Need inputs

[Les]

It could be a stance width things for the hip issue. I actually have the same thing. When I squat with my wider, low bar stance I get some hip flexor tendinitis. I can go a good 4-5 weeks before I start feeling it a little bit. If I did a whole meet prep cycle (like 12-16 weeks), by the end of it my hip start to hurt. So what I have been doing now is rotating the two lifts. So I do 4 weeks of high bar close stance squats and then 4 weeks of wider stance low bar squats. The close stance really hits the quads hard, but I can't lift nearly as much.

Since you are just looking to LP, you could just stick with the close stance stuff for now. A program I have a couple people running (most of them in their late 30's to early 40's is something like this): 3x5 - 3 sets of 5

M- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, upper body assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- dumbbell bench or floor press, rear delts, triceps, etc.)

W- Deadlift 3x5, OHP 3x5, back assistance (pick 2-3 exercises- pulldowns, rows,curls etc.)

F- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, leg assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- leg press, leg curls, abs, etc.)

The assistance work can be 3-5 sets of 8-12 or maybe even 15 reps. It is pretty flexible, but you are getting some nice bro work in. I would jump 5# every time on squat (10# per week) and 10# per week on deadlift. Bench could start at 10#, but it would move to 5# early on or even start with it right away (so 2.5# per session). Press would be just 2.5-5# per week.

If you are worried about bench, just do floor pressing. It is fun and safe in the power rack. I find that I can change my flare angle a bit and take a lot of stress off my shoulders doing them.

[tersh]

tersh, where exactly is your tendinitis - outside of the hip, or closer to the front?

have you tried all available stance widths and angles? I was having some pain and Cody advised to fuck around with stance and I eventually found one where I was stable, strong, and caused no pain so I could keep training and eventually the tendinitis sorted itself out (likely because I was no longer continually aggravating it)

Aside: what is up with the fucked up spelling of tendinitis? surely it should be tendonitis

Pain is usually to the front, at the "top" of the quad. I doubt I've tried all available stances and widths.
I find that most stances that have my feet too forward are shit for my knees, but I haven't played much with different widths.

It could be a stance width things for the hip issue. I actually have the same thing. When I squat with my wider, low bar stance I get some hip flexor tendinitis. I can go a good 4-5 weeks before I start feeling it a little bit. If I did a whole meet prep cycle (like 12-16 weeks), by the end of it my hip start to hurt. So what I have been doing now is rotating the two lifts. So I do 4 weeks of high bar close stance squats and then 4 weeks of wider stance low bar squats. The close stance really hits the quads hard, but I can't lift nearly as much.

Since you are just looking to LP, you could just stick with the close stance stuff for now. A program I have a couple people running (most of them in their late 30's to early 40's is something like this): 3x5 - 3 sets of 5

M- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, upper body assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- dumbbell bench or floor press, rear delts, triceps, etc.)

W- Deadlift 3x5, OHP 3x5, back assistance (pick 2-3 exercises- pulldowns, rows,curls etc.)

F- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, leg assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- leg press, leg curls, abs, etc.)

The assistance work can be 3-5 sets of 8-12 or maybe even 15 reps. It is pretty flexible, but you are getting some nice bro work in. I would jump 5# every time on squat (10# per week) and 10# per week on deadlift. Bench could start at 10#, but it would move to 5# early on or even start with it right away (so 2.5# per session). Press would be just 2.5-5# per week.

If you are worried about bench, just do floor pressing. It is fun and safe in the power rack. I find that I can change my flare angle a bit and take a lot of stress off my shoulders doing them.

That's an interesting looking LP approach. Looks like it'd be pretty quick to do, which is very appealing. And the age range is right on the money. :]
I reckon I'd need to switch the bench and OHP for my goals (also any and all progress I've made on the OHP has been come with more frequency). I don't mind benching once a week.
Also, I find benching pretty comfortable! The floor press just might be fun, though.

[Les]

Yes, you could easily switch it to OHP on Monday and Friday and bench on Wednesday. You could even do something like 5x5 for the bench day and really hit the volume on that one day since you are only doing it 1x per week. Eventually it could be a top set of 5 and 4 drop sets of 5 to keep things progressing.

