Last spring a buddy of mine talked me into training for an ultra-marathon with him.
I refused to stop or reduce my squat and leg work for this. After a month or two of training hard for running I was hitting 10-15 mile runs once or twice a week.
After a particularly rough run, the day after squat day, I was walking back to my place exhausted.
I stepped off a curb funny and twisted my hip.
I’m pretty sure I sprained it because I no longer had strength to lift my knee upwards. I lost that strength and much mobility for around 3 months.
The pain subsided and I regained my strength and now am back up to squats over 400lbs.
About two weeks ago I started to experiment with sumo stance deadlifts and a wider stance in my squat. I found that I could lift a significant bit more weight in these stances.
After two or three sessions like this though I found that I had a lot of pain in that same spot and it feels exactly like it did after I hurt it. Not nearly as severe though.
I have backed off from heavy DLs and Squats for the time being until it heals up.
What do you think is the cause of my pain? Is it a hip flexor sprain? Something else?
What kind of rehab/prehab can I do to help healing and prevention later?
It’s almost definitely a hip flexor strain. Sumo is a very demanding on the hips, especially at lockout, if you have tight hips it will mess you up. As well, it just takes some time to get used to it.
Try this warm up before you pull or squat, as well, warm up with some hyperextensions before hand, and really focus on squeezing your butt.
This warm up will take care of rehab, and prehab, as will the hyperextensions. I do 50 as soon as I walk in the gym before I do anything else, and it’s gone a long way to help my glutes out and take care of low back pain as well.
The pain is in the front of my hip.
My hips are actually very flexible and mobile.
I will definitely start doing these warm-ups though.
Today I did some DLs. Got them pretty heavy actually, with very little pain. Only a slight twinge. But they were all conventional.
I tried a sumo and it didn’t feel so great.
The warm up will help man, just do it daily and you’ll start feeling better.
Okay, thanks man!
Another question though, what if I did Sumo Deadlift, but avoided full lockout on them. Do you think that would help me avoid the pain and the irritation in that hip flexor until it is healed?
I will still be doing conventional to full lockout during this time since it doesn’t seem to irritate it.
I think sumo deadlift to the knees is a great idea.
Do them by simply going up until your legs lock, pause, then lower it. This is how you should be sumo deadlifting anyways. Snap the knees to lockout, then pull back. It eliminates the sticking point at the knees.