01/27/2026
Training how to stack the hip, knee, and ankle is a helpful tool for decreasing injury risk and mitigating excessive joint stress during lower body exercises (EX. squats, lunges, jumping).
Even if you don't exercise consistently, using this principle is still applicable for activities of daily life, like squatting to get into your car, lunging to get off the ground, or going up and down stairs.
A stacked position for the hip, knee, and ankle joints allows the lower body to accommodate more load through the whole leg. As a result, this can be a position that helps to decrease injury risk to the lower body.
We use this movement principle frequently when clients come to us with knee pain. Many times, clients will complain to us about knee pain when squatting or lunging, and we will see the knee dive inwards during these movements.
The tissue capacity of the knee joint is greater in a stacked position versus when it dives inwards. If the knee dives inwards everytime you squat or lunge, especially if you are consistently lifting heavy, the tissue capacity of the knee joint can eventually be exceeded and result in pain.
If that happens, we can still continue to facilitate strength training by using a stacked position because it may be less symptomatic, and this would also train our muscles to be strong at KEEPING us in this position.
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