hip flexors (iliopsoas) painful next day after squats

[Kid Jansen]

Since about three weeks now I wake up with slightly painful hip flexors (iliopsoas) the day after I've done squats.

It doesn't really matter what kind of squats: HBBS, FS, OHS, they all give the same problem. It also doesn't really matter how I heavy I go either, anything above 50% 1RM will cause that pain / stiffness. Even with the OHS, which I do with far less weight than the other two.

I looked it up and found that it might have something to do with sticking your knees forward too much. Which begs the question: how much it too much? All three of those squats variants I do very upright and ATG. Which means I have to stick my knees forward in order to not fall backwards by placing the combined center of gravity of me and the barbell behind my heels.

How do I prevent this in the future? Just take a week off? Some exercises to strengthen the hip flexors?

1RM's at the moment:

HBBS 150 kg
FS 117.5 kg
OHS 52.5 kg

@ 113 kg BW

[Kid Jansen]

Nobody who has any experience with this or knows how to prevent it?

Could it be that I progressed too quickly? I started again with weightlifting on November 21st after a hiatus of more than three years. I only played rugby during that time, most of it as prop forward.

In about a month I already started to break some of my old PR's and now I've got a new PR on every major lift. Most of them about 8 - 14 % higher than my old PR's.

[Michael Dries]

I get a similar pain/soreness on my right hip if my knees cave on while squatting. Keeping my knees shoved out prevents this from happening. But I have some sort of mild impingement going on in that hip so the reason for your issue could be, and is probably completely different.

Could be a number of reasons. Going ATG might be an issue since once you pass parallel you're hip joint goes into traction at that angle.

It could be your knees are popping forward at the bottom of the movement. Rippetoe talks about this in his Starting strength book.

Do you have a video of you squatting you can share in the digital coaching section or here?

[Stephen Carrigan]

Originally Posted by Kid Jansen

Since about three weeks now I wake up with slightly painful hip flexors (iliopsoas) the day after I've done squats.

It doesn't really matter what kind of squats: HBBS, FS, OHS, they all give the same problem. It also doesn't really matter how I heavy I go either, anything above 50% 1RM will cause that pain / stiffness. Even with the OHS, which I do with far less weight than the other two.

I looked it up and found that it might have something to do with sticking your knees forward too much. Which begs the question: how much it too much? All three of those squats variants I do very upright and ATG. Which means I have to stick my knees forward in order to not fall backwards by placing the combined center of gravity of me and the barbell behind my heels.

How do I prevent this in the future? Just take a week off? Some exercises to strengthen the hip flexors?

1RM's at the moment:

HBBS 150 kg
FS 117.5 kg
OHS 52.5 kg

@ 113 kg BW

How often are you squatting? I was on a 6 week russian squat program that was 80% of your 1RM 3 times a week.. Typically there was 5 sets but its always heavy. I ran into a similar pains as you i believe except mine wouldnt linger much longer than the day of. I dropped the program after 3 weeks and still go heavy 1-2 days per week on squats. 3 times a week left me with no time to practice thrusters, FS, OHS, etc. For me that was too much wear and tear on my hip more than anything. You could surely have a strain that requires some rest from squatting at any weight(besides air squats). 1 week of no squatting wont kill you and you can focus on some weaknesses.

Does the pain linger more than the next day?
On a scale of 1-10, where is your pain at?

How far do your knees come over your toes throughout the movement?

As was mentioned already, going ATG could be a factor as well as most people dont have the hamstring flexability to go ATG without their hips rolling forward in the bottom of your squat.

Hips first in your squat will go a long way for mentally remembering to keep the weight in your heels.

Here's a video of a "couch" stretch that i used to workout any tightness in my hip flexors/quads. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o0KNU4WAG0
Easy to do, hold for 2minutes each leg 2-3 times per day while working out this pain.

Hope this helps. Let us know your progress!

[Kid Jansen]

Usually I alternate between front squat and back squat every workout. I work out three times a week (sometimes two) and also have rugby practice twice a week and a match once a week. But because of a neck injury I'm hardly doing any rugby at the moment, so it's just the gym work now.

For the last week and a half I've been focusing a lot on my overhead squat, so I didn't do that much front squats and back squats. I wanted to do 5x5 back squat with 80 kg this afternoon, but it didn't feel right, so I stopped after two sets.

I think I'll try 5x5x50 kg front squat Tuesday night and 5x5x60 kg back squat Friday morning. Shouldn't be too much of a problem, since it's only 43% and 40% of 1RM respectively. If I can't even do that with proper form and without any pain I think I'll go cry in a corner somewhere... :P

Does the pain linger more than the next day?
On a scale of 1-10, where is your pain at?

Depends, sometimes it's not even there at all, sometimes for three days, most of the time just the next day.

Pain scale I'd say 2, maybe 3 most of the time. The few times that it lasted for three days it might have been a 4 to 5 on the first day with certain every day life movements.

About my knees going over my toes. No more than most oly style lifters I've seen. I'll try to shoot some videos as soon as possible, but I can only do that when I train early in the morning when the gym is not that crowded.

[Daniel Pope]

Hey Kid,

Glad to hear from you. It sounds like you have the symptoms of femoral acetabular impingement. I'd definitely go to the doc to get this checked out. I recently wrote a whole article series about hip pain/pinching while squatting, what's happening at the hip and some possible ways to correct this.


Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:

All SFW. I'd definitely try to see a doc if you can. Impingement is not the only reason for hip/groin pain while squatting but I see it a lot at our box and this is what I believe is going on. Give it a read. Hope it helps.

Dan Pope