Weak Hip Flexors

Hannah220190

Hi, I have recently been training with a qualified PT to help me build lean muscle, I've made excellent progress until now! After consistently gaining 1 pound of muscle per months for the last 4 months. In the last 2 weeks I have struggled with pain in my hips, squatting has been uncomfortable (both front squat at 20kg for 10 reps and back squat at 40kg for 10 reps). These are not my PB's too. Other compound movements such as deadlifts, good mornings, leg press exercises have been ok to do with no pain. Can anyone advise on the various ways I can strengthen my hips to support the squatting I am currently doing. Thank you

joehempel

How often do you stretch or do any sort of foam rolling?

mrsbutla

I had squat pain caused by weak glutes. My physiotherapist gave me the following exercises to build up glute strength and help my hip pain .
Standing Squat - back against the wall squat till comfortable and hold as long as comfortable.
Calf stretches - placing leg up higher on chair , hold and stretch .
Place a ball between your knees , hold and squat 10 reps.
Side leg lifts . Lie on your side , keep legs together , bend at the knees , keeping ankles together raise the top leg as high as you can for 10 reps . Switch sides and same on other legs .
Hope these are useful .
Good luck !

cheshirecatastrophe

I agree with the suggestion that (lack of) flexibility is part of the culprit. Start foam rolling your quads, IT bands, and hips.

For strength, the single best hip flexor targeting exercise I know is hip hikes. You could also try one-legged squats.

glasshalffull713

I also had hip pain due to weak glutes. As suggested above, you may want to also focus on foam rolling or trigger point therapy daily to try and release some of the built up tension. You can do this with a tennis or lacrosse ball. Just google "tp therapy piriformis"

Hannah220190

Thanks everyone, interestingly I use a foam roller daily, sometimes twice and stretch in a morning, evening and before/after training. Going to work on strengthening the glutes and following some hip flexor movements!

HamsterManV2

Do Third-World Squats for 10 minutes every day. This will fix your ankle and hip mobility issues. Use your elbows to shove the knees out and feel the stretch in your hips.

musclegood_fatbad

I have very tight hip flexors as well. As others have said, make sure that you stretch them often especially before lifting. Google hip flexor stretches and it comes up with plenty of results. Glutes and ankles could be the cause of it as well. It has helped me to squeeze my glutes at the top of every squat to make sure that they are properly activated before squatting. Not an overnight solution but it will help in the long run.

mwyvr

Four weeks ago I developed persistent pain in hip flexors on one side of my body (I'm a runner) and solved it and am preventing it from recurring by taking care to do stretches. After I figured out what I needed to do and did focussed stretching, the pain reduced quickly and was completely gone within two weeks hasn't returned even through my running volume is way up since. An ounce of prevention...