Squats: my hips hurt! D:

[p2tog]

I've been doing StrongLifts for a little while now and making decent progress. I'm at the point where I'm squatting my body weight (140#) and have realized that the difficulty comes not from my muscles not being strong enough, but because at the bottom of my squat, all I can feel is the strain on my hip joints. I've tried widening my stance, narrowing my stance, moving where my toes point, checking my form otherwise, and nothing seems to make a whole lot of difference. Is it simply too heavy? I mean, I can manage to do 4-5 reps in a set, but I feel like my form does suffer a bit -- like I'm leaning forward as I push up.

 

I guess the bottom line is: has anyone else had this happen, and do you have any tips? If I back down on the weight and, say, do more reps per set, would that be likely to help? I'm getting a little frustrated over here -- I want to up my weight but it doesn't seem like I'll be able to anytime soon.

[Barfly]

I don't have a specific answer, just that joints and connective tissue take longer to strengthen than muscle does.

[hwrdfrnd]

You could always deload and work your weight back up. It slows progress but not as much as an injury.

Use the time to focus on form.

[TMedina]

I've actually stepped back from barbell back squats to work expressly on my hip/leg strength in low bodyweight squats because it felt like I was having similar issues.  

 

I'm interested to hear what the more experienced folks have to say.

[Discon]

Had this problem too. Are you stretching and foam rolling?

I had this problem too. I've still never failed a squat, but occasionally deloading like 10 kg helps give your hips some time. Taking a narrower stance and foam rolling and stretching really helps.

[p2tog]

Narrowing my stance seems to help a bit... with the knees, anyway. No foam roller. What would I roll? My hips only really hurt when I'm actually down in the squat. I've already deloaded a couple of times and frankly, I'm getting frustrated at my slow progress. :/ I'm guessing my diet is the culprit; it's not terrible, but it could be much better. I stretch between sets because I feel like I need to, and it does seem to help a bit.. I could probably stretch more outside of my actual workout. I used to dance like 6 days a week and stretched pretty much anytime I wasn't doing something else that required my legs (seriously, heh) but have gotten away from it. Hmmmm.........

 

Thanks for the input, all!

[TMedina]

I took some time to stretch out the abductors and adductors - it really seemed to narrow down where my hips were hurting.  Might be worth a shot to see if it does anything for you.

[drinkinhabit]

I have a similar issue and even went as far as getting an MRI which showed nothing. I then went to a physio who stretched my hip by making me lay on my back and putting a band around my thigh and pulling it. Not sure if you can visualize it, but he was kind of pulling the leg out of the hip socket. I must say it made me feel much better for a while, but I've since procrastinated going back.

 

It's actually my new year resolution to do this regularly for a while and see if I can get my hips fully pain free.

[p2tog]

UPDATE!

 

I reread Staci's article on squats and adjusted mine when I lifted today: made sure my feet were only hip width apart, pointed my toes out just a teeny tiny bit, and held the bar lower on my back. It seems to have made a huge difference! Knocked out those 140# no problem. Then again, I suppose it could also have something to do with the fact that I've taken 5ish days off from lifting due to other things going on... giving my joints a rest probably helped, too.

 

..... in case you all were interested.

[TMedina]

Definitely interested, thanks for the update.

 

And congrats!

[Hermione Gainser]

Glad her article seemed to help!  Out of curiosity, where exactly were they hurting?