Hip Flexors making contact with Obliques: Hypertrophy? Cheating? Too narrow stance?

[SBegetis]

Hey Coach,

Last night I finished 250x3x5 on the Squat, but I noticed that even with my stance heel at little-wider-than-shoulder-width (It needs to be a little wider; I'm 6 ft, 182 lbs, short torso, long femur, long armed, shitty squatter, natural deadlifter) I notice that in the past two squat workouts my Hip flexors make an inch of contact to my gut. If I widen my stance even more to avoid this, I get very little to no quad in the movement at all, the bar actually ends up being BEHIND the middle of the foot and the stance feels too much of a powerlifter's. I've always been good at keeping my knees out, but that inch of contact still happens. Now I looked back at videos of the sets, and it COULD be possible that I just need to cut the depth off an inch, but I was curious.

All in all, I don't want it to seem like I'm cheating, because regardless of contact I still get a good bounce off the hamstrings at the bottom. I don't have a beer belly to cause the contact, I'm actually pretty lean, could it be that my obliques and rectus femoris just hypertrophied lately? Could this be a leverage advantage that comes with hypertrophied muscle mass? (Speaking of, I don't understand the part in the book, in the Bench Press chapter, where putting muscle mass in the quads and hamstrings help the "attack of the quad at the knee, and the hamstring at the hip).

Thanks Coach.

[Mark Rippetoe]

http://startingstrength.com/articles...2_rippetoe.pdf

[flahertyj]

I also find myself with this problem, thank you for posting the article, Rip. I'll try pushing my knees out and see if it helps me at all.

My problem with squatting is the "tightness" in my hips, specifically behind where the femur connects to the hip. Right above parallel I feel the tight feeling and it makes it very difficult at times to squat below parallel without rounding my ass to much. I'm sure I have not very flexible hips since I sit at my job all day, but after 2 years of doing the big 3 I thought this tightness would have gone away by now. Should this problem be fixed by pushing my knees out too, Rip?

Thank you in advance,
-John

[Dave 321]

You sound like you're in a pretty similar situation to me (though I'm not very lean...)

If you have a short torso and long femurs, there's not really much you can do apart from point your toes out and push your knees out but I still get all jammed up at the bottom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycKmUmNBO8g

[Mark Rippetoe]

Should this problem be fixed by pushing my knees out too, Rip?

The movement is its own stretch. Just squat this way.

[Joecho5]

Thanks for bringing this topic up. Reading that article is a great reminder that I need a coach.

My gut hits the inside of my thighs because I'm over weight. I've been trying to squat differently to correct the problem. I'm going to have to get coached to really get passed this.

[Gunnhild Bruno]

My gut hits the inside of my thighs because I'm over weight. I've been trying to squat differently to correct the problem. I'm going to have to get coached to really get passed this.

How overweight are you? It’s not like there’s some circuit that gets completed and results in electrocution if gut-to-thigh contact happens. If the gut and/or thighs are large enough that the volume of flesh there prevents reaching depth, then that is something else. But it’s not “wrong” for the gut to touch the thighs when you squat.

[Mark Rippetoe]

In fact, it's impossible to squat without contact between thighs and gut.

[Gunnhild Bruno]

In fact, it's impossible to squat without contact between thighs and gut.

Except maybe if you're Stanimal back in April?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Oh. Yeah. Stan, did you gain the 80 pounds I was talking about?