Improving Your Squat Form With Physical Therapy
Squat Form Case Study
I am coming at you with a squat case study, hopefully it will give insight into the physical therapy evaluation and treatment process! With physical therapy the goal is always to keep you moving and doing what you love to do as efficiently as possible. The subject of the study is my wife, Bethany. Bethany has been having low level left hip pain for the past 2-3 months. We have been doing more home workouts lately, and that is when I noticed her form was suffering with squatting movements. I thought this was the perfect case study to demonstrate how physical therapy can minimize pain while optimizing athletic performance!
The first part of the evaluation starts with the “subjective” portion – this is where we gather pertinent information about the site of pain, past medical history, goals, and get to know the subject (well, I know her pretty well already!)
Subjective
Chief complaint: left glute soreness, mostly after working out and trying to go to sleep, over the last 2-3 months.
Personal: Bethany is extremely active, she cycles 4+ days a week, as well as going to crossfit classes 5x week.
Past medical history: multiple right ankle sprains growing up, right hamstring tendon strain last year.
Treatment to date: massage (shout out to Kim Singletary, LMT at Vida Seattle).
Goals: reduce hip soreness, keep working out at a high level .
Now that we have some good background info, the next step is the “objective” portion. This is where we observe movements pertinent to Bethany’s issue, take strength and range of motion measurements of areas that could contribute to her pain. It is useful to see if we can reproduce the pain, so we can better understand what does / does not irritate it. To simplify things, I will share a condensed version of what we found.
Objective
Strength: left glute max muscle is limited in stability as noted by bridge march test. Left glute med muscle is limited in strength by manual muscle testing.
Movement quality:
Lunge: excellent form, pain free .
Air squat: good form, pain free.
Squat loaded in 35# thruster/overhead squat form – right foot travels and rotates externally as squat is initiated, large weight shift to right side while twisting to the left, weight in toes, right knee falls inwards.
Assessment / Plan
Results


Now, a disclaimer, not all cases are as quickly resolved as two weeks. It is important to take into account how long the issue has been going on, the severity of pain/irritability, what actual body part is at play (joint, tendon, muscle, ligament) as those all have differing healing time frames. In general, the earlier the better when you are having pain or an issue. What starts as avoiding/modifying one little thing due to pain can sometimes snowball into a bunch of things as time goes on. As always, seek out a physical therapist who can assess and get to the root of the issue, don’t waste time guessing!
If you are experiencing any issues with your form and workouts, come in and see us!
Ashley Henriques, PT, DPT
Physical Therapist at Vida Seattle
Vida Integrated Health – THINKVIDA.COM/CONTACT

Ashley Henriques, DPT
Physical Therapist
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