“Don’t let your knees go over your toes,“ they said.
Turns out, training with our knees going forward over our toes… Is EXACTLY what will help lead to us bulletproofing our knees!
The entry-level exercise for this, and the ‘special sauce’ for repairing your knees is…walking backwards. When you take a step backwards, you land on your toes…and your knee is ‘over your toes’. This is a short-range movement that’s low impact (notice how the landing is softer than a forward walking heel strike). It also flexes and works the big toe and foot…an area that all of us could give more TLC to.
Perform this walking backward special sauce for 5-10 minutes a day. Make sure that you have a clear area and a smooth surface to do this on. Your partner can help by holding your hand, being your eyes, and guiding you. Then switch positions. Another great method, especially during these colder months is to get on a treadmill and without turning it on, turn around and spin the treadmill belt yourself by walking backwards on it. This provides a really good resistance to the walking… And helps build up those muscles around the knee.
The absolute best method, is to pull a fitness sled on turf while walking backwards. Maybe your gym has this? If this can’t happen, there are DIY options for making your own sled and pulling it in your driveway or yard as well.
Backwards walking? It sounds kind of silly… But this is the X factor that has brought my knees back to being out of pain. There are certainly other things to be doing along with this… But this is where it all starts. I can help you find a way to be doing this.
Please call me or message me with your knee story… whether it won’t bend, it hurts, or both! I can’t believe the restrictions that I’m hearing that many of us are living with. And dealing with chronic pain is for the fricken birds! Let’s deal with that! I’m confident that I can help.
No cost, no pressure or obligation. I’m passionate about helping, and I get paid by learning through your story.
> Quality of Life < Consider your pain, what you want to be doing, and how you feel right now. Can you stand up and run a quarter mile immediately? Can you get down on the floor to play with your grandkid? Can you get back up? Does it hurt to go down stairs? This is grand scheme…and should weigh heavily into how we consider being fit for life.
> Range of Motion < Full range, partial, and everything in between. Would it be wise to be strong in one particular part of the range but not others? Also, moving our joints through a full range brings synovial fluid in, signaling repair and restore. As most of us can acknowledge with age, our joints work under an approach of ‘use it or lose it’.
> Connective Tissues < Yes we can develop our tendons, ligaments, cartilage etc.! They take longer to adapt, but we must put effort here. If we simply add muscle to the upper body for an athlete, but we don’t focus on joint development in the lower body…we’re basically manufacturing knee surgeries! Another way to think of this is that if we’re carrying around extra weight, but we haven’t built joints and tissues from the ground up, we’re asking for problems.
>Structural Balance< This is about being as strong forward as backward. It’s about being strong in acceleration AND deceleration. ATG considers ‘overuse’, and builds strength in reverse of that action. A baseball pitcher for example, with all of that forward throwing must create structural balance by building strength in reverse with something like an external rotation exercise. Mimi and Grampa who have taken millions of steps forward? They can use backward walking to reverse out damage and build strength into the future.
>Old & New< Tried and true methods are important. The squat. Ideas from successful coaches from the past like Charles Poliquin or Louie Simmons. They gave us methods that will stand forever. In another way, we must continue to push innovation, try new movements, and consider radical ideas. Not to accept every one of them…but to stay relevant and accessible to each individual. Success leaves clues, whether in history, or in your own knee today.
Dear friends, Let’s talk about knee pain. For the past five years or so I’d say my knees felt uncomfortable. But last winter, I started experiencing acute pain in my right knee…in the patellar tendon directly below the knee cap. It got to the point where the first thought I would have upon waking would be worrisome… Because I knew the first squat up out of bed… And then the first step down the stairs in the morning would be excruciating. I didn’t enjoy that as my very first thought! What a way to start the day.
I figured that this is just something that happens for those of us that play a sport, and begin aging. I see many of my friends and family members dealing with joint pain so I accepted that this is just something that comes with getting older.
When I found Kneesovertoesguy and the ATG system at the beginning of 2022 I was intrigued and caught off-guard. Here was a guy proving that training with our ‘knees over our toes’ was actually beneficial, and perhaps the route to recovery. I’ve been around sports and gyms all my life… And one of the phrases I heard ad nauseam was “don’t let your knees go over your toes”…meaning don’t allow your knee to go forward in exercises like squats, lunges, etc. so the ATG system was radical, different, and against many of the accepted literature. I love that.
The mainstream caution stems from a research study done in 1978 at Duke University concluding that when the knees go over the toes it creates more pressure in the knee. And then word was exaggerated over time to just avoid that position. Ok, that movement DOES create more pressure, but the conclusion COULD have been that we should carefully and strategically strengthen that area…not fricken avoid it!
Look at how we move in life. Look at how athletes move in sport. Start the first movement down a stair, and look at how far your back knee goes over your toes. Look at how far my right knee is over my toes in the picture (also see my dad and family worried about my knees going over my toes). We are in this position all the time! Doesn’t it make sense that we should strengthen our bodies in that position? Throughout my entire basketball career, I never strengthened myself in that position. However, within my sport I consistently drove my body into that position and put the harshest of demands on it. It’s no wonder my knees suffered!
The more ancestral cultures, look at China in particular, inherently use the deep squatting position often whereas most of us in the West stop at 90 degrees after a certain age. Range of motion then suffers for us. And 1 knee surgery in China for every 19 here!
When we don’t express a joint throughout its full range, our body stops sending synovial fluid to the area. Consequently, we miss out on the nourishment and lubrication there. Then the pain sets in! After all of my knee surgeries, I used a ton of painkillers and anti-inflammatories (which actually break down cartilage!), and of course I limited the range of motion of my knee, compounding the issue. Anything at or past 90° felt too tight and too painful.
One of the great things about the ATG system is that it meets you wherever you are. Instead of trying to work through pain or avoiding an area (we see how that works!), we can be grateful for whatever pain-free ability you have now and slowly and consistently build on that. Remember though… I’ve been strengthening muscles WITHOUT full range of motion… And WITHOUT letting my knees go over my toes for about 27 years (since I was 15). I can’t expect to achieve structural balance and undo all of that within a couple of workouts. As I’ve said, I am making good progress and I feel like I’m on the right track. It’s just good for us to understand that this is going to take time.
Since making my first Facebook post on this and asking for feedback… I’ve already received so many stories that make me more passionate about wanting to help. Some of us have to move in a particular way throughout our day to avoid pain on one side… Then when that used side gets too painful, we have to find other ways to navigate. Some of us have knee replacements, hip replacements, multiple surgeries attempting to repair the same issue… Then further surgeries recommended, then replacements. It’s just not a path that looks promising. ATG at least provides another option to consider.
I want to close in saying how grateful for, and how much I respect the doctors that are doing this work. A lot of my current feelings will sound like I’m anti-surgery. But actually, doctors and surgery are what stitched me up and put me back together to get back out there and live my life. These folks are way more educated than me, and they have the courage and skill to look at pictures, then actually open up a knee and correct the issue they see. I am certainly not an expert, and by no means want to put these people down. I’ve just been introduced to another method… A different option… And I want to share that with anyone who may be interested.
Do me a favor and share your story with me! I’ve heard a bunch but I haven’t heard yours yet… And I want to connect. This is completely free for now…And simply want to learn and help as much as I can rolling into 2023 with knees a little better than 2022. ‘When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.’ You can start adding tiny webs and fibers to your knees tonight.
jimmythorpe.com 