Rockscar,
Hope it goes well for you bro.!Hang in there.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Have you tried Bulgarian squats? You get the advantages of a unilateral movement including improved hip flexibility. You can add the O/H (overhead) option too. For some reason, O/H squats in the Bulgarian (split stance, rear leg raised) position seem easier for me even with the same amount of weight. You’d be surprised what a workout you can make out of this exercise.[/quote]
Damn! I don’t know if even old Dr, Squat himself, Freddy Hatfield, ever thought of Bulgarian squats - if he did I don’t recall seeing it.
At any rate, the only thing I can add to what’s been said and suggested here is to use the gizmo called the Manta Ray.
For me it works a lot better than a towel or rubber wrap-around on the bar and it really does keep the bar from digging into your spine just where the dorsal part ends and the cervical part starts, and it does keep the bar from rolling down your back.
I’ve been thinking of getting a Manta Ray to help stabilize my squats. Any recommendations as to whether it’s worthwhile?
I’ve laid off squatting for the past year because I’ve been concerned about lower back pain, and I’ve substituted hack squats, leg presses, and leg extensions. But I keep reading about how beneficial the squat is to muscle-fiber recruitment.
I’d like to get back into squatting, starting with low weight and concentrating more on perfect form. Any recommendations?
Try the Hex / Trap bar. Its easy on the back and gives a great over all body lift. My partner and I just started them. We fell in love with them the 1st time. Don’t need a ton of weight to get the heart pumping. We stay in the 5 to 8 rep range. Good Luck, and welcome back to the lifting world.
[quote]Buckeye06 wrote:
Try the Hex / Trap bar. Its easy on the back and gives a great over all body lift. My partner and I just started them. We fell in love with them the 1st time. Don’t need a ton of weight to get the heart pumping. We stay in the 5 to 8 rep range. Good Luck, and welcome back to the lifting world.[/quote]
I second this. I have level 2 spondylolisthesis and deadlifting with my shrug bar has been a great strength builder. Even though it is not very hard on the back, it will still build some back strength. After using this for a couple of years, I am now fine deadlifting heavy with a straight bar.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Chin your way to healthy hips.[/quote]
of course you would
Here are a couple of alternatives for you, if you are still interested:
- Step ups: you can use dumbells or bbells. Find a bench or box that is 18-24 inches and, with the weights in hand, lift one leg up to the box and lift. Try not to push with the bottom/trail leg.
2)Resisted deep lunges: with dbells in hand, begin to lunge your way down the floor and back. Great for quads, hams, butt. Add a calf raise at the end if you want. Lighten the weight and do front shoulder raises or overhead shoulder press on the up part of the lunge.
Some food for thought.
I know that you wrote that the problem is your hip, but since back squats are not possible, have you thought about a squat belt?
It requires a bit of fiddling, but I tried one for the first time yesterday and really felt it in the VMO and knee joints. No pain, just a different feel. There is no load on the spine. I can’t say how it would affect the hips, but because your center of gravity is further back than in back squats, more load is transferred to the knee joint.
There is at least one thread on here (don’t know where!) about squat belts. There also may be an article from that guy from Alaska (Dennis Weiss?) on this site about belt squats. Try to find it, read up on them, and give it some thought. I have knee problems and I think they will help strengthen the muscles immediately around the knee joints.
Squat belts are available from Iron Mind.
Good luck.
[quote]Mats wrote:
I?ve returned to the Iron after a few years of purely bodyweight exercises; hindu squats, hindu push-ups, pistols and the like. I switched to BWE when I hit the half century mark and felt I needed to improve my flexibility, since I have a hip arthritis. My weight has remained constant and I still fell strong in the lifts but my hip does not seem to like deadlifts and back squat. Yesterday I had to interrupt my squat session when I used a load equal to my body weight (90 kg).
How bad is your hip arthritis? If you can do hindu squats and BW squats, try the bar-between-the-legs squats described by Dave Tate on this Web site.
I’m doing them using a short curl bar with the Olympic sleeves (I don’t recommend the full-length Olympic bar for these because even a small tilt of your spine forward or backward with that full-length bar between your legs will cause you to lose balance; trust me, I’ve done it).
There’s an outfit called Iron Mind that can sell you a hip harness with the fittings you’ll need, and directions on how to do the hip squats, and no, I don’t make a dime for this referral.
One last thing: If you decide to give them a go, do them inside a squat cage or at least near a rigid vertical pole that you can hang on to when, and if, you lose you balance even with the curl bar.
Safety bar squats, Zercher squats are both excellent. They both allow you to rotate around the knee. Sit back and try to achieve a 90 degree angle at the knee and hip/low back at the bottom position. Keep the knee stationary and over the ankle.
…which is why I look at my own scorn for unilateral training and laugh at my ignorance. Let’s just throw numbers around. 200# man squats with 300# for reps. There is a total of 500# load if adding the two. That is 250 # hopefully shared between the sides, hoping that there are givens that we are all bipeds AND that the load is shared equally, the latter being a huge leap. That same 200 # man doing unilateral work with a total of 50# of added resistance becomes an equal. Yes I know that in any lunge position or split squat a portion of the load is going to be shared, so up the load a little…you have as much work being done with less compressive forces on the spine. I may never do limit traditional squats and deadlifts again.
Hi,
I’ve read your post and should comment. Since this is my first post, a bit of background. I am 45 and a martial artist (jujutsu) and pretty fanatical about conditioning. Much of my conditioning is aimed at making me a better martial artist, so I have a strong bodyweight component to my training in addition to weight training. I also have an artifical hip, so have been completely though what you have. [Check out hip resurfacing, not hip replacement unless you want to give up sports.]
You probably will have to curtail your activities until you get a new hip. Anything that hurts it is accelerating its deterioration. Pain killers and anti-inflammatories just hide the symptoms, let you overtrain and probably speed up deterioration.
Part of osteoarthritis (OA) is that as bone grinds on bone the body responds by making the bones grow together to immobilize the joint – this is why people with OA twist into weird shapes. IF you really have this (and most people who claim to have arthritis don’t, they’re sore from other factors) then this is what awaits you. I’ve been there, done that and had a fabulous recovery with a full return to sports – including squats.
So, my advice is to stay active (pistols are great and consider stiff-legged deadlifts) and start investigating. There is certainly hope and you can get over this but that will require surgery.
Cheers,
Jeff
Hi folks!
Eventually I am back with a report. I really got great advice from you guys. For what it´s worth for people with similar problems here are my lessons taken:
I lift twice a week. 3-4 days I am doing bw exercises. Great stuff from Ross Enamaits courses. Goals in the iron game are to improve on those things you cannot do or compensate with bw exercises,like deadlifts. Question: Is this possible for an old hip sufferer?
I started with regular DL as the staple exercise with ridiculously low weights and added weight in small steps allowing joint to adapt. I nearly tripled the load during a period of about six months (50-140 kg). Just minor noises from the hip, but eventually I felt an annoying stiffness in the back chain. Since flexibility is a quality I am keen to maintain I searched for a substitute.
For me Zerchers turned out to be THE solution. It felt something like in bet DL and regular squats. A very productive compound exercise that does not seem to harm my joint at all. Currently I am doing 110 kg for reps. Started with 80 some months ago. No hip pain what so ever and still flexible.
I also got some tips about supps, and I do believe MSM made some difference.
Thank you all for great help!
Mats