Glenn DawsonReset-U Fitness · Owner and CEO of Reset-U Fitness

Why Muscular People Can Struggle With the Squat Test

25 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:08

In this coaching monologue, Glenn Dawson examines a heavily muscled individual performing a squat test and highlights how excessive muscle bulk can create imbalances that jeopardize joint health. He points out a lifted left shoulder and trap, a forward‑shifted left hip, internal rotation of the right knee, and a locked‑up right lat that together pull the torso forward and overload the knees and rotator cuff. Dawson explains that these patterns stem from the high torque generated by large muscle masses and can lead to tendon, capsule, and knee injuries. He then prescribes a corrective program focused on strengthening the glutes and hamstrings, realigning the hips, building middle‑back and rotator‑cuff strength, and releasing the tight lat to restore balanced movement for muscular athletes.

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Before we even press play, this guy is jacked. The more muscle you have, the harder it is to get muscular balance. So you can have a lot of tendon injuries and issues with like rotator cuffs and hip capsules and knees because there's so much torque on every single joint. Let's see him move. You see that left shoulder is elevated, pulling really, really hard. Left trap is elevated. This is common for somebody who's right-handed. He has a hip shift where his left hip is forward and high. Which matches the left shoulder. They kind of go together. There's internal rotation in the right knee, so that right knee is unstable and probably causing pain on the inside or the outside because of the rotation. Because of the hip shift, there's more pressure on that left knee in the patella area, so there's probably an issue there. That right lat is really locked up, and that'll rotate the shoulder down and forward. He has so much muscle, so much bulk in his chest. You can see it's pulling everything really, really far forward. So what we need to do for him is really, really focus on glutes and hamstrings, put the hips into alignment, and then strengthen his middle back and rotator cuffs while releasing the lats.