Ok so today was legs. As i’ve mentioned before, had problems with my hip when squatting, anterior pain in the hip flexor region…i thought maybe anterior femoral glide syndrome, anyway saw my physio this week, and he did some soft tissue work, some hip distraction, and looked at my squat technique…and he agreed there was some kind of impingement going on, but nothing to affect anything other than squatting, so he thought maybe psoas bursitis or the more capsular stuff such as anterior femoral glide…
Turns out when i squat, i’ve been WAAAAy over emphasising a strong arch in my low back/sitting right back into the squat, which is basically putting me in anterior pelvic tilt before i even break at the knees, which is then leading to me leaning forward, having nowhere to go at the bottom of my squat other than to crush all the structures in my hip (the pain!), and i think this also ruins my hip drive from the bottom of the squat.
SO, to remedy this problem i’ve been doing
-defrancos limber 11 (the new agile 8 for those that haven’t seen, check it out!)
-glute activation (supine bridges 1/2 leg, bird dogs, lying prone leg raises w/ bent leg, clams w/ and w/out band, mini step walks w/ band ETC ETC)
-Squats with the band wrapped around my legs, forcing me to really concentrate on pushing the knees out and activating my glutes in the squat
-changed up my squat form, higher bar position, letting myself go down much more naturally, rather than overly forcing the sit back, etc.
-also used ibuprofen etc to try bring any inflammation down, still some so going to use for another day or two and get some ice in there to help any inflammation that still about
THEN came today, leg day…so i did lots of warm up, hip mobility, glute activation, body weight squats, some with the band around knees…and for the first time in forever, i put and empty bar on my back, went into a full squat, and had minimal to no pain, i think any pain tightness was due to existing inflammation/tight hip flexors so hopefully next time this should go. I haven’t been stretching the hip flexors much, as to not irritate the joint capsule further, but when the inflammation is down it’s something i’ll incoroporate. and obviously continue w/ the glute activation stuff.
So the session went
Squat
-tons of warm up stuff/bodyweight
-empty bar 3 x 5
-40kg 2 x 5
-60g 1 x 3
Stopped here, as i didn’t want any more inflammation in the hip, hopefully next session i’m going to get a coach to work on my form with me (Trained a world champion powerlifter, so hopefully can get a session in with him at my new gym when i go back to university)
Goblet Squats
-45lbs 3 x 10 (no pain!)
Step Up focusing on glute squeeze as much as possible50
-bw x 8
-45lb dumbells x 8
-70lb dumbells x 8
Reverse Lunge from small box (first time doing these, HARD!!! Maybe even more brutal than BSS ?!)
-bw x 8
-50lb dumbells 3 x 8
Leg Press
-6 plates, 10, 10, 15 (I planned to do a drop set on the last one however i got that horrible neck/back of head tight pain that kind of scares me so called it a day, did some next stretches/massage and it went away…i would like to make sure it is a MUSCULAR issue though, and not something to do with blood pressure…as its quite worrying)
Cable Pull throughs (Squeezing glutes HAAAAAAAAAARD as possible)
-50lbs x 15
-65lbs x 15
-80lbs x 15
Leg Ext/Curl superset
-60kg leg ext 3 x 10
-40kg leg curl 3 x 10
then supersetted
-Calf raise 180lbs 3 x 12
-45 deg hyper bw 3 x 20
-kneeling cable crunch 150lbs 3 x 10
DONE!
Was kind of an easy session, obviously not going heavy on squats, and volume fairy low too…hoping I’m not too sore as in 2 days on back day I want to go for a deadlift PR of either 180kg for reps or 200+kg 1rm…still undecided.