{"id":18195,"date":"2014-01-14T17:59:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T01:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-canadian-association-of-snowboard-instructors.pantheonsite.io\/casi-blog\/q-angle-explained\/"},"modified":"2024-05-29T11:13:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T18:13:29","slug":"q-angle-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/casi-blog\/q-angle-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Q Angle Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Normal Q angle for men is 8 &#8211; 15 degrees<\/li>\n<li>Normal Q angle for women is 12-19 degrees<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"lede\">This difference is most commonly attributed to womens\u2019 broader pelvis, shorter\u00a0thighbone (femur) length, and more inwards twist of the femur; however pelvic tilt,\u00a0foot position and muscle weakness also increase Q angle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Females have more Q angle, so what?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Increased quadriceps angle is associated with anterior knee pain in athletic activities, increased risk of ACL injuries; but beyond those more serious consequences, it affects everyday riding by altering the biomechanics of the basic body position.With larger Q angles when the quads flex the kneecap act on the diagonally, and a considerable amount of force is lost as the quads pull the kneecap in an outward direction. To compensate, female riders typically turn the knees inwards,\u00a0rotating internally at the hip as the knees flex. This causes pronation\u00a0at the ankle, putting more weight on the medial or \u201cbig toe\u201d side of\u00a0the foot.The end result is the typical A-frame position:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The legs are rotated inwards at the hip to maintain position, which results in difficulty steering with the lower joints.<\/li>\n<li>Weight is all in the centre of the snowboard between her feet,\u00a0not evenly distributed along the entire snowboard: reducing her\u00a0stability and preventing her from achieving board performance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Can we teach &amp; train to overcome this?<\/strong>Yes! Modification to board setup and stance and improvements to body position can provide immediate\u00a0results. In the longer term: targeted strength training for female athletes and instructors seeking their next\u00a0CASI level will help to reduce the effects of a larger Q angle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Setup:<\/strong>\u00a0The degree of Q angle can be changed considerably by foot position. In a toes-in position Q angle\u00a0increases, and the measurable Q angle decreases as the toes are turned out.Female riders may have a natural walking gait where the toes are straight or turn in; and their boards are\u00a0often set up like how they walk, with very conservative stance angles, sometimes even 0\u00b0\/0\u00b0. Try\u00a0changing the stance angles of struggling female riders to a more \u201cduck\u201d position: +12\u00b0\/-12\u00b0 or +15\u00b0\/-15\u00b0.Also: by going with a wider, more duck stance instead of a narrower stance; female riders are able to\u00a0engage the muscles of the inner thigh to assist the quads.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Position:<\/strong>\u00a0Often it\u2019s not enough to encourage a cowboy stance in female riders, particularly when the\u00a0knees are rotated in and majority of their weight is on the big toe side of the foot: from this position, trying\u00a0only to \u201cpush the knees out\u201d is ineffective.\u00a0Instead, encourage more even weight distribution across the foot with an emphasis on weight on the outer,\u00a0or \u201cbaby toe\u201d side of the foot, and feeling the sides of the lower leg against the outer side of the boot. This helps to reduce pronation &amp; internal rotation: helping to naturally bring the knees to a more neutral or\u00a0even cowboy position.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Long-term:<\/strong>\u00a0Strength training to increase power in the glutes (external hip rotators), to strengthen the\u00a0core and to balance the quads by strengthening the innermost portion of the quad muscle (vastus medialis)\u00a0are important for female riders wanting to step up their riding, avoid knee pain and to reduce risk of injury.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Mellen Gorman, BScH, RMT<br \/>\n<\/strong>CASI Level 4 Technical &amp; Education Committee Member<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>References:<br \/>\n<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/lowerextremityreview.com\/article\/development-of-the-arch-functional-implications\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Development of the arch: Functional implications. Thomas C. Michaud, DC. July 2012. Lower Extremity Review.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Unique Considerations Of The Female Athlete. Michael Brunet. Feb 2009. Delmar Publishers Inc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The variation of the Q angle with different positions of the foot. Olerud C., Berg P. Dec 1984. Clinical Orthopaedics andRelated Research.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/6499307\">http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/6499307<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In CASI\u2019s reference manual, there is a small section about the Q angle as a key&nbsp;anatomical difference between the typical male and female body types. But exactly&nbsp;what is the Q angle?<span style=\"font-size: 13px;\"><\/span>The quadriceps or \u201cQ\u201d angle is the angle at which the quadriceps muscle meets the&nbsp;kneecap compared to the line formed by the ligament attaching the kneecap to shin.&nbsp;To assess the Q angle: find the pointiest part of the hip bone (ASIS) and draw an&nbsp;imaginary line from here through the centre of the kneecap (patella). Then imagine&nbsp;another line from the bony point just below the kneecap (tibial tuberosity) up through&nbsp;the centre of the kneecap again. The angle between these two lines is the Q angle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":18197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-casi-blog"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/img_11.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18195"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20593,"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18195\/revisions\/20593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casi-acms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}