For the people I am training I started with 3x5 and when that started to peak I did 1x5 and 3x5 with 10% less. Usually the 1x5 can keep going for a couple of weeks if you are microloading it.

[tersh]

Yes, you could easily switch it to OHP on Monday and Friday and bench on Wednesday. You could even do something like 5x5 for the bench day and really hit the volume on that one day since you are only doing it 1x per week. Eventually it could be a top set of 5 and 4 drop sets of 5 to keep things progressing.

For the people I am training I started with 3x5 and when that started to peak I did 1x5 and 3x5 with 10% less. Usually the 1x5 can keep going for a couple of weeks if you are microloading it.

Groovy Les, thanks. I think I'll end up doing this. Have to fiddle around a bit to pick a squat, but that's no biggie.

[Murelli]

Pain is usually to the front, at the "top" of the quad. I doubt I've tried all available stances and widths.
I find that most stances that have my feet too forward are shit for my knees, but I haven't played much with different widths.

"Top of the quad" = hip flexor, probably. Either your stance is too narrow and your pinching them, or you're going too low, or your knees are sliding (three most common causes of hip flexor pain). Too wide a stance may produce similar pain, but it will not be just there, it will be in other parts of the hip too, I believe.

When do you feel this pain the most? When you're squatting, right after a set, the day after a squat workout?

[cwd]

tersh, leg swings helped my hip flexor tendonitis.

I.e. stand on one foot, swing the other leg back and forth (sagittal plane) through the hip's full range of motion a dozen times on each leg.
I'd do this before lifting and a couple times through the day.
Seemed to help with the pain, at least.

I have three theories why this might help:
* eccentric stress on the tendons (when you hit the rearward edge of ROM) is known to help them in general
* sliding the tendons through full ROM circulates synovial fluid (no blood supply for tendons)
* could just be neurological, retraining your cerebellum to treat that pain signal as less important

Seems like brisk walking with a long stride would do the same thing though. If you are already doing that, leg swings are probably superfluous.

Squatting so as to not make it worse was the main thing for me. Narrower stance, not tolerating knee slide at the bottom.

[tersh]

Pain is usually to the front, at the "top" of the quad. I doubt I've tried all available stances and widths.
I find that most stances that have my feet too forward are shit for my knees, but I haven't played much with different widths.

"Top of the quad" = hip flexor, probably. Either your stance is too narrow and your pinching them, or you're going too low, or your knees are sliding (three most common causes of hip flexor pain). Too wide a stance may produce similar pain, but it will not be just there, it will be in other parts of the hip too, I believe.

When do you feel this pain the most? When you're squatting, right after a set, the day after a squat workout?

When it is just coming on, I mostly only feel it during the set, and a little while after.
If I kept going, it would be pretty much nonstop, and then I'd need to not squat for about six weeks to recover.
And mind, this is just the left hip, not the right. I've had it happen three or four times, and never get any pain in the right hip.

I seem to recall I have/had a tendency to squat fairly deep, as I never really got the hang of catching the bounce just below parallel.
Also I prefer squatting deeper than strictly necessary, dunno why exactly.

My guess is knee slide, as a more "sit down" squat (front squat) doesn't cause the problem, where a "sit back" squat (LBBS) does.

tersh, leg swings helped my hip flexor tendonitis.

I do something like this sometimes as part of my warm up for doing martial arts business. Interesting that they are helpful for preventing the tendinitis.

[shaymus]

M- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, upper body assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- dumbbell bench or floor press, rear delts, triceps, etc.)

W- Deadlift 3x5, OHP 3x5, back assistance (pick 2-3 exercises- pulldowns, rows,curls etc.)

F- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, leg assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- leg press, leg curls, abs, etc.)

For deadlift, do you have them do sets across or work up to a top set?

[d0uevenlift]

Can you post a video of your squats? I had that same pain for months and it was because I was shifting onto my toes. I'd allow the bar to get over my toes because I kept thinking "hips, hips, hips" all the damn time. Coupled with my Oly shoes, which were already tipping me forward, the bar would get over my toes on the ascent and it caused excruciating hip pain in the area you describe it in. My feet would stay flat on the ground, but my bar path was fucked and the way it placed the load on my quad and upper quad tendons sucked.

