T Nation

Hip Flexor Pain

Powerlifting
#1

Hi everyone,

I’m 19 years old and have been weightlifting for a few years. About a month ago, I started to feel pain in my right hip flexor whenever I squatted. It got to the point where it was so irritated that I just stopped squatting altogether. After a couple weeks, however, I started to deadlift again with no increase in pain. The pain slowly receded but never fully went away. When I though it might be well enough to squat about a month later, I tried it and the irritation came back.

The pain is located on my right hip flexor a little toward the left. It becomes irritated when I squat to parallel, but putting force on it before that point feels fine. I consistently foam roll and do dynamic stretching and activation work before every workout. When I squat, I do so with my feet a little more than shoulder width apart.
I want to know why this pain won’t go away and what I am doing wrong. I also want to know how to correct this.

Thanks for the help.

#2

Try front squats for a while. Takes some of the stress off of the hips (and hip flexors) and places it on the quads. Can still go heavy once you get the technique down. And see a good physio in the meantime.

#3

I had the same problem with my left hip, except is also hurt while deadlifting. I focused less on stretching the hip flexors for a while, and made glute activation my main goal for a month, but still foam rolled and used lax balls on my quads. No more hip pain.

#4

although i’m sorry to say i can’t give a definite solution, i can sympathize with you; i’m 18, and have had that same issue on and off, though the pain has shifted from the right, to the left, to both whenever i come out of the hole on full squats.

what i can offer is: are you doing mobility work? it oculd help to do some of the hip mobility drills from Mike Robertson (i believe…it’s an article on T-Nation anyway). recently i’ve been trying to strengthen my hip flexors in that highly flexed position by basically doing activation/strengthening work in the very top range of motion. I’ve been putting my foot up on a chair (captain morgan pose basically) and do isometric holds at 3 different angles: one with my knee pointing across my body, one pointing straight forward, and one pointing out to the side.

I’m not sure if this is the/a solution, but after doing these holds (usually 3 holds of 5sec in each position) i noticed that my hips didn’t hurt or feel tight after sitting down for a long period of time as they had in the past. If this proves fruitful, i will definitely repost here to let you know.