I’ve recently been making some nice gains on my deadlifts and squats, but now I have some major pain in my hip flexors. At the bottom of the squat and when pulling from the floor and on the lockout on deadlifts.
This has been ongoing for about two weeks without much improvement in pain level. I have had my form critiqued by lifters I consider qualified and knowledgeable and have gotten no suggestions to form is the cause.
I have stopped performing the exercises, but would like to take a more active recovery route.
What do you knowledgeable lifters suggest? How long will this last?
I would be willing to bet that it’s femoral anterior glide syndrome, which is pretty common in lifters who have strong hamstrings but dormant glutes. Basically, the femoral head shifts too far forward with hip extension and irritates the anterior joint capsule; I see it all the time in guys who aren’t firing their glutes at lockout.
The solutions are glute activation work and dynamic flexibility (although you need to give the joint capsule a little rest before starting to stretch it). We cover this stuff in great detail in our Magnificent Mobility DVD.
Or, it could be something else; I’m just thinking out loud here.
I had what sounds like the problems you’re describing, I did some of the exercises in the “Get your Butt in Gear” article and just didn’t squat for like 3 weeks.
It sucked, but I’m back and kicking more ass than ever.
You’ve got the rest of your life to heal. Make sure you don’t do any permanent damage.
At least that’s what I had to tell myself everytime I went to the gym to do some light leg pressing and mobility drills
I dropped the Deadlifts for a while but kept increasing my weight in the squats. The pain seemd to disapate. After a few months of this I went back to doing Deads and Squats (on different days) and the pain was gone.
I thought that performing Deads and Squats were just to much for my hips. That’s the reason I focused on squats. But that was not the case.
I think all I needed to do was build up my glutes which took much of the strain away from the hips on the deads.
I think this to be true especially after reading Erics post.
