Is it Bad to Let your Knees Go OVer Your Toes?
It is not an inherently bad thing to let your knees go over your toes. If we didn’t allow our knees to ever go over our toes, we wouldn’t be able to walk up and down stairs. (Seriously, go try walking down stairs without letting your knees go over your toes. It’s hard and will give you a little laugh.) So you absolutely should be letting your knees go over your toes in some exercises during your training to prepare your body for everyday activities like climbing stairs.
You’ve heard “don’t let your knees go over your toes” because that is a great cue for specific exercises, like a Romanian Deadlift. However, that doesn’t mean that cue should be applied to all exercises. Form cues such as “don’t let your knees go over your toes” or “don’t arch your back” or “don’t round your back” are specific cues for specific exercises.
Each exercise is different and thus requires different instructions or cueing. Everyone also has different goals, and each exercise can be tweaked depending on those goals.
For example, in this Heel Elevated Goblet Squat, we’ve adjusted the cues from a traditional goblet squat to make it more quad-dominant. By reducing the hinge at our hips, maintaining a vertical spine and driving our knees over our toes, we put more tension in our quads.
In contrast to that, in this Glute-Focused Step Up, we’ve adjusted the cues from a traditional step up to make it more glute-dominant. By increasing the hinge at our hips, maintaining a vertical shin angle and not letting our knee go over our toes, we put more tension in our glutes.
Form cues are specific to individual exercises, persons and goals.
Confused about form cues? Sign up for one of our online training programs where each exercise in your program comes with a detailed form instruction video created by our team of coaches, like the videos listed above.
Want help mastering your form? Our transformer program comes with personalized feedback from your coach to help you perfect your form.
ABOUT the author
Amy Potter is a Certified Personal Trainer and Holistic Health Coach. She loves helping women heal their relationship with their bodies, and with food. She guides women on a journey to feel strong, confident, and capable through weight lifting and intuitive eating. In her free time, she can be found taking long walks on the beach, petting dogs, or talking about politics.
