Pay attention to it, work to correct it, but don’t lose your mind over it.
“While intentional knee valgus shouldn’t be the goal..
Freaking out as much as we do about the natural occurrence in athletes in training & on the athletic surface doesn’t enhance durability.
If you’re going to hide from knee valgus, you better hide from sports, too.
“But.. but.. but… did you see her knees cave in!?”
Yes. I did.
Can we work to correct knee valgus? Of course. We will.
Is knee valgus (natural occurrence) something we need to lose our minds over like the internet “form police” likes to for personal “ha ha told you so” attention-based reasons? Not in the slightest.
Watch an athlete jump.
Watch an athlete sprint.
Watch an athlete change directions.
Watch an athlete play their sport at full speed.
There is knee valgus taking place in gyms, on fields, and on courts everywhere, every single day. It’s natural.
Now please don’t misinterpret my message.
I’m not condoning knee valgus and saying that it should be “taught” or “ignored”.
After all there are many coaches out there who pay no mind whatsoever to sound technique, all in the name of increasing numbers (for personal ego reasons). That, I believe is dead wrong and THAT is when knee valgus becomes an issue.
Working with kid’s for a living, I see knee valgus all the time. Some cases are severe, others not so much. Instead of freaking out about the situation (that isn’t going to hurt them), I constructively make them aware of it.
Typically what I’ll do is sit them down on a parallel box and teach the squatting pattern from the ground up.
I’ll have them turn their toes slightly outward, and cue them to “split the piece of paper down the middle” as they stand up pushing their knees out.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll put a band around their knees to give them a physical cue.
In time, they “get it”. They understand what their knees (& ankles/hips) are doing and make conscious efforts to correct the valgus.
This is ultimately what I am after.
Conscious effort to enhance patterns.
Are their knees going to valgus again? Yes.
Am I going to cue them to make efforts to correct it? Of course.
Am I going to freak out over it? No chance.
Reason being is because I understand human movement and the random nature of sport.
If we try to control every single intricate detail in training and then send them into an environment where we CAN’T control every situation (sport), we actually reduce our kid’s levels of durability by default.
