Rehabbing a hip flexor injury

[AdamW]

Hey Rip, I've been trying to concentrate on squatting with my knees coming just past my toes (I'm usually a vertical shin goodmorning'er instead of squatter) and somewhere in this learning/experimentation process I've overdone it and hurt my hip flexor on the right side.

I can't even do a body weight squat without pain and trying to train through it has been impossible. I squatted 475 in competition last weekend a week after the original injury, but haven't been able to do anything more than singles. Last night I tried to do a light set of 10 at 225 and couldn't even finish it because of the pain, and that was after 6 days of absolutely no lifting at all hoping it would clear up a bit.

To be specific, it hurts anytime I am raising my knee and hurts the most when I am raising my knee up and out to the outside of my body (right knee up and to the right for example). The pain is localized primarily at the hip joint itself. I'm not sure if it's tendonitis or some sort of strain or what.

I've been eating Advil like candy and icing it every night, but even when it starts to feel better, one squat and I'm done again, even using my old "goodmorning" technique where my shins are damn near vertical. I am making a conscious effort to keep my hamstrings extremely tight to avoid any extra tension on the hip tendon but haven't noticed any real difference.

In your experience what is the best way to go about getting over this problem? Rest it for a few weeks or train through it? If you're suggestion is to train through it, what can I do if I can't squat?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Describe the original injury, and include a picture of the precise location of the pain. Can you deadlift?