IT band Issues and squats

[BIGGUY6FT6]

Coach Rippetoe--
I am in my 4th week of SS and have been making really good progress. I have been doing fine except this last week. I have been getting some bilateral thigh soreness I have never had. It originates at about 3 inches lateral and 5-6 inches distal to the ASIS on both thighs. If my memory serves me right it is painful at about the area of the Tensor fascia lata insertion on the IT band. Either way, today I did the squat warm-up sets as Rx'd, then on my first work set at rep 4 when I was coming out of the hole it felt like I pulled/tore the lat side of my lt thigh in the same area as I mentioned above.

So I did a walk around the track then tried it again and the same thing happened. It was pretty painful. So I pulled about 20% off the bar, told myself to quit being a pussy and lift the damn weight. It was still painful but manageable. I then checked my form with my Crossfit coach and he said it was good as far as he coud tell.

I have severe DDD at L4-L5 and L5-S1 bad enough that at age 32 an orthoprick wants to shove 2 artificial discs in.

3 questions:
1. Could I be compensating and trying to use my quads more?
2. Would that show up form wise?
3. Should I just continue with SS as Rx'd on other lifts (I was able to do my PC's...some pain but I sucked it up and refused to puss out) except use 20% less on squats and concentrate on strict form and work myself back up?

Thanks in advance sorry for the lengthy post.

[Mark Rippetoe]

1. You could be compensating for the back issues by keeping your back angle too vertical, and thus using more quad in the wrong way. I suspect you are not really keeping your knees out like you should be, and that this may be causing a small problem, but certainly not enough to account for an acute injury to your lateral thigh. After all, most people squat wrong -- RONG -- and never have problems like this. Your height may make the situation worse, but I still doubt this explains the situation. Get an ITB release ASAFP, and see if this helps. If it does, you probably had an old injury there that was trying to un-scar itself.

2 Yes, with knees-in, and front squat-looking diagnostic angles.

3. Yes, if the ITB torture does not help immediately like it is supposed to.