Quote (cloudkicker @ Aug 19 2016 10:34am)
It's possible to maintain proper knee position with toes turned out but you have to work way harder to externally rotate. If you have the ability to externally rotate hard enough it really doesn't matter how far out your toes point because your glutes and lateral rotators can pull your femur out to maintain good knee and ankle positioning. It's not a matter of importance, it's a binary thing. If you can't support good external rotation of the femur, you need to protect your knee by pointing your toes forward, period. Unless you don't want your knees in 20 years, in which case do whatever you want
So if my feet are shoulder width and straight forward then I don't need to externally rotate hard? Because I honestly feel much stronger with feet straight forward and keeping my knees in the same position and maybe slightly out on the way up. I still find it very hard to flex glutes during my squats though, so I try to flex through when I come up and and it just makes me lock my hips really hard and if I don't slow down I'll literally straighten up too much and the bar will fly off my rear delts lol.