Posted on March 13, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Many people will often seek answers to how they can prevent knee injuries.  Most knee injuries are developed due to a weakness in one or more of the quadriceps muscles which are the vastus lateralis, vastus medialis , vastus intermedius and the rectus femoris.

The strength of the quadriceps is dramatically affected by neuromuscular impairment due to the quadriceps muscle not firing efficiently.

It is extremely important to activate the muscles prior to exercise. Too often I see individuals walking straight into the gym stacking the bar with weight and beginning to squat. This can in fact hinder your performance and overall gain as well as increase the chances of injury. A significant component of muscle activation is priming the neuromuscular system ready so they can fire full steam when needed.

If muscles do not activate properly this can even have a knock on effect in everyday life, resulting in increased stress on muscles, pain and bad posture, this certainly will not prevent knee injuries!

In order to prevent knee injuries it is important to use a warm up specific to the exercise that will be performed in order to activate muscles prior to your training sessions. For example before completing a squat session ensure that you warm up efficiently by completing body weight squats producing full range of movement then complete a light weight set again ensuring range of movement to help activate muscles. Foam rolling can also help improve muscle neural activation to help ensure maximum performance and prevent injury.

It is also important that you don’t just complete standard squats session after session, to help quadriceps development and ensure that the whole muscle is used switch up your squat variations. Particularly the front squat were focused is placed on the quadriceps check out our blog on why front squats should be part of your routine.

http://www.m8north.co.uk/blog/benefits-of-the-front-squat/