OK, so I love doing Squats. It’s easily my favorite lift, but the problem is that it kills my hips. I stand with my feet about 3-4 inches past my shoulders, feet are at a 45 degree angle, and my knees follow my feet. I always take it at least to parallel, usually a bit lower. The next day I have little to no soreness in my legs, but tons of it in my hip flexors (I believe). It’s making it very hard to recover for my next workout due to this. ANY advice would be great. Thanks in advance.
Is it joint pain or muscle soreness?
You can alive muscle soreness with foam rolling and fish oil. That’s what the cool kids are doing right now. Back in the dark ages people would ice sore muscles and stretch them. They both seem to work for some people despite what “studies” say.
You could also change your stance.
Your legs and hips might also be weak. Glute-Ham Raises, Pull-Throughs, and other hip and “posterior chain” exercises might help you.
How long are you waiting to recover between squat workouts? If you’re really strong (500+ Squat) you might want to wait a week before you squat or deadlift heavy. Take workout volume and frequency into the equation. Doing 5 sets of 10 squats 5 times a week isn’t going to help you at all if you’re working out with any sort of intensity.
Sounds to me like a lack of flexibility. I would start doing squat variations (front and overhead) and sumo style DLs. Lighten up on the weight and use full range of motion with perfect form on every rep until your patterns fall naturally “in the groove”.
There have been a few article recently dealing with these issues. Check them out and try the techniques to stretch your hip flexors. The “Third-World Squat” article comes to mind.
If the pain contiues or becomes more severe, HOBBLE, do not walk, to your nearest MD or PT!
Well… it sounds like he also needs stronger hip flexors!
RDL’s, Goodmournings, speed squats off a bench that is about a foot back so you have to sit back, um… and anything and everything else you can think of man.
Thanks, front and overhead squats are both part of my regular training, and I feel it on both of those as well. You may be right though, the flexibility could be a problem, but I stretch everyday. Hopefully it just goes away.
question:
Does it hurt right in a small area were the front of ur leg meets your hip bone???
Along with streching…
When u do ur front squat and overhead squats go “as deep as u can” and hold that position for 2-3 seconds and then come up. PLEASE use a lighter weight than u normaly do.
Also do Dan John’s goblet squats. (if u don’t know what I am talking about here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6529481301858251744 he talks squats in the 1st 15minutes.)
Are you squatting with out briefs? If so you may need to bring your stance in a little bit to protect your hips. You should be fine staying wide if you put some briefs on. Training squats for a great period of time can beat the shit out of your hips so briefs become kind of essential if you squat more than once a week. You can try staying at or above parallel for a couple weeks to let your hips recover as well.
What kind of stretching are you doing?
I’d like to thank everyone for the replies, and all of your advice is noted.
Neospartan - Yeah, that’s exactly where it hurts. When I do front squats I have a tendency to sit there for a second or two before I begin to drive up, even on singles. Do you think that may be irritating it?
pushharder - Yes I’ve read the article. It looks like I might have to start sitting around like that.
Gatorarmz - No I’m not squatting in briefs, but I suppose I could start. Yes I do tons of squats, for some reason it all just started hurting.
Renegade Rose - For stretching I am doing lunges and concentrating on my hips, stretching the hamstrings and quads. I’m not doing any foam roller stuff though. What would you recommend?
Could Femoral Anterior Glide Syndrom. It’s something I struggled with for about 5-6 months.
I’m pretty sure it’s caused by a glute problem, be it activation troubles or a tight pififormis.
I thought stretching my hips would help, but it aggravated it. I got ALOT of relief when I took a couple of months off raw squatting and wore briefs while working hard on stretching my piriformis too.
I’m back to normal and squatting (relatively) pain free now.
I don’t know if I’m describing it correctly, but have a search around and you should find some good info on it. I think EC has written about it in his blog.
Hanley, when you stopped squats, what’d you do to replace them?
Do you warm up and stretch before and after training?
If not that is a likely cause imo. I rarely see anyone actually warm up and stretch before training.
Oly stretchs I do
Windmills with your arms. -START SLOW and build up speed. -both arms GOING BACKWARDS -I can not stress enough to start SLOW THEN TO BUILD UP SPEED GRADUALLLY!
Leg swings: -stand tall -keep hips square -keep legs straight -swing one foot up and swing it back also. -do this more and WHEN YOU FEEL LOOSER start to swing up/kick up HARDER AND FASTER, -don’t ignore the kicking on the way back also -KICK HARDER ON THE WAY BACK ALSO -repeat for 20-25 times for BOTH FEET
Leg swings across the body. More of the same. This time lean against the dipping bars or something like that. Use the Smith machine (actually useful for once!). Set the bar to about waist height -Start slow with one leg. Swing left acros your body then to kick right to your side.
Repeat. As you get MORE WARMED UP kick harder and faster. Again go for 20-25x on each leg.
When you get better you can easily kick past your head kicking forwards. You can kick to about your head height and past going across your body also.
These are the best stretchs. I get all new lifters at the club to do these. With time and commitment they all hit the correct positions.
I do these and a few others before any physical activity. It will increase your mobility and keep you injury free. Just spend 10minutes to do these dynamic stretchs and your golden.
Koing
I have a question that sorta goes along these lines: A few years ago I suffered from a pelvic avulsion / ruptured hamstring injury from sprinting. I eventually had surgery to repair it, but I still suffer from lack of flexibility, balance, and strength in my posterior chain. I want to be able to squat alot deeper and perform cleans and snatches alot deeper, but I’m currently unable. How can I increase my flexibility and balance in my posterior chain so that I can perform a “third-world squat”?
Beau
[quote]TheChosenOne17 wrote:
Hanley, when you stopped squats, what’d you do to replace them?[/quote]
I flat out stopped squatting for 2 weeks, then started to wear briefs for like 3-4 months or so.
For about 4 weeks I avoided full range deadlifts and did most of my work out of the rack from below my knees.
When I started back full range it was in a pair of suit bottoms so my hips avoided taking too much of a beating.
Tbh, I did ALOT to work around it without really adressing the problem. It’s only in the last month or 2 I addressed it and now my squat is starting to move again.