Squat form check. Naggin hip pain has become too painful to squat.

[bmr41]

Hello, I have been lurking on this forum for a while now and I was hoping to get a critique of my squat. First a little backstory I have been running the Texas method as of late and on this cycle I have had crazy tendinitis in both hips. I have read on this forum and in the book that this may be caused by letting my knees go forward at the bottom of my squat. I am wondering if you folks see this as being my problem or if maybe I have another problem. The following progression of videos shows some of my work sets through time. I had to stop squatting last week because the pain is too much. I resumed with box squats today to try and maintain some strength while I recover. This was not as painful.

I am 25
5'11
And I weigh 184 lbs


This is me doing 325 on the 3rd set of my 5x5 volume day about the time pain started getting bad



This is me doing 355 for 3 on my intensity day. Pain is really killing me here so I went with a deload for the next volume day. I know camera location on this video is terrible but I thought something was better than nothing.


This is the last time I was able to successfully squat. I deloaded down to 315 for my 5x5 volume day. Sets were easy.

However then next time I went to squat I got to 185 on my warmup and I had to stop.

[bmr41]

The last two videos are switched. The one with me in camo shorts was the last time I squatted and the black pants was my 355 for 3.

[Scott Hanson]

A few quick things. Your stance looks too wide, especially in Vid 1, but also in the other two videos. Without seeing you from behind, I can't say exactly how much but it looks like at least 1" to 2" on each foot. This could certainly result in hip pain. You lift your head on every rep. Keep it down. Imagine holding a ball under your chin, so that your gaze is at the floor a few feet in front of you (or an imaginary floor if a wall is in front of you). You aren't getting much hip drive. Keeping your head down will help, but don't be afraid to bend over more. Push your hips back and point your nipples at the floor. Once you narrow your stance, push your knees out harder. These changes may take some time, since you've obviously gotten to a fairly heavy weight by doing lots of reps this way. You may need to take some weight off the bar, but ultimately these corrections will improve your squatting, and hopefully alleviate the hip pain issue. Where is the hip pain? If in front of your hip, the narrower stance and pushed out knees should definitely help.

[bmr41]

Thank You! I will give your suggestions a try. The hip pain is between the front and side of my hip where my leg connects to my pelvis. Think where the pockets on your jeans are. The pain is at its worst when I am pushing up out of the bottom of the squat.

[Scott Hanson]

This is where you would expect pain if knees (and femurs) are insufficiently shoved out.

[Skwats123]

Hi OP, I've had this same pain as of last week in the exact same place which you've described after resuming squatting after 2 months off and I've never had this issue before. I re-racked the bar during my third working set of squats today as the pain started to become unbearable. What I noticed was, when I was resting (3mins) between sets, the pain more or less disappeared but appeared again when I started squatting as I reached parallel. I read that it may be caused by knees buckling in so I consciously tried to push them out during the second which seemed to alleviate some of the pain. However, the pain was still there, so I think my stance may be too wide (feet slightly wider than hip distance, high bar). I think you should also try using a narrower stance until you find a comfortable stance. It definitely didn't feel like a muscular pain, more like an impingement of some sort.