After doing the reaction to the kneesovertoesguy’s content and talking to Ben Patrick from kneesovertoesguy, I decided to spend some time training like kneesovertoesguy. I played around with the programming over a few months by buying a subscription to see how the workouts were delivered.

From there, I tried to piece together a little workout of our own. And that brings us to the first exercise I utilized. 

Almost every single workout that I try to put together when focusing on knee strength and knee health is going to start right off with a five-minute period where we pull a sled backward. This is one of our favorite exercises to use in the Peak Strength app for warm ups and finishers.

Now, we do own an apparatus, a little belt harness that can be put around the waist to just sit back and pull, but we like to use handles to start. 

I like the handles because it forces me to have my shoulder blades retracted and in a better position. I start right off with the backward sled pull for five straight minutes. As I think about knees going over the toes, the knees will go over the toes when the foot steps back. My quads get lit up doing this movement. I also have the tendency to go full-on Angus steak meathead, putting too much weight on the sled. I thought about decreasing the weight but didn’t bother doing it.

The backward sled pulls got my quads blown to bits, my oxygen flowing, and my blood rolling.

One thing Ben will use is the monkey feet. I have one monkey foot, but I don’t like how it feels when I do knee flexion. I do like how it feels doing the tibialis raise and hip flexion.

Instead of the monkey feet, I will use a PowerLastic band. For instance, as I perform the banded hip flexion, I anchor the PowerLastic to the sled and put my foot through the handle. Standing balanced and firm on the non-banded leg, I proceed to raise my knee and perform the banded hip flexion movement for two to three sets of ten to fifteen reps to each side.

One thing I like about banded hip flexion is that I really start to feel it in my guts.

I pair this movement with the next two movements, taking no breaks in between the movements.

As I said, I want to continue from the previous movement right into this exercise. For this exercise, I will turn around (the last exercise I had my back to the anchor point) and face the anchor point. I lean forward just a hair and perform two to three sets of ten to fifteen reps with each leg.

I found the movement not overly challenging. However, after going through the three movements three times with no rest, it becomes pretty brutal. I especially like how everything is trained unilaterally.

I have done the tibialis raise the way Ben has shown it where you can stand on a box, lower the foot, dorsiflex, lower, dorsiflex, and rinse and repeat. But we also like using the PowerLastic band. Again this movement is performed back to back with the previous two movements.

Sitting down facing the anchor point, wrap the PowerLastic handle around the foot and go ahead and dorsiflex the foot. Do this for two to three sets of ten to fifteen reps with each leg.

When I use the PowerLastic, I get an absolutely stupid pump after just five reps. I know it looks and seems absurd, but squeezing at the top after lengthening the foot destroys me.

All three of these movements performed for three sets of fifteen reps end up taking ten to fifteen minutes. Without breaking it adds up. Doing both sides adds up as well. Thankfully, while using the right leg the left leg can rest, and vice versa.

Another thing that is awesome is the gut, hammies, hips, and the whole entire calf blowing up doing these movements. On a major plus, I actively feel my body feeling better as well as my ankle stability improving.

At this point, my anterior muscular sequence and posterior chain are lit up. And now I go into slant board front squats. Literally, I just roll through sets of 25 reps, 20 reps, 15 reps, 10 reps, just rolling through, and then performing two sets of 5 reps at the end with a longer break. It is a long period where I blow up my quads even more and getting more of the upright trunk.

So I spoke with Kevin Simons to arrive at this theory and this style of work. Kevin also has spoken with Ben. Kevin is also one of the best strength coaches in the USA.

One thing Kevin brought up is that some people really struggle with the slant board and knee pain. Meaning people might need to start slowly, not using any weight. They will probably be best served just performing a crossed-armed bodyweight squat on the slant boards.

Now if you are like me and never have had knee pain, first count yourself fortunate, and second, go to work.

One thing I will say is that when I am doing higher rep front squats I like doing the cross-armed position with the barbell because I can hold and be more stable in the upper back. Another thing I want to put out there, especially for people with knee issues, is that doing the front squat on the slant boards with a six-second eccentric with minimal weight will go a long way in improving knee health and blowing up that quad strength.

I also like doing heavier sets with a slower eccentric slant board front squat to really get that big and bad quad pump.

Ben puts in a lot of his workouts some type of good morning. He will have athletes use a barbell or a dumbbell. Typically he has it with a barbell. I like doing it with a dumbbell because I can get a deeper range of motion. I also superset my good morning with some core workout.

In this workout, I did two sets of twenty reps of seated good mornings with a dumbbell. For core, I did knee planks into explosive mountain climbers; I used furniture sliders to do the core movement.

One of the best parts behind the kneesovertoeguy’s workout is that every part of the body feels super fatigued, super targeted. I got the quad pump in the beginning. I got knee flexion, hip flexion, and tibialis work after that. Then I did some legit front squats. Now I get to target the lower back and trunk even further with the seated dumbbell good morning exercise.

I like performing the seated dumbbell good morning by getting super deep with a rounded back. Doing the movement this way really lights up the erectors and lower back. I also go with a wide sumo stance to smash my groin, my adductors.

Kneesovertoesguy, Ben Patrick, has really good content. He has solid programs as well. In addition, Ben forces coaches and athletes to keep an open mind. An open mind is a great thing. It lets us escape our information silos and confront our confirmation biases.

With that said, go ahead and give this workout a try and comment on the video with how it goes! And if you're looking for long term programming, try the Peak Strength app that includes over 700 exercises and 35+ program types for strength training.