away and go to a greater depth.

This is an easier way to work single leg without the high demands for stability and mobility that a full pistol squat requires. It is an excellent technique that almost every single person out there can perform.

Tip: If you feel a side-to-side difference, maybe your right leg is easier than the other. Switching legs is going to allow you to clear up that side-to-side difference, and make it smaller so that you have the potential for stronger and healthier knees.

Cossack squat

Exercise number two for stronger and healthier knees is a Cossack squat. Start with a wide stance (legs apart) and lean towards one leg as you stretch the other leg. As a beginner, make it easier on yourself by going to a box. You can have that load held up high (near your chest) or down low, whichever one you feel comfortable with, and you're going to start by opening up your forward hip and squatting to the box.

Benefits

This is a great exercise that is going to;

  • Help open up your hips and expose you to this side-to-side range of motion that often you will not be moving through with most of our traditional exercises.
  • Reduces the stiffness in the lateral range of motion which negatively impacts your knee health and opens tight hips.
  • Allows your knees to be stronger and healthier with everything else that you are doing.

Tip: You can turn the toes of the stretched leg up. That is going to help you especially if you have very, very stiff or tight adductors while allowing you to open that hip up and go through the lateral range of motion even easier.

Curtsy squat

The last of the three exercises to develop stronger and healthier knees is going to be a curtsy squat or curtsy split squat. Now, if you do a traditional split squat, let one leg go straight back, aligning straight with your spine. The objective of this technique is to engage straight up and down range of motion, which is not a bad exercise at all.

How to execute it

To make this technique enhance the hip control that is going to help you develop stronger and healthier knees, it can be turned into a little bit of a rotational exercise. So, you are going to split behind yourself (the split foot directly behind the forefoot) and then go through the squat motion. And this is going to really hit your lateral hip in a way, unlike any other exercise. As you go through that squat motion, make sure that your foot is staying nice and stable. Your knee is staying in line with your foot so you are not letting your foot collapse in. This is going to drive your hip into more internal range of motion.

Did you know? A lot of people that develop knee issues have limited, or especially side-to-side big asymmetries in hip internal rotation range of motion. So, this technique is going to allow you to expose and strengthen your mobility, and stabilize through that mobility range of motion so that you can have more control of an area that many people have restricted.

Benefits

The curtsy squat is an excellent way to expose yourself to that rotational motion that rarely is hit in traditional strength training regimens. So, it is something that you need to be having in your training for stronger and healthier knees.

In conclusion, if you are dealing with knee pain, read and understand this article first because you may be dealing with a restriction at the hip and or ankle that you need to clear up before you start loading heavier exercises. Also, consult your trainer or fitness coach for more guidance.