Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of @kneesovertoesguy by now, which is Ben Patrick’s Instagram handle.
So who exactly is this ‘knees over toes guy’ and why has he become so incredibly popular over the last few years?
In this article I’m going to give you a brief introduction as to who Ben Patrick is, how his training philosophy works, and why his unique approach to fitness and longevity has been so revolutionary.
Let’s begin!
Ben’s Training Philosophy
One of my old mentors once said “if you want top 1% results, you can’t do what the 99% are doing”.
Ben Patrick reminds me of this quote because of how he burst onto the scene doing, quite literally, the complete opposite of what everyone else was doing…
Yet he was getting phenomenal results…
Your Knees MUST Go Over Your Toes
There used to be this idea that your knees should never go out past your toes when doing squats and other athletic movements, because it was thought to be dangerous and would lead to injury.
This never quite resonated with Ben Patrick as he noticed our knees would constantly be over our toes when doing athletic movements like sprinting, jumping, and landing from a jump.
Perhaps this avoidance of the knees over toes position was partly responsible for all the knee pain in the world…
Instead of avoiding this taboo knees over toes position, Ben decided to really lean into it and base his entire training approach around strengthening the knees and ankles throughout this range of motion we’ve historically been told to avoid.
And thus ‘knees over toes guy’ was born.
Ben has other interesting philosophies when it comes to health and wellness, such as his approach to diet, but I won’t dive too deep into in that in this article.
Ben’s Mission As A Coach
Put simply, Ben fixes knees.
In Elite Sports, Everyone Has Injured Knees
As a former elite volleyballer and having played basketball at a fairly high level myself, I know first hand how absurdly prevalent knee injuries are.
In my national elite development program, there wasn’t a single volleyballer who didn’t have some serious issues with their knees.
Charles Poliquin also noted this widespread tendonitis in his athletes when he began coaching high school volleyball.
Whether it was patella tendonitis, Osgood-Schlatter’s, bursitis, or meniscus tears, everyone had messed up knees.
And what’s worse is that we thought that was just part and parcel of being an elite athlete, a right of passage almost.
It seemed extremely normal to have knee pain and honestly there was probably something wrong with you if you didn’t have knee issues.
The Future For Athletes Is Freedom From Knee Pain
Ben thought differently and after going through his own series of knee injuries, he decided he was actually going to get his knees healthy.
He’s since helped thousands of elite athletes fix their own knee problems and discover new levels of athletic potential.
Strong Knees For All
Ben’s mission nowadays extends past helping the knees of athletes into the broader realm of longevity.
Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death in elderly people and weak knees are largely to blame.
Ben wants his approach to knee strengthening to be available to everyone regardless of age or athletic ability.
Early Athletic Career
Let’s take a step back to see where it all began…
In his high school basketball career, Ben Patrick was known as one of the most incredibly unathletic players to have ever played varsity basketball.
His teammates literally called him “old man” as he suffered from crippling knee pain, causing him to be slow and extremely inexplosive on court with a sub 20″ vertical jump.
His former high school coach said “I don’t know if he could touch the rim with his fingertips with no basketball or anything else”.
At 6’1″ tall, not being able to touch the rim is… is pathetic too strong of a word?
Ben’s knee pain got so bad that some days he would literally be unable to walk, and would often have to crawl from his bed to the bathroom in the mornings…
When Patrick realized his dream of being in the NBA wasn’t going to happen, he set about dedicating his life to bulletproofing his knees.
How Ben Patrick Discovered Knees Over Toes
Patrick started searching the internet for ways he could mend his knees and discovered Olympic strength coach, Charles Poliquin, who had an interesting philosophy about knee ability.
Poliquin believed that the knee that can go farthest and strongest over the toe has the least chance of knee pain and injury, so Ben decided to test this out trying to get his knees as strong as possible in this position.
Ben started doing Petersen step ups, ATG split squats, and full range squats and was able to rapidly fix his chronic knee pain and increase his vertical jump from 19 to 42 inches!
Knees Over Toes Guy’s Rise To Stardom
Off the back of being able to fix his own knees and transform himself from the crippled “old man” he once was into a freaky athletic specimen, people noticed his incredible transformation and wanted to be trained by Patrick.
Ben started working with all sorts of athletes, including literally coaching elite NBA players on dunking!
He continued spreading the gospel of Charles Poliquin and began posting videos of these super uncommon exercises like the ATG split squat on Instagram and YouTube.
Feel free to check out my complete list of the knees over toes exercises Patrick advocates.
Eventually Patrick ended up on an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience where he told of his epic transformation in full, snowballing his visibility and reach as a coach.
How Ben Patrick Has Revolutionized Fitness
It’s crazy to think how less than 10 years ago, the idea of your knees going past your toes was considered haram, and that it would surely lead to injury…
And now, thanks to knees over toes guy, we’re realizing it’s this very range of motion that actually bulletproofs our knees and fixes our knee pain!
I’m incredibly grateful for the system Ben has created.
As someone who has suffered with dodgy knees for years myself, until Ben came along I saw no clear path to regaining healthy knee ability.
I had also written off my career as an athlete because I thought my knees were beyond the point of repair.
I have had a renewed excitement for training ever since Ben created the ATG training program, which guides people through the process of fixing their knees and unlocking their true athletic potential.
I’ve written a ton about knees over toes training here on Jump Stronger, so feel free to browse through a few more of my articles if you find this stuff interesting!
