Hi Mark

I've been following your novice program after converting from the stronglifts one a couple months ago and was wondering if I could get your advice on my squat situation.

I've developed an injury in my right front hip region, right on the hip crease above the quad that causes acute pain when I squat or lift my right knee high up. After considering my technique and reading similar posts on your forum I suspect it may have been caused by knees sliding forward at the bottom of the squat.
In any case the condition was brought on gradually (so possibly a tendinitis issue?) and I have had to stop squatting for a month as per the doctors orders whilst taking crap loads of NSAIDS to reduce the inflammation.

In any case, I've been keenly stretching and foam rolling the hip, quad and hamstring region during this time. After attempting to squat again I still felt the same pain flare up. Because the pain didn't go away with NSAIDS im assuming its probably more serious that inflammation.

So I have two questions for you:
1. Do you know what the injury might be and if so what can I do about it?
2. Can I use front squats as a replacement for the back squat in an attempt to reduce the pressure at this particular hip region?

The reason I was thinking this may help was because after looking at the diagrams of squat positions in your book I realized that the hip angle in the front squat is more open whilst the knee angle is more closed in order to keep the back upright and balance the bar over the mid foot. So under that condition wouldn't the pressure on the hip be less whilst the knee pressure greater when compared to the low bar back squat?
If so then this might allow me to continue to squat without substantially screwing up the programming for my other lifts.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and hope you can help