What are these protective devices for? What's the difference between different ones?
What effect does wearing protective gear have on squat?
What should you do?
If you have ever had such doubts, then you have come to the right place. Today I will talk about this kind of protective gear.
What is the protective gear for?
Generally speaking, there are two common knee pads when doing squats: knee pads and knee pads.
Knee pad is a kind of oppressive protective device, usually made of soft neoprene material, which wraps the whole knee joint. They come in various thicknesses and comfortable designs to keep your knees warm throughout the training. Some people think that wearing knee pads can help athletes better realize the position of their knees when lifting iron, which may improve their skills.
Kneepads are made of a thick layer of polyester canvas and small rubber threads. These materials are usually 2 meters long and 8 centimeters wide, and are wrapped around the athletes' knees as tightly as possible (in a spiral or figure-8).
The difference between knee pads and knee pads is the mechanical advantage of elastic material (rubber thread) when it is stretched during squatting.
Just as the spring is stretched, the elastic part of the knee will store this energy and transfer it to the trainer when squatting. In fact, research shows that squatting with leggings can increase the speed of the bottom by 20% [1].
Now there are some knee pads on the market that can wrap your knees well and give you a small amount of elastic rebound.
Knee binding is common in powerlifting, but not common in Olympic weightlifting, because it will limit the activities at the bottom of snatch and other actions.
Although you may see that weightlifters sometimes use thick knee straps like weightlifters, they are usually made of much softer blended cotton, which will only keep the knees warm and will not add any mechanical advantages to weightlifting.
Speaking of which, by the way, how to use it.
I think everyone knows how to wear knee pads. Just wear them on your knees according to the instructions.
However, there are generally two traditional methods of tying knees, one is spiral, and the other is figure-eight. Interestingly, a study on 20 15 found that there was no significant difference between the two methods of tying knees in mechanics [2].
What effect does wearing protective gear have on squat?
To answer this question, let's look at a recent study [3].
15 Men with at least two years' training experience participated in the study. They will do squats with 70% of their own weight1rm in the following four situations:
Wear competitive knees (tighter)
Wear training and prick your knees.
Wear knee pads
Wearing nothing (control group)
The researchers measured variables such as muscle strength, ground response, joint range of motion and speed.
Results The study found that tying knee and kneepad can make squat faster, tying knee will reduce the strength of all measured muscles, knee joint and perceived comfort, but it will improve the stability and range of joint movement, while kneepad will improve comfort and stability, but it will not affect the strength of quadriceps femoris, hamstring and gluteus maximus.