Need inputs

[tersh]

Me, of all people, kicking off the programming forum.

Anyways, I wanna get back to the gym. I need the help.

Here's information:
I've done ye olde SS several times, squatting my way up to a gigantor two plates... and then developing tendinitis in my left hip.
Pretty much every time. I've been to the seminar, I've squatted with Joan Manley, I seem to have decent form, or at least no obvious errors that lead to the inflammed hip.
So I probably don't want to do LBBS. Front squatting doesn't seem to produce any inflammation, though.

I like deadlifting a lot, I have weak abs (bad postural habits), and I'm willing to both squat and bench, but don't really care much about moving lots of weight doing them. Can't seem to figure out how to do dips without hurting my shoulders.

I have few specific goals. I'd like to deadlift 4 plates. I'd like to weigh between 185 and 200 (currently at 173, been hanging out at this weight for six months or so, seems stable). Strict overhead pressing a fair bit would be cool. General fitness would be good.

I figure lifting three days a week ish, with a silly arm day or whatever on Saturday when I go to the little community gym my partner lifts at. I have access to a well equipped university gym for proper lifting, though.

[fishwife]

Do high bar squats inflame your hip?

[tersh]

Do high bar squats inflame your hip?

I honestly have never done them. The bar felt super weird and uncomfortable in the high bar position, so I did front squats instead.
I have significantly more back meat now than I did the last time I tried them, though. And somewhat better posture.

[fishwife]

If I were you, I would give them a real go and see how the hip responds.

[Allentown]

If I were you, I would give them a real go and see how the hip responds.

Given that squatting isn't a goal, perhaps hbbs or FS as a deadlift assistance lift?

[aurelius]

Dirty secret of SS. Not enough pulling volume (this is intentional). SS solves this with the low bar squat. One cannot substitute high bar squat for low bar squat in SS. You won't get enough full body work to drive progress just deadlifting for 5 reps 1 to 2 times per week.

One of the recommendations I make to people progressing from early intermediate to late intermediate/advanced is substituting high bar squats for low bar squats for volume work. You have A LOT more pulling for intermediate/advanced programs. And need to reduce the volume on the lower back (or at least I do!). I high bar a lot now. And think in many ways it is superior for an intermediate/advanced lifter.

IMHO, you are at two plates. You are the novice lifter SS is designed for. You are not strong enough to fuck with the program. The hip tendinitis is interesting. I would look at several other variables before throwing out SS for novice progression.
1) Recovery: How is your nutrition? How is your sleep? So important.
2) Slower progress: delaod more often, microload, only advance weight one per week, even do a HLM concept. You maybe experiencing the tendons, ligaments, and smaller muscles lagging behind the adaptation of your big muscles.
3) Active recovery: do light prowler work on off days. Or even sets of light high bar squats (3x20) on off days. This will force blood into your muscles and speed recovery. It works for me. I had issues with my leg that light squats on off days fixed.

[Manveer]

How old are you?

Have you ever gotten a diagnosis what might be causing the hip pain? Have you tried any kind of eccentric work to try and rehab it? I don't know a lot about this stuff, but Petrizzo or Baraki would probably be willing to help you out if you reach out to them.

[hsilman]

I will second the possibility of eccentric work helping tendonitis. Did it for my shoulders, knee, and elbows.

It's not magic, but it's the only thing that helped my knee after almost 8 months of trying stuff. 8 weeks of slow eccentric "quad machine" work and it no longer hurt.

[cwd]

tersh, I have chronic hip tendonitis too.

Re: squat type, HB vs. low bar doesn't seem to matter for my hip-flexor tendon pain. HB is worse for knee tendons. And fuck front squats.

+1 hsilman's eccentric work for tendons. For my hips, I've done leg swings. They help a little bit, but all tendon problems are really slow to heal.

What's *really* helped all my chronic problems is lifting consistently for a long time, w/o pushing myself too hard.
I.e. squatting 3x/week for months on end, with 90% of all sets stopping 2 reps short of failure.

Everything seems to just gradually get better, if I keep lifting but don't push the weights up too fast.

[d0uevenlift]

I had mega issues with hip pain/tendonitis whatever the fuck it was during my LP. Once LP was over and I switched to squatting 2x a week, that mostly went away. I know this doesn't help much, but making sure your form is really on point helps. When I was squatting in heels, I would get onto my toes (couldn't see it on video because weight was shifting there, heels weren't rising off the ground) and it would cause my bar path to drift over my toes. I noticed, over time, that this hurt the hell out of my hips.

[Murelli]

Stance width and toe pointing affects hip pain a LOT. Knee slides are the worse for hip pain, I know because I had a knee slide so bad that I fucked my right hip joint and am now (what, 5 months later?) beginning to not feel pain when squatting.

My problem was solved by making my stance narrower, but your problem may be solved by making your stance wider, you would have to experiment or send a video form check.

