Hi… am I the only one here who is unable to squat properly due to tight hamstrings and hip flexors? I was not too worried about this in the past because I have naturally large legs so I do not have to put much effort in order to grow them, but now I have problems because of lower back pain when doing deadlifts. I know the answer is in stretching and I have been incorporating it lately in my training regimen, but I wanted to ask you for real life experience with this problem. Even performing Lazy man’s lower body stretch routine is almost impossible. Another thing, I remember that in one of the columns, I belive Heavy metal of Question of strength, in the first 50 or 60 T-Mag issues Poliquin or King addresses this issue and explained a hamstring stretch using a bench. There was even a picture with the guy who is on 12 weeks to super strength illustrations, the mighty-powerlifting-mouse of Japanese origin, you know the guy… I tried to find the original text using search but I was unable to, does somebody know the solution of this riddle? Tnx.
Sasa, front squats will work your quads better than back squats and even with tight hip flexors and hams you should be able to perform them with a narrower stance than back squats. Also, for the back pain on deadlifts, have you tried a sumo stance?
If you have tight ham/lower back, YOU MUST STRETCH! I squatted without stretching (I had pretty tight ham also) and I injured my knees! That means no training for you for weeks if not months!
Its issues 57 question of strenght. You can find it with search “Joe Sakic question of strenght”.
I believe the stretch you are referring to is a quad/hip flexor stretch. Jack your back foot up on something like an incline bench and then bend forward and down until you feel a good stretch in your hip flexor and quad. I’ve been using this stretch for years now in between sets and it really works great.