Over the years, our Singapore personal training team has seen more and more women are taking up strength training as a form of exercise and this is great news. The benefits of building strength in females are many.
But every exercise movement has a risk to benefit ratio. And I hope that you can maximize the benefit while minimizing the risk.
Because ladies have wider hips, they have a larger “Q-angle” which means more ladies have knees which increases the risk of knee injury. Since the legs are not as “straight” as a male leg. Even the “normal” female knee has a larger angle and higher risk than the average male.
Today I would like to teach a simple tip for ladies to lower risk of knee injury when doing lower body exercises like squats, deadlifts and split squats.
This tip is to “dig” your big toe into the ground when you are training your lower body. When you put some effort into “digging” or “clawing” the ground with your big toe, you activate the muscle called the Flexor Hallicus Longus. This muscle rotates your leg outward slightly and turns on your glute muscles. These two actions lower the stress on the knee and give it better alignment.
When doing lower body exercises simply think of putting equal pressure on the base of you big toe, base of your little toe, and heel. This should cause you to “dig” with your big toe into the ground and make your exercise safer and more effective. When you do this you should also feel less stress on your knee.
I hope this tip helps you stay safe while training effectively. If you want to find out how we help you achieve your health and fitness goals in a scientific and customized way, contact our Singapore personal training team here.