All other answers are still good, but I'd try to cross out the "form" possibility first because of that Occam guy.

[cwd]

Yeah, wide stance and knee slide were the source of my hip-flexor tendon problem in the first place.

[edit] Woah, I can edit out my typos!

[fishwife]

I was assuming you'd taken care of form issues, but, yeah, if you haven't, I'd recommend it.

I was also assuming that your training was not going to be about DTP optimally or even trying to maximize efficiency of strength gains but more to get into consistent training and progress.

IMO, cwd's advice is very good for most chronic injuries in general. Go slow and steady.

I've had shit knees forever, but now I'm dealing with arthritis/chondromalacia on top of it. Though for years I used to train through/around pain, it had gotten to the point where I couldn't even bodyweight squat without agonizing pain. After a years-long hiatus, I just decided to plonk my previous paradigms for what good progress is. Since I returned to training in April, I've been working very hard at setting aside ego and expectations. I started with ultra slow single-leg presses on the leg press and had to stick to that for almost 2 months before I achieved tolerable pain levels squatting the empty bar. I only increase the weight on the bar once a week, and since I got to 100#, I've been microloading my squat, which I would previously have considered ridiculous. But I make progress. Though it be slow, I'll take it. And even though I'm only at 115# now, for the first time in 7 years, going down the stairs doesn't hurt. And with this ultra-slow progression, my knees don't feel like hell after squatting, so I can train consistently.

[cwd]

Yeah, this "consistency only" focus is a game-changer for me.

I'd love to reach or exceed my old PRs from a few years back. But I always used to set PRs just before crashing and burning.

Right now I've been creeping carefully along for 10 months, and I'm getting darn close to my old PRs on some lifts but w/o being in pain all the time.

[tersh]

I was also assuming that your training was not going to be about DTP optimally or even trying to maximize efficiency of strength gains but more to get into consistent training and progress.

This, yeah.

Which is the main reason I'm not like "I'll just do Starting Strength". Cuz that's not at all what SS is about.

Re: various points about form: knee slide may be involved, and toe pointing, etc. I'm not keen on giving myself an inflamed hip that makes my life worse in order to fuss with getting the details of low-bar right. I'll either high-bar or front squat.

My recovery has been... let's say variable. I'm generally fairly broke, and the last nine months have often been crazy stressful.
The stress is mostly getting better, though I got to enjoy a serious "I'm dying, in public" panic attack last month.
Sleep is so-so a lot of the time.

A good training session does help with my stress levels usually, but training is also the first thing to go when I have too much on my plate.
I have fewer commitments than usual until the end of this year, however. So I want to try getting a regular rhythm under my belt, maybe succeed in building an actual habit.

I'm fine doing a three lift training session, with a deadlift, a squat, and a press, and a touch of accessory stuff (mostly ab focused, like hanging leg raises or rollouts or something).

My last program was, I think:
A: 1x5 Deadlift, 3x5 Front Squat, 3x5 OHP
B: 1x5 Snatchgrip Deadlift, 3x5 LBBS, 3x5 Bench Press

Adding weight every session, did chins at home every so often.
Got LBBS back up to 2 plates (with moderate but manageable pain), set a PR benching (all of 145! I'm an animal, what can I say), was coming up on PR for OHP. Deadlift was like 265, SGDL like 225.

Left to my own devices, I'll end up doing something similar to this, except this time with high-bar or all front squats, and more volume on the DLs.
Adding weight, I dunno, every other session after a month or so?

I mostly just want to get stronger, feel better, gain a little lean mass, and not blow myself up for a change.

[chromoly]

I've been dealing with a serious hip injury for months now. Front squats are the least aggravating, followed by high bar. I still don't have the ability to low bar without pain in my hip. My general advice is to take it slow and steady for the hip issue. Conservative loading rather than +10 lbs every session, especially if you're going to front squat. At some point, you might want to switch FS to triples across instead of fives.

Instead of adding weight every other session, what about adding +5 lbs to front squat every time you front squat? As soon as you can't do fives for FS (I'm not saying go to failure, but maybe you hit RPE 10 due to wanting to tip over), switch to triples. If possible at that point, I would consider 2.5 lb jumps also.

If you do something like you posted, I agree that you'll probably need more pulling volume.

[Hanley]

Tersh, Pavel's "The Bear" is fun. It's literally just deadlift and press.

[KOTJ]

Do you have access to a leg press?

[tersh]

Chromoly - All good stuff to consider. Sorry to hear about your hip. That shit is the worst.

Alanis - I had forgotten about The Bear. That might be fun to do. Take me a little while before I could do the one handed press. Though I'm not sure it's really worth doing. What's your take on that?

JewKing - I do have access to a leg press, yes. Haven't ever used it, but there is one in the gym. What were you thinking? Leg press instead of squatting?

[simonrest]

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