[Murelli]

When it is just coming on, I mostly only feel it during the set, and a little while after.
If I kept going, it would be pretty much nonstop, and then I'd need to not squat for about six weeks to recover.
And mind, this is just the left hip, not the right. I've had it happen three or four times, and never get any pain in the right hip.

I seem to recall I have/had a tendency to squat fairly deep, as I never really got the hang of catching the bounce just below parallel.
Also I prefer squatting deeper than strictly necessary, dunno why exactly.

My guess is knee slide, as a more "sit down" squat (front squat) doesn't cause the problem, where a "sit back" squat (LBBS) does.

Your stance may be a little narrow for low bar, hence going too deep+not catching the bounce+knee slide. Symptoms -> Problem -> Treatment. A video would be nice as someone already said, but you can get some things to look for on your own and auto-correct your squat.

Knee slide can be unilateral, with your hip shifting towards the front only on the sliding side. This happens to me ocasionally, because I hurt my right hip and have to force myself into a symmetrical descent and ascent, or else I'll favour the left side because of tightness on the right side.

What I would do in your place: play with stance width and toe angle a little, with a challenging but far from limit load, taping all the sets and reviewing them thoroughly. Play with the point on the floor where I'm looking - it influences my depth, bounce and knee slide because of back angle and extension. Really shove them knees out - it helped me in both back and front squats to avoid going too deep.

Nothing wrong with high bar squats too, but beware of going too deep too heavy too often - you may injure something on your spine if it is flexing too much too often with too much load.

[cwd]

Nothing wrong with high bar squats too, but beware of going too deep too heavy too often - you may injure something on your spine if it is flexing too much too often with too much load.

Yeah, HB squats feel riskier to me.

I could push low-bar squats to slow, grinding, utter failure and only risk soreness and aggravating my hips. But doing that with HB I tend to tweak my low back.

I'm actually afraid to go to failure on HB. Maybe that's why my hips are better lately -- doing only HB, I never go past @9 these days.

[Les]

M- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, upper body assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- dumbbell bench or floor press, rear delts, triceps, etc.)

W- Deadlift 3x5, OHP 3x5, back assistance (pick 2-3 exercises- pulldowns, rows,curls etc.)

F- Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, leg assistance stuff (pick 2-3 exercises- leg press, leg curls, abs, etc.)

For deadlift, do you have them do sets across or work up to a top set?

Sets across to start. What it starts to get difficult, then I have them do one top set with a couple of drop sets (2-3 sets).

[silachoo]

Murelli-

I'm not disagreeing per se about high bar squats but do we have good reason to believe they're riskier if you hang out in the hole? I sometimes do high bar pause squats where I'm pretty much just chilling down there for like 5 seconds, never thought of it as a risk...

[tersh]

Nothing wrong with high bar squats too, but beware of going too deep too heavy too often - you may injure something on your spine if it is flexing too much too often with too much load.

Yeah, HB squats feel riskier to me.

I could push low-bar squats to slow, grinding, utter failure and only risk soreness and aggravating my hips. But doing that with HB I tend to tweak my low back.

I'm actually afraid to go to failure on HB. Maybe that's why my hips are better lately -- doing only HB, I never go past @9 these days.

Really? Huh. LBBS feel riskier to me.

[Murelli]

Guys, please read again, I didn't compare the risks between low and high bar. It's a recommendation because I've thought that since tersh wants to go deeper and intends to use high bar to facilitate that, he still have to beware of not going too deep.

[cwd]

Maybe my perception of risk with HB vs. LB is biased because I've failed LB onto the safeties a few times w/o injury, but haven't failed with HB yet.

[chrisd]

Maybe my perception of risk with HB vs. LB is biased because I've failed LB onto the safeties a few times w/o injury, but haven't failed with HB yet.

It's pretty much a non event. As a serial failer of high bar squats, I think I speak with authority. You can even chuck the bar backwards if you want.

[cwd]

Chucking the bar backwards would probably damage my garage door

[shaymus]

Sets across to start. What it starts to get difficult, then I have them do one top set with a couple of drop sets (2-3 sets).

Your program looks interesting, and I think I want to try it. I haven't been able to lift since we moved (end of May), so I wanted to try something like this to start back up.

How do you think it would work doing bjj 3 days a week also?

[chrisd]

Chucking the bar backwards would probably damage my garage door

Fair point. Open the door ?