Topic: [have video] Front Squat - hips hurt - help correct technique please

[StoneBear]

MOV0010A

 
Sorry the video is really poor. Mine own camera is broken, so used friends mobile. Best I can do for now.
 
So I have a pain in the hips from doing front squat. It feels like it's right in the joint there, around the hip flexors. It happens at all weighted front squats, though obviously the heavier I go the worse it gets. It's really stopped me from training, and hurts when I walk after I train, so it's very important to fix.
 
I know I need weightlifting shoes (and a proper floor, too LOL). I'll get them. But I don't know if that's what actually causes the pain. I tried front squating in runners with a quite high heel and it hurt all the same - though maybe it was only hurting because I had ALREADY had the injury. I don't know.
 
The pain is not just regular muscle soreness in the hip flexors, either. I've been doing martial arts for years, so I know what the sweet pain of a good work out feels like. This is more like sharp shin splints in my hip joints rather than anything else.
 
I've only learned to do front squats in the last few months. Though I started at a lower weight to practice technique. It was not until I started doing over 60 kilo regularly that it really started to become a problem.
 
I've been searching the net for answers, but thus far found nothing I'm certain is sound. Most the info I've found regards backsquats, which are quite different, so I don't know if the info is relative, despite people explaining the same sorts of pain.
 
Please tell me if you can figure what might actually be causing the pain and how to fix it. Thank you.

[Shaun Le Conte]

I've watched the video and your hips don't move abnormally from what I could see. Your elbows are too close to vertical and the bar does not seem to sit comfortably on your shoulders

[Andy Dick]

Try this to see if it helps.  I am very slow at responding as I have a new job that has me working 60 hours a week.
 
For warm-ups do sumo squat to stands. 

Sumo Squat to Stand

 
After each workout session.  Get in a squat stance and sit into a deep squat (all the way down) for 20 seconds.  Do this for 5 sets.  I am assuming you are training at least 5 days a week?  Give it a week or two and see if it helps.

[Andy Dick]

Have you integrated some of the advice I suggested?  Has it helped at all?  After working out yesterday while tight, it seems most of my hip discomfort stems for being tight.

[StoneBear]

I am getting around to trying all things. I took a couple weeks off training to help the pain dissappear completely. Now I've only just started training again with my better knowledge of what I've learned.
 
I have not tried that funny style squat warm up thing yet. I was usually doing kick boxing on the bag for 5 mins before lifting for a warm up. It helps losen the body and warm the blood. But just last few days I've just been doing weightless squats and squats with the bar for warm up. I am frankly more of the opinion that it is a technical thing that is to blame, rather than a issue of just not warming up. Also keep in mind I live in Thailand - you never get "cool" in tropical heat to start with, so "warming up" isn't hard. That's not to say I'm sure that the problem IS in technique,.
 
So the things I have fixed, thanks to few but myself,
Don't push the hips back when starting the squat. Instead sit directly down, like you're lowering yourself onto a dildo and trying not to enjoy it.
Push the knees outward and keep them outward at the beginning of the squat and for the duration of it
Try to keep the weight on the heels, not leaning forward on the toes - this is also easier if you push the bar back further against your throat and choke yourself some, I found
 
Those are basically the errors in the video about I managed to find. I'm also trying wearing shoes and putting 5 kilo weights under my heels too to help keep me up. But this doesn't really seem to fix anything  - keeping the weight on the heels seems to be more about choking yourself out with a bar than elevating your heels, I think. But no doubt shoes are better than bare feet.
 
But none of this seems to have helped. I can still feel the pain. Though it's not as bad, but I havn't gone heavy yet, either, and nor as frequent. No doubt it will return when I do? But I'm still working on the technique.
 
I'll try warming up more, I guess. Make sure I'm sweating and my legs are working before I start. I also have a feeling doing the squats a bit faster with less pause at the bottom will help. And I think flat footed might be better than focusing on the heels, so long as the weight never goes entirely on the toes - I mean, watching Hossein lift, you can see he IS using the whole foot. So if I have to retard myself to only using the heels, I don't think I'll make progress anyway...
 
I'm kind of hoping the problem will just dissappear now. I have good technique. I'll try warm up more, but I don't know what else I could do. It's just a bitch.

[StoneBear]

How come this thread got somany views and so few damn replies? Thanks for the help, people.
 
Anyway, I've managed to find a way to front squat reducing the pain by about 80%. Now I can do the clean and jerk and return to training normally. Though the pain is still there, it's a lot less severe. Maybe oneday I'll get rid of it entirely if I keep working on the technique.
 
The technique is to not only do all the stuff I mentioned on the above post, but on the ascent, just after the hard part of the squat and just before the pain starts to show, slow down and raise the chest up more and bring the hips in, but don't bring the knees in until after the hips are in. So basiically it is to straighten out the chest and hips BEFORE bringing the knees in, and it stops the tight muscles in the groin/hips there from pulling. It makes sense. You start the squat by pushing the knees out and then breaking at the hips, so you should finish it by mirroring that - bringing the hips in and then bringing the knees in. I am also not straightening the knees or hips out 100% anymore at the end of the squat. There's no real need to and it just makes the pain tingle a bit so I just stop just before that.
 
So the pain appears to be caused by the small muscles in the crotch/hip joint region there getting pulled on the ascent. Does no one have any experience in this problem? Or was I just born with tight hips as a curse?
 
In any case, I've fixed it enough now as to keep training. So I am good enough for now.

[Andy Dick]

From what I was suggesting was not that you are not warming up but that you are tight.  The squat to stand is just a drill to add to your usual warm-up.  I do about 5 and then move on, it takes about a minute, I also warm up with a set of 10 overhead squats.  Like I said when I feel like I am getting a pull or a catch sort of pain sensation from the hip flexors it is usually because my hips are tight.  If you work a job were you sit all the time your hip flexors will get tight.  You are probably not getting much advice because it is very difficult to diagnose your problem, it could be many factors, biological or technique it is hard to pinpoint.

[TheRedReaper]

It's me. I just made a new account because want to use this username.
 
I did try stretching my legs a lot to loosen up the hips and giving myself a real good warm up flexability wise. It didn't really help.
 
But like you say, hard to know what the problem is. I've nearly fixed it now, but. It is basically keeping the hips in and the chest up, especially on the top of the ascent. So basically it was just bad technique. It might also be biological, as you say, and I was born with retarded short hip muscles that over stretch too easy. But I can resume training now and the pain is only very slight, maybe going, so all is well in Atlantis